Can you trust Smasung F1 1TB. I can't see where the head ram

[pelle2004]

Where is the head ramp and how dose Samsung park the heads.
I can't see a head ramp and without it can you trust that disk as safe?

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/ ... &ppmi=1162

/Pelle

[mr_spokk]

Hi (Hej) Pelle
They use the centerarea to park the heads...as many other drives.

Bosse

[pelle2004]

Hi ( ) Bosse,

Can I really trust a disk where the head land mechanically on the surface
of the disk. All other manufactures (Western/Hitachi/Segate) use a head ramp
and the head is newer in contact with the surface of the platters.

If they really use the inner center area they can't let the head land
on the surface because that would actually let the head be scratched
while the disk spin down. Or are they able to keep the head mechanicaly
always at correct distance from the surface.

Sound strange....

Are you familiar with this driven in detail and have seen that they really parked
at the inner area.

/Pelle

[rchadwick]

While I think landing ramps are usually great, not all models have them, and it's not just a Samsung thing. What they do is create a landing zone, and microscopically roughen it so the head doesn't stick. Ideally, when the disk spins up or down, the heads will be over this zone.

[pepe]

Can I really trust a disk where the head land mechanically on the surface
of the disk.

basically u must not trust a disk regardless wether it has parking ramp or not. All drives will fail one day, so the key is BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP...

pepe

[pelle2004]

Reson for starting this thread was the reliability issue.
There are 3 kinds of 1TB disks

1. Hitachi - 5 plates, 200GB/disk, head ramp
2. Maxtor and Segate - 4 plates, 250GB/disk, head ramps
3. Samsung - 3 plates, 333GB/disk, no head ramp

So question is which one is most reliable. More plates makes more stuff that can failure but
the density is not so high which is good. On the other hand, less plates few parts but high density.
On top of that the issue is a head ramp better than a landing zone á la Samsung.

/Pelle

[rchadwick]

One could also argue landing ramps add complexity, which can lower reliability. If you leave the drive running all the time, the Samsung could be even more reliable.

From what I've seen, it's near impossible to predict lifetime from features, specs, or even brand. All manufacturers have duds, as well as good drives. Sometimes the drive designed to be ultra-reliable turns out to be absolute crap. Sometimes the cheapie drive lives for a decade or more.

The only thing I'd trust to attempt to predict reliability is failure statistics. Even then, you can get a failure. Personally, I expect all my drives to fail, and I back them up constantly. When I have a failure, it's a simple warranty issue, not a tragic data loss event.

My advice? Choose by price and warranty, or even by coin toss. Sometimes agonizing over something doesn't get you a better answer.

[pelle2004]

Maybe I should look at the reliability specs and select from that.
If I'm not wrong Seagate offers the best figgures.

The disk will be used in a backup server and will spin up/down a couple of times each day.

/Pelle

[Starling]

1. Hitachi - 5 plates, 200GB/disk, head ramp
2. Maxtor and Segate - 4 plates, 250GB/disk, head ramps
3. Samsung - 3 plates, 333GB/disk, no head ramp

Seagate and Maxtor do not have ramps as all other desktop drives except Hitachi. All of them park heads on the surface and only Hitachi traditionally use ramps.

[pelle2005]

Hi,

I guess you one of the guess that had opportunity to open and looked inside one of these 1TB models. I just looked at the pictures and
what I can see on Seagate's drive there are something which could be a ramp or something else.

Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB SATA2 32MB 7200RPM
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?v ... cale=en-US
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB SATA2 32MB 7200RPM
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?v ... cale=en-US

For Maxtor, they have a headramp in there 3D view.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products ... anguage=en

I finally made up my mind and choose Samsung. They only have 6 heads compared to Hitachi 10!

/Pelle

[mr_spokk]

Okey Pelle, 4 less to change then

Bosse