X-bit labs

Samsung SpinPoint PL40 HDD Review

Category: Storage

by Sergey Romanov

[ 07/29/2003 | 07:07 PM ]

We tested a low-profile Samsung SpinPoint PL40 hard disk drive with 7,200rpm spindle rotation speed and 40GB storage capacity. It supports ATA/133 interface, features fluid dynamic bearings motor and boasts highly efficient noise reduction technologies. Learn more about this really successful product.

Table of contents:

• Closer Look
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance in HDTach
  
• Performance in WinBench99
  
• Performance in Intel IOMeter
  
• Performance in FC-Test
  
• Conclusion
  

Maxtor has not been long alone in its effort to bring a low-profile and high-speed (7200rpm) hard disk drive to the market. Surprisingly, it is followed by Samsung and not by Seagate, Hitachi or WD!

Customers are often wary about HDDs from Samsung, although there are few who do remember why :). Meanwhile Samsung engineers don’t waste their time, but keep on improving their creations. First of all, they eliminated the reliability issues we used to complain about, then did some thorough research and now Samsung HDDs are among the first to feature high capacity platters. Several latest generations of Samsung drives have been among the most noiseless and shockproof. The assortment is now extended with 7200rpm disks. The last thing to do is to optimize the firmware and we can see the results of software developers’ work: Samsung drives are getting ever closer to the leaders.

At a press conference held in April, Samsung representatives even expressed the intention of their company to become a leader of the ATA-HDD market by 2005! To uphold the claim, the company moved to 80GB platters and liquid bearings, implemented ATA/133 and SerialATA/150 interfaces in its new products, and once again extended the product line. Two more families, SpinPoint PL and VL were added to existing SpinPoint P (7200rpm) and SpinPoint V (5400rpm). The “L” in the name stands for “Low-profile”.

Closer Look

Just like Maxtor, Samsung started working on the junior members of the product line with a cool head, following the rule sounding like: “we’d better lose a little now, but rake in a lot later”. Why use a full-size case and an actuator developed for four heads in a product that’s in fact as big as a half of an ordinary HDD (junior models use only one side of a single platter)? Why save on development if you can save much more on manufacturing costs?

The new design came as a result of this approach:

As you see, the case has an original look; its height is smaller than that of the thin Maxtors: 17mm. By the way, it makes sense to compare the two immediate competitors.

According to the specs, Samsung PL40 looks just like Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8, but better :). It doesn’t yield to the Maxtor drive in any characteristic, except somewhat lower maximum physical speed. It makes up for it with its higher durability, lower noise level and lower energy consumption.

The robustness and noiselessness of the new Samsung match the latest products from Seagate.