Samsung 2TB HD204UI - Part 2

petersmart

petersmart

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Yesterday I posted a thread:

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=302250

detailing problems I had suddenly encountered with a new HD - the Samsung 2TB HD204UI.

I thought I had solved them BUT I DIDNT!

I found that I still had problems with Shrink running out of buffer space when saving the ripped DVDs to other drives and also copying files from some drives to others was incredibly slow on some drives.

To cut a long story short it turns out that both the WD 1TB HD I installed a little time ago and the 2TB Samsung drives are both Advanced Format Hard Drives which are optimised for use with Windows Vista and Windows 7:

http://www.wdc.com/global/products/features/?id=7&language=1

When used on XP they have to be specially set up using either jumpers or special programs:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/downloads/support_in_aft.html

Also I had formatted them to about 2Kb per sector as I normally do to get a reasonable compromise between speed and saving space on the HDs.

In the past this had caused no problems but these new HDs are designed to have much larger sector sizes (4K instead of 512 bytes) in order to increase the size of the HDs:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd-4k-sector,2554-3.html

So I'm not sure but it looks as if creating smaller sector sizes could also create problems - but I'm open to correction on this :D

So I am now going to wipe these 2 HDs and then reset them using the Default setting in the sector sizes when formatting and the special programs to set them up.

However I must say that on the Samsung HD204UI HD the instructions that came wth it were worse than useless since they referred to past drives and not the HD204UI.

They were also so small they were extremely difficult to read.

Also trying to track down problems on their site was also an exercise in futility:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/

to find out anything you had to plough through a mass of FAQs.

So if any of you are using or buying these Advanced Format Hard Drives for use on XP be aware of these problems.

I'll let you know how it all goes.

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Me neither - also the instructions that came with the Samsung drive talked about setting jumpers but the place where you're supposed to put jumpers is actually blanked off with only 4 pins available instead of the more normal 8 - but no mention anywhere of that!

Very poor documentation on the part of Samsung.

This didn't occur with the 1TB WD drive since I simply set the jumpers as advised.

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You learn something every day, however your explanation defies logic.

If this Advanced doodah thing is on both drives, why did your 1Tb hard drive work OK?



Ah, now you tell us:)
 
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i guess it kinds makes sense being new kit and a lot of older software may not play nicely with it. i mean the HD204UI isnt "technically" supported in my NAS but the user community has tested it rigorously and nobody has had issues (new version of the NAS OS should bring in official compatibility but the drive firmware needs doing for write caching).
 
neil_g said:
i would assume the 2TB drives use different tech for the extra platters? or something like that (im guessing to be honest)
Click to expand...

As I added I simply followed the instructions regarding the jumpers on the 1TB drive.

No such instructions (or jumpers!) on the Samsung 2TB drive.

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I've read that before so I did know about it but I don't use XP anymore. I have only bought Samsung drives for some time now. Yet to have one fail on me.....so far.
 
neil_g said:
i guess it kinds makes sense being new kit and a lot of older software may not play nicely with it. i mean the HD204UI isnt "technically" supported in my NAS but the user community has tested it rigorously and nobody has had issues (new version of the NAS OS should bring in official compatibility but the drive firmware needs doing for write caching).
Click to expand...

This isn't the only time I've had compatability issues with new kit and older programs.

For instance my Asrock Mobo no longer supports Windows ME.

I used to use ME for some old progs but when I once tried to install it to my Asrock Duo core it simply couldn't complete the installation.

So nothing new.

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neil_g said:
hmm, strange never had an issue with my old F1's on XP.

eurgh ME.. :lol:
Click to expand...

Yup when I first got ME I only had a small computer with about 128Mb RAM - and WINDOWS ME DID NOT LIKE THAT!

It crashed so often I still know - by heart - the 25 character serial number for it! :nuts:

That is also one of the reasons I always partition my system discs so I don't lose data in the event of the "blue screen of death".

Which I must admit I haven't seen for a long time on XP Pro which runs very well indeed on my setups.

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petersmart said:
detailing problems I had suddenly encountered with a new HD - the Samsung 2TB HD204UI.
Click to expand...
Why are you using an EcoGreen drive as your system disk? It only has a 5400rpm rotational speed, so will have slower seek times than a 7200rpm drive yet you want to try and optimise the heck out of it (which actually may slow it down if you're not using 4k block sizes as the onboard controller is probably optimised for that size).
 
arad85 said:
Why are you using an EcoGreen drive as your system disk? It only has a 5400rpm rotational speed, so will have slower seek times than a 7200rpm drive yet you want to try and optimise the heck out of it (which actually may slow it down if you're not using 4k block sizes as the onboard controller is probably optimised for that size).
Click to expand...

My system isn't particularly fast but then I don't play games.

I just decided to go that way because Sandra showed me the Samsung 2TB was the fastest disk on the system, with a speed of 108Mb/sec.

And by using a partition of 80GB I would be using one of the fastest parts of the disk.

The 1TB WD HD has a speed of approx 83Mb/sec.

And the others are slower at approx 50-60Mb/sec.

I'm not trying to optimise the system very much just use the components to their best advantage.

If I really wanted to speed the system up I'd need to start with the Mobo and processor and then the ancillaries.

But I'm quite happy with the way it works and if it wasn't for the problem with Shrink and the ultra slow copying of files I wouldn't have given it a second thought.

EDIT: here's an article about the new drives:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8557144.stm

And as it says in the last paragraph:

"Those most likely to see the performance problems are those building their own computers or swapping out an old drive for one that uses the new format."

Tell me about it!

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