It wasn’t long ago when 500GB 2.5″ hard drives were finally available in the more palatable 9.5mm height. Fast forward 2 years and the first 1TB drives of 9.5mm height are available to the consumer. In just 2 years, the maximum available capacity has increased two fold, and price/weight and size have stayed the same. We can attribute this to higher aerial densities and the use of Advanced Format 4K Sectors (AF). The Samsung Spinpoint M8 isn’t the only 1TB 2.5″ 9.5mm drive on the market today, competition comes in the form of the Western Digital WD10JPVT which boasts very similar specifications but with slightly increased price and performance.
Yep, that is indeed a Hard Drive.
If it looks like a duck…
Aesthetically, the Spinpoint looks very much like any other hard drive on the market, with standard SATA connectors and also a separate bundle of extra pins which I assume are used during production. The Spinpoint M8 is a two platter hard disk (allowing a 9.5mm thickness) and due to a lower number of platters than 12.5mm MT2, the M8 draws less power than its predecessor and the use of AF, faster SOC Controller and higher aerial density means higher performance than a typical 5400 RPM drive. At this point in time, 1TB 2.5″ Hard drives are only available in the slower (but mainstream) 5400RPM spindle speed. 7200RPM 2.5″ drives top out at 750GB.
Performance
Performance of the M8 is comparable to that of most modern 5400RPM drives, with sequential performance being slightly higher due to higher aerial density. In fact, this drive performs similarly to older 7200 RPM notebook drives with sequential reads peaking at 90MB/s. In everyday use however, other system factors such as caching and processing speed tend to mask any slight performance increases from the hard drive. The lower capacity <500GB versions of the M8 perform slightly faster (according to TomsHardware) and the competing WD10JPVT performs faster still (albeit for a £20 higher asking price).
Power Consumption
Surprisingly, power consumption from the M8 is very low, even approaching SSD territory when idle (disk heads parked). At 0.58W, this is among the lowest of most modern 5400RPM hard drives (most nowadays tend to idle at 0.7W). Under load, power usage increases to 2.6W which is normal for most 5400RPM drives. Just to put this into perspective, the 7200RPM Hybrid Momentus XT (First Generation) idles at 0.7 and peaks at 3.3W under load, while the Corsair Force Series 3 120GB idles at 0.52W and peaks at 2.2W under heavy load.
Noise
Noise is becoming a particularly important issue in notebook hard drives, and the M8 performs reasonably well in this area. While idle/spindle noise is slightly louder than what I’m used to with the stock MacBook Pro 13 drive (by Hitachi), seek noise levels are quite low. Emergency head parking (when the drive suddenly loses power or when a laptops motion sensor is tripped) sounds less clunky than other 2.5″ hard drives I’ve used, and spin up noise is also very low.
Go on… Treat Yourself
Pricing is the most attractive feature of the Spinpoint M8. At £99.98 from many retail stores (even a few weeks after launch), it gives one of the best £/GB ratio of any drive on the market at 9.5p/GB. If you’re in the market for a faster storage solution (7200RPM, Hybrid or SSD), then at 5400RPM you should obviously look elsewhere, but if sheer capacity, compatibility (9.5mm height) and value is what you’re after, the Samsung Spinpoint M8 1TB is very easy to recommend.
Posted on January 2, 2012
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