// Home / Reviews / Components / Hard disks

Samsung SpinPoint F1 (750GB) review

Verdict

Fantastic performance and excellent value: a worthy victor.

Review Date: 29 Apr 2009

Reviewed By: Mike Jennings

Price when reviewed: £56 (£64 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
4 stars out of 6

Value for Money
6 stars out of 6

Performance
6 stars out of 6

PCPRO Recommended

Whereas the 500GB and 640GB SpinPoint disks make do with comparatively small cache sizes, the larger SpinPoint drives have a full 32MB as well as a muscular set of features.

The result is a huge performance boost. Its average read speed of 98.6MB/sec was only beaten by two other drives on test, and the SpinPoint's 89.1MB/sec write speed was the best result this month.

A write access time of a mere 1ms is the quickest we've seen this month - only matched by the 500GB Samsung EcoGreen - while the average sequential read speed of 104MB/sec is among the top results.

The only black mark against the 750GB Samsung is its power draw, which idles at 9W and makes it one of the hungrier drives in the Labs. It's double the power drawn of some of the Caviar Green drives.

The £56 asking price is a little more expensive than other 750GB models too, but it's worth paying extra for superior performance. A deserving Labs winner, once again, from Samsung.

Author: Mike Jennings

Subscribe to PC Pro magazine. We'll give you 3 issues for £1 plus a free gift - click here

From around the web

I've had several Spinpoints ever since they were A-listed, and have had four of these 750gb models. They're quiet and fast, but I had to return two with the dreaded ticking issue, and a third is on its way out. All of these I bought within the last two years, so hopefully they've improved the build quality.

By MCunliffe on 9 Nov 2009

Ummar F Mahroof

I too brought them as soon as they got A-listed. I brought 4 1TB models and as MCunliffe stated, they are fast and quiet but also like MCunliffe, One of them made the clicks of death last week and we fortunately managed to recover the data, but now I am dreading if the rest will start doing that as I brought them all the same time. MCunliffe, to whom did you return them? Samsung or the retailer?

By JustUmmar on 25 Nov 2009

Returns

RMA direct to samsung, use this link http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support
/warranty/Support_Warranty.html

By stevefeary on 7 Jan 2010

Vibration

This is a great drive, but beware that in some dell computers it will start to vibrate very badly. I have changed it to another make and model and all is fine.

By SidDaniels on 28 May 2010

Leave a comment

You need to Login or Register to comment.