The Samsung Spinpoint F1 has for a long time been our hard disk drive of choice here at bit-tech, featuring in every single buyers guide to date! When it was released its triple 334GB platter design outpaced competing quad 250GB platter designs convincingly and despite its 7,200RPM spindle speed the drive remained pleasingly quiet, making it the ideal choice for a primary O/S boot drive or secondary hard disk. The only quirk was the unique WHOOOOOOP spin-up noise anyone who own one knows very well.
It’s been close to a year since the F1 originally hit store shelves though, and the competition has since caught up. Both Seagate’s 7200.12 series and Western Digital’s latest Caviar Black range have surpassed the F1’s performance thanks to their two 500GB platter design, and Samsung’s first foray into 500GB platters, the “EcoGreen” F2, managed to hit the value sweet spot but left a lot to be desired when it came to performance because of its 5,400RPM spindle speed. Yes, we know it's great for quiet, extremely low power servers or home theatre PCs, but that's a niche compared to those of us who want cheap, performance storage.
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