Samsung EcoGreen Drives
Samsung offers two lines of desktop hard disk drives - the high-performance Spinpoint line, and the eco-friendly EcoGreen line.
The main difference between the two lines is the spindle speed. The Spinpoint drives have a spindle speed of 7200 RPM while the EcoGreen drives run at a more sedate 5400 RPM.
The Samsung EcoGreen line currently consists of the EcoGreen F2 family of drives with capacities of 500 GB to 1.5 TB, the EcoGreen F3 family with a wider range of storage capacity from just 250 GB up to 2 TB; and finally, the latest EcoGreen F4 family which only offers a 1.5 TB or a 2 TB model.
Today, we will be looking at the top model in the Samsung EcoGreen F4 family - the 2 TB Samsung HD204UI hard disk drive. It boasts the following features :
- 667 GB Formatted Capacity Per Disk
- Serial ATA 3.0Gbps Interface Support
- Improved recording stability over temperature with PMR
- Advanced dynamic FOD control for best data integrity
- Intelligent compensation of external disturbance
- SATA Native Command Queuing Feature
- Device Initiated SATA Power Management
- Shock & Rotational vibration sensor
- Environment friendly product with RoHS compliance
- Improved performance with dual-ARM based firmware
- ATA S.M.A.R.T. Compliant
- ATA Automatic Acoustic Management Feature
- ATA 48-bit Address Feature
- ATA Device Configuration Overlay Feature
- NoiseGuard™
- SilentSeek™
Let's take a look at the drive!
The Samsung HD204UI
The Samsung HD204UI hard disk drive looks like any other 3.5" desktop hard drive, with a label on the top plate and an uncovered PCB on the underside.
The label has a lot of important information, like the hard drive model and capacity, and SDRAM cache size. There are also interesting details like its date and place of manufacture. This particular drive was manufactured in China in July 2011.
The underside is bare except for the PCB at the base of the drive. You can see the motor controller cable connecting the PCB to the drive motor. Unlike Western Digital, Samsung prefers to attach their surface-mounted components on this side of the PCB.
Usable Capacity
This Samsung EcoGreen F4 drive officially has a formatted capacity of 2 TB. We checked that out by formatting both in NTFS using Windows Vista.
The actual formatted capacity was 2,000,396,742,656 bytes. This is slightly (~397 MB) more than the official formatted capacity. With about 155 MB allocated to the NTFS file system, the actual usable capacity remained slightly above 2 TB.
Let's take a look at its specifications.
Specifications
Model |
HD204UI |
Formatted Capacity |
2 TB |
Guaranteed Sectors |
NA |
Bytes Per Sector |
512 bytes (Emulated) |
Platters |
3 Platters (667 GB per platter) |
Read/Write Heads |
6 Read/Write Heads |
Spindle Speed |
5,400 RPM |
Cache Buffer |
32 MB SDRAM |
Internal Data Transfer Rate |
250 MB/s (sustained, maximum) |
Maximum I/O Transfer Rate |
300 MB/s |
Average Seek |
8.9 ms |
Average Latency |
5.52 ms |
Drive Ready Time |
13 seconds (average) |
Interface |
Serial ATA 3 Gb/s |
Supported SATA Data Transfer Mode |
3.0 Gbits/s |
SATA Hotplug Capability |
Yes |
Maximum Height |
26.1 mm (1.028 inches) |
Maximum Width |
101.6 mm (4.00 inches) |
Maximum Length |
147.0 mm (5.787 inches) |
Maximum Weight |
650 g (1.43 lbs) |
Power Requirements |
+12V DC ± 10 % |
Power Consumption |
6.3 W (Read / Write) |
Ambient Temperature |
0 °C to 60 °C
(Operating) |
Maximum Shock |
70 G @ 1/2 sine pulse (Read/Write) |
Drive Acoustics |
26 dBA average (Idle Mode) |
Non-Recoverable Read Errors |
1 sector (4096 bytes) per 1015 bits read |
Load/Unload Cycles |
NA |
MTBF |
NA |
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• Introduction, The Samsung HD204UI |
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• Connectors & Jumpers, Breather Holes |
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• Maximum Surface Temperature |
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