Samsung and Seagate finally match Hitachi with 1TB SATA disks

Months after Hitachi announced their big 3.5-inch, 1TB drive, Samsung and Seagate have finally matched that capacity by sheepishly launching their own 3Gbps SATA disks. Sammy does it all with efficiency boy, by spinning 3x 334GB platters to Hitachi's 5x 200GB platters (10 heads) or Seagate's 4 platters (8 heads) of 250GB each. That little trick should keep the weight, decibels, and power draw of their SpinPoint F1 (pictured) to a minimum. Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 still packs that impressive 32MB buffer which Samsung and Seagate can only aspire to with their 16MBs of respective cache. Expect both of the newcomers to be priced around $400. Cheap, but we'll be holding our wad for the inevitable head-to-head (to-head) shootout we're sure somebody is cooking up.

Read -- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10
Read -- Samsung SpinPoint F1

[ph30nix @ Jun 19th 2007 4:23AM]

biggie...who cares?

The Hitachi drives went for $320 on sale today at bestbuy.com
I'm impressed by the number of platters in the Samsung, but that cache would keep me from buying it over the Hitachi. This will make for nice upgrades in the future though.

[LightningCrash @ Jun 19th 2007 9:30AM]

on-drive cache makes no difference in RAID arrays

i'm in for 4 Seagates as soon as they hit the streets! mmm, 3TB of goodness. by goodness i mean porn. and by mmm i mean fap fap fap fap fap.

[JSM @ Jun 19th 2007 9:29AM]

I'd be with you crash, to upgrade my current 1tb (3x500) array - BUT - intel needs to upgrade their integrated raid controller to a) support volume expansion and b) to allow more than 4 drives on an array. It's far past time that consumer level raid that intel is pushing have these capabilities otherwise the stand alone network storage raid boxes cost less than buying a separate controller and building one yourself.

[Ben @ Jun 19th 2007 10:22AM]

I have Samsung drives and I think their spinpoint's are the best out there for those that like silent drives ....

[shimman @ Jun 19th 2007 1:35PM]

cache size would not make much of difference unless your system requires high number of i/o operations on many tiny files; the difference was only marginal

based on my previous experience on raptor 150gb 8mb cache raid & 150gb 16mb cache version, practically, there was no difference.

for large volume, i would like to have drives with low power & low noise. having multiple drives running 24/7 will make considerably impact on your electric bill especially during summer when you need to use a/c.

for this, i would choose samsung although 5 year warranty of seagate is also tempting, but 7200.8 series drives still keep me from buying anything from seagate

[Miguel @ Jun 19th 2007 4:34AM]

head-to-head (to-head (to-head-to-head)) once Western Digital and IBM throw down for the action...

[Carl @ Jun 19th 2007 4:54AM]

IBM sold their drive business to Hitachi, so you won't be seeing anything from IBM.

[UO Guy @ Jun 19th 2007 4:45AM]

Seagate bought western digital.

[engadget @ Jun 19th 2007 8:33AM]

No, you're thinking of Maxtor

[Revels @ Jun 19th 2007 5:39AM]

That's a lot of porn to lose when it fails

[anonymous @ Jun 19th 2007 10:51AM]

I'm sure he can always find more to replace it. There really are that many perverts in the world....

[david @ Jun 19th 2007 1:02PM]

Since when is porn perverted? Now unnecessary war is perverted, religious extremism in ANY religion is perverted. Porn is just porn! Unless the chicks are ugly.

[equalsexes @ Jun 25th 2007 5:19PM]

You sit there jerking off to porn while watching women degrade themselves just so you can jerk off. Get a life. Quit using women as brainless images to satisfy your sex drug addiction. You are perverted.

[anantha92 @ Jun 19th 2007 7:22AM]

I just knew someone would say something about pron on a HDD related topic.... sigh..

[Priapus @ Jun 19th 2007 7:30AM]

Holding your wad? I get excited about technology, but not _that_ excited.

[Carl M @ Jun 19th 2007 1:49PM]

Wad of cash, obviously. What were you thinking about?

[holywood @ Jun 19th 2007 8:53AM]

The Seagate press release you link to is almost two weeks old, and was already up when you made your previous post regarding 250 GB platters (http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/07/seagate-crams-250gb-on-a-single-barracuda-platter/)

Nothing in this press release states that Seagate has actually launched a 1 TB drive, and an online search doesn't find any information on a Seagate 1 TB drive either - do you have any real information to back up your claims in this article?

[Mark @ Jun 19th 2007 10:32AM]

Anyone have the external Hitachi drive (H31000U)? I'm wondering if the drive is easily removable from the enclosure, or are all the screws hidden.

[Arthur @ Jun 19th 2007 10:50AM]

Finally, let's see some price competition! My 4x400GB RAID is going to run out of room by the end of the year.

[anonymous @ Jun 19th 2007 10:53AM]

it's crazy, the amount of crap people store on their systems today. how many videos do you have on yours and how often do you re-watch them?

[Arthur @ Jun 19th 2007 11:02AM]

Lol I have over 250 movies and 12 TV show series, which I do re-watch (if I don't I delete them). A lot of space is for software and document backup too.

[Nsquishee @ Jun 19th 2007 12:27PM]

Seagate does have a 1TB desktop drive with 32MB cache as well as a nearline drive with 32MB and more features. Seagate all the way baby!
The Seagate 1TB drive will outperform Hitachi and Samsung when it debuts in July.

[Top Geezer @ Jun 22nd 2007 2:05PM]

I know about this stuff as I have evaluated the Hitachi. Seagate in July - Not likely. The one they gave us to look at two weeks ago was awful. Not the finnished article at all. The new Hitachi 1Gb easily out performs the current Seagate 750gb, has much lower power draw. It's the best drive we have had in our lab for a long long time. Samsung - well we cannot get them yet so dont know but on past experience - cheap and nasty

[hard driver @ Jun 21st 2007 3:06PM]

The Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1-terabyte drive will also feature a 32MB cache, not to be outgunned.

[wrestedup @ Jul 20th 2007 2:19PM]

Correction - both the Samsung and Seagate drives will have a 32MB cache.
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/newsView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=93
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda_7200_11.pdf
So, the Samsung with be the champ for aerial density, Seagate for warranty, and Hitachi for being the first out the gate.