Seagate 160GB SATA NCQ/SAMSUNG SP1604N PATA info

[AlienTech]

Just got this drive today and here are some of the specs.

Model Number Model Name Capacity Interface RPM Seek Time System Type
ST3160023AS Barracuda 7200.7 SATA 160 GB SATA 1.5Gb/s 7200 RPM 8.5 ms avg DPC
ST3160827AS Barracuda 7200.7 SATA NCQ 160 GB SATA 1.5Gb/s 7200 RPM 8.5 ms avg DPC


As you can see Seagate makes both models, one with NCQ and one without.

Hard Disk Name Barracuda 7200.7 SATA NCQ 160827
Average Rotational Latency 4.16 ms
Rotational Speed 7200 RPM
Max. Internal Data Rate 683 Mbit/s
Average Seek 8.5 ms
Interface SATA
Buffer-to-Host Data Rate 150 MB/s
Buffer Size 8 MB
Spin-Up Time 10 sec

*www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,647,00.html

Driver Description SAMSUNG SP1604N
Rotational Speed 7200 RPM
Max. Internal Data Rate 741 Mbit/s
Average Seek 8.9 ms
Track-To-Track Seek 0.8 ms
Full Seek 18 ms
Interface Ultra-ATA/133
Buffer-to-Host Data Rate 133 MB/s
Buffer Size 2 MB
Spin-Up Time 7 sec

*tinyurl.com/andj9

The drives performed almost identically. Both gave about 57MB transfer rate. Although the Samsung only has a 2MB buffer and the Seagate has an 8MB buffer. The Seagate costs RS4250 while the Samsung costs RS4800 Three months ago.


I am not going to do a review since they have already been done many times.. See the 3 linsk below.

*www.digit-life.com/articles2/samsung-80gpp/index.html

Samsung 160G SP1604N (Samsung SP1604N 160G, 7.2K rpm), Hitachi 180GXP 120G & 60G. (Hitachi 180GXP 120G, 8 MB buffer; 60G, 2 MB buffer)
*www.silentpcreview.com/article82-page1.html

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 HDD
*www.silentpcreview.com/article74-page1.html

Seagate's Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ hard drive Now with command queuing
*techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/seagate-7200.7ncq/index.x?pg=1


Conclusions... I will not notice much speed difference between the 2 drives until I run a lot of multi-threaded apps. The speeds seem identical for both. The Samsung is quieter but runs a little hotter, the Seagate whines a lot but is much quieter than the Maxtor's but runs cooler than the Samsung.

I currently own Mostly Maxtor HD's, (actually ALL maxtor drives except the 6GB Seagate my sister dumped back on me after using it 5 years), 2-17GB-5400RPM, 1-27GB-7200RPM, 1-38GB-5400RPM, 1-40GB-5400RPM, 1-40GB-7200RPM, 2-60GB-5400RPM, 1-80GB-5400RPM, 1-80GB-5400RPM 1394 External. Before this I used to run 4-3GB-5400RPM-WDC's (Western Digital) / 4-3GB -5400-Quantum as a raid system for speed. And many older drives under 1GB like my 540MB 7200RPM Maxtors, 540meg 5400 Maxtors (well what can I say, Its Maxtor's performance I also had like 10-80MB maxtors and 6-40MB maxtors, okay getting tired of typing )

But these new drives are FAST... You don't know how fast unless you have used older drives for a while. Even though they are only slightly over 100% faster (the Maxtor's give 25MB/sec while the 160's give 57MB/sec). It is much cooler, quieter and well LARGER....

 

[AlienTech]

160G/8mb-cache Faceoff: Samsung vs. Seagate

Page: 1/3
(1812 total words in this text)
(37954 Reads)


April 9, 2004 by Edward Ng

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 and Samsung SP Series hard drives are topics of endless discussion in the SPCR forums. We have also featured reviews of these drives, some in direct comparison. However, this is the first time that we're considering the current ATA performance leaders of each series, head to head. This article is Edward Ng's debut as a writer in the main site of SPCR. Forum regulars will surely be familiar with Ed, who has been very active in the forums. -- Mike Chin, Editor.

This test compares the following hard drives:

Seagate's Barracuda 7200.7 series, model ST3160023A and Samsung's SpinPoint SP1614N

*www.silentpcreview.com/article152-page1.html

Tests between PATA 160GB's from both Samsung and Seagate. Both with 8MB memory. Mine is the Samsung's SpinPoint SP1604N which only has the 2MB memory making it 5% or so slower during milti-IO write modes.



NOTE:------------------------------------------------------

Notice that the SpinPoint offers AAM control, while the Barracuda's AAM function has been disabled. According to this forum thread over at StorageReview, Seagate has the PATA version of the 160GB Barracuda permanently set for low-noise, while the SATA version is locked to high performance mode. I'm not entirely sure whether or not to believe it, but we can let the benchmark results speak for themselves.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Several commercial system integrators that I contacted were of the opinion that AAM is NOT enabled in any 7200.7 drive. Seagate's AAM is the subject of a lawsuit; their disuse of this feature is pending the outcome of the case. However, it appears that, at least until fairly recently, OEM buyers could order large batches of the Seagate drive custom configured to their requirements. This means, for example, that HP or Dell might purchase 20,000 80G Barracuda 7200.7 with AAM permanently enabled. If excess inventory is produced, and that inventory makes it to the grey market, then you'd find AAM enabled 7200.7 drives from a few retailers for a brief period.)

The Samsung took virtually every test, short of access time. It's one thing if the Samsung won the transfer tests and then some of the application tests, but it basically won everything except access time, so whatever (AAM) setting the Seagate is locked onto, even if it's in performance and not quiet mode, it didn't help it win any speed contests. We know the Samsung is set to quiet mode, which costs a bit of performance, so no matter how you look at it, the Seagate is the clear loser in WinBench99.

 

[QwertyManiac]

Whats this actually all bout ?
R u reviewing the Seagate ?
K then,
Of all the HDD i tried, Seagate lasted the longest for me...
I jus love em....

 

[AlienTech]

Many people been asking questions about Seagate V/S Samsung. I do not have a favorite as yet since I am new to both after a long time. Does NCQ slow things down? Well it seems so. Is Seagate faster? Actually it seems Seagate is the slowest. Seagate has 5 year warranty which is the only thing going for it. Seems Seagate is slow because they have always enabled AAC mode to quiet the drive down. And SATA is not really faster than PATA. Having 8 MB cache on the drive dont speed up the system all that much. There are always variations... So things will change... But over all, given a choice I would go for SATA over PATA, Samsung over Seagate. 8MB cache over 2MB. But neither of these drives are on my top 10 list. I got them because I had no choice of drives.

If you look at the benchmarks of Maxtor v/s Seagate, even though Maxtor uses a hybrid chip to translate SATA signals to PATA, the drive is 25% or so faster than a Native SATA Seagate drive.

I am sure people have a lot of questions but they need to look at a few reviews before asking questions. And there is a lot of info so it is not easy to post other than in a long review.

 

[magnet]

alien most of your points look lik detail review.......but ppl wont mind 2-3 second mor time to access data than bad drives lik samsung...my new drive again got bad ithin 4-5 months..bad sectors....
trying seagate.4 first time...would hav gon 4 maxtor...but service centre 4 it is prob here in mumbai...