Fantastic hard drive(s)... that doesn't officially exists!

[enetec]

I've built up my first unRAID server for (a lot of) backup storage purpose and, because of some reasons which go out the reason of this post, I decided to go with 2.5" consumer hard drives for data disks.

 

After some market searching (I live in Italy...), I decided to go with these drives:

 

- Seagate 2.5" SATA 1750 GB ST1750LM000 also known as Samsung HN-M171RAD

 

I went to them since of the good capacity (for a 2.5" hard drive) and... the real bargain price: I've got them @ about 66 EURO each one. There is a 2 TB version too, but available @ a price of over 45-50% more... So, 1.75 TB will be ok! 

 

These drive are manufactured by Samsung HDD labs (good, since I don't like Seagates a lot...  ) that in latest years I've appreciated for having manufactured some fast & reliable drives... and then they (labs!) had been sold by Samsung to Seagate! 

 

So the double trademark and p/n. Mine are marked Seagate but have the Samsung mark on them too. Some are marked Samsung only.

 

The firmware identify themselves with both the p/n so nobody will be unhappy! 

 

They are very decent pieces of hardware, all of them have passed flawlessly preclear, long smart test and some other tests I usually use to test new drives (and not new too).

 

They tend to remain cold and are capable of giving me a starting speed of parity creation of about 118 MB/s and transfer to/from array on Gigabit LAN of about 45-50 MB/s and 68/70 MB/s which seems to me VERY GOOD values for not enterprise class 2.5" drives! 

 

So? 

 

So these drives officially don't exists! 

 

They should be part of 'well known' Samsung Spinpoint M9T series, BUT on every part of Seagate or Samsung Labs web sites, on every datasheet or support place, they simply, are not reported. 

 

Only 1, 1.5 and 2 TB (with very similar p/n...) are listed, while no mention of these either on (eventually) discontinued products. 

 

I've no explanation for this at all at the moment. They are OEM drives, ok, but even these are ever listed somewhere on manufacturer web site!

 

Technically they are 5400RPM spinning drives, with a standard height of only 9mm (yes, they can fit in a laptop!) and probably 3 platters based.

 

As what I know, 1.5 TB version should be 500 MB/platter and 2 TB version a 667 MB/platter, making me think that they should be an 'unusual' 583 MB/platter () or, more likely, the 667 MB/platter short stroked by firmware to 583 MB for marketing or manufacturing (read: 667 MB platters not enough reliable on inner tracks), making them some 'second class' of 2 TB M9Ts... (like it happens to X3 / X4 on AMDs...).

 

Up to now I'm very happy with them, and if the price difference with 2 TB version would remain the same in percentage, I will go with other of them probably.

 

Only the time will tell if I made a good choice... 

[c3]

They are indeed short stroked Spinpoint M9T using the 667 platters (3/6). They are also 9mm which will not fit all laptops.

 

Have you run the serial numbers in the warranty checker?

[enetec]

They are indeed short stroked Spinpoint M9T using the 667 platters (3/6).

As I suspected since of good performance firstly... do you have any source for this info and/or any documentation of these drives?

I have M9T datasheets that... don't report them! 

 

 

They are also 9mm which will not fit all laptops.

Well... only the thinner take only the 7mm... 9mm is very common I saw.

Instead larger WDs e.g. are 15mm and don't fit... everywhere! 

 

Have you run the serial numbers in the warranty checker?

Nope! have U a link for it?

[quzoduke]

Hi!

 

I am thinking about to buy some of these nonexistent drives, but the fun thing is that they have the best price, and are on the market since a year, there isn't any useful article or review about them.

 

You have these drives since a half year, have you any new experiences, good or bad?

 

(Hi! Sorry for bad english!)