14 DAY TRIAL // Solid state drives may be steadily becoming less expensive and more popular than before, but hard disk drives are still much more widespread and, most importantly, more affordable. This is why, despite how aggressively storage developers promote SSDs, many consumers are still more comfortable buying an HDD, even owners of high-end systems. Knowing this, Samsung decided to evolve its Spinpoint F series of platter-spinners to the next level.
Samsung has officially introduced the Spinpoint F4 Series, composed of 3.5-inch hard drives with capacities of up to 320GB and rotary speeds of 7200RPM. Buffer memory can be of either 8MB or 16MB, which may seem little compared to the 32MB or even 64MB of other high-end models. On the other hand, the company implemented technologies such as SilentSeek and NoiseGuard, and even used less mechanical parts to ensure that seeking produces as little noise as possible.
It should probably be noted that the Spinpoint F4 uses a one-head platform design, which, combined with the aforementioned noise-reducing features, also contributes to a higher power efficiency, better reliability and increased performance. To be more specific, compared to the Spinpoint F1, the Spinpoint F4 has a 10% increase in read/write speeds and a 7% lower power consumption. Furthermore, the lack of halogen compound and brominated flame retardant allows the new solutions to comply with the RoHS standard.
The Spinpoint F4 boasts the SATA 3.0Gbps interface and has already begun shipping to OEMs, though prices have not been mentioned.
"Higher performance combined with increasing capacities continues to accelerate demand for 3.5” drives in desktops storage,” said In-Chul Park, vice president of sales, storage systems division, Samsung Electronics. “The one-head platform of the new 7200rpm Spinpoint F4, packing up to 320GB of storage capacity per one head in half platter, delivers added reliability that our customers have come to expect from Samsung.”