Samsung HD204UI (F4 EcoGreen)

apithanos · Post by **apithanos** » Tue Sep 07, 2010 1:01 am

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a 859Pro and I would like to use the new Samsung F4 EcoGreen 2TB disks (http://www.samsung.com/global/business/ ... del_cd=552). Test here -> http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... iew/41556/

Overall I read good reviews of using the Samsung EcoGreen drives in QNAP products. This new disk however is also a 4K sector drive (similar to the advanced format drives from WD).
1) Anyone here who already tried these drives?
2) How long does it normally take QNAP to test new drives for compatibility.
3) Should I expect problems because of the 4K sectors (drive seems to have an emulation)?

Thanks,
Apithanos

AdrianW · Post by **AdrianW** » Wed Sep 08, 2010 4:18 pm

I'm interested in the same information - these drives are starting to appear in stores now.

AdrianW · Post by **AdrianW** » Thu Sep 09, 2010 11:08 pm

Well, it looks like the TS-859Pro is actually available in Australia at decent prices now - so I'm definitely in the market for a large number of 2TB drives and these new Samsungs look to be ideal, except they haven't been tested by Qnap yet & therefore aren't on the compatibility list.

Qnap - please consider testing these drives soon, as they're at a very good price point and by all accounts they should be cool, quiet and hopefully robust as well. But, as apithanos says, they do have the new 4K sectors - so maybe there will be issues.

P3R · Post by **P3R** » Fri Sep 10, 2010 1:57 am

Unfortunately a disk on the compatibility list show only that it is compatible, meaning it passed a certain test sequence when fresh from production (with that exact firmware). It doesn't mean that they are certain to be flawless in the long run. This is very tragically shown by the huge problems with non-RAID Western Digital disks.

I would definately not recommend using the brand new F4 (no matter how appealing the marketing looks) in anything but testing for at least several months.

apithanos · Post by **apithanos** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 12:07 am

@P3R: ok, so you are saying that you would not use F4EG because they are a new models with new (unproven) tech. At least on paper these drives look very good, but I will consider your point. Thank you.

At least in Europe there seem now to be two different models listed: HD204UI (http://geizhals.at/eu/a567146.html) and HD204UI/Z4 (http://geizhals.at/eu/a567147.html). Only the second seems to have the 4k sectors. I'm not yet sure, if this is an oversight or indeed two different models.

schumaku · Post by **schumaku** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 12:41 am

According to Samsung HD204UI specifications, this model has "Byte per Sector: 4K Sector with Emulation".

When I'm not ways of, all Samsung drives with P/N with "/anything" are pure OEM units sold to manufacturers and system integrators without the long-term factory warranty.

-Kurt.

HDClown · Post by **HDClown** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 3:48 am

apithanos wrote:@P3R: ok, so you are saying that you would not use F4EG because they are a new models with new (unproven) tech. At least on paper these drives look very good, but I will consider your point. Thank you.

Aside from using 4K Sectors, they don't seem to be that much different than the EcoGreen F3 series drive. I don't see a reason to be cutting edge personally.

apithanos · Post by **apithanos** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 3:21 pm

I think that these new models are quite different. Only three platters for the 2TB model with 667GB per platter compared to the four platters of the F3EG. That should mean less noise, less energy consumption, a little (maybe up-to 33%) faster.

AdrianW · Post by **AdrianW** » Mon Sep 13, 2010 12:03 pm

Qnap - any plans to test this new Samsung drive in you NAS range?

phibes4000 · Post by **phibes4000** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 5:37 am

Bump on question of QNAP testing these...

Has anyone actually installed these in a RAID config? Resellers are starting to stock these instead of F3s and I need to replace my WD EADS drives. If they have been stable for someone for a few weeks I may take my chances...

KL643 · Post by **KL643** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 5:56 am

Not yet but I'm going to try them hopefully next week...And of course I'll let know how it works (or not)

phibes4000 · Post by **phibes4000** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 6:30 am

I might need to try now as my WD EADS have LCCs near 300,000! YIKES!!! Backed up though so not too worried...

frank82 · Post by **frank82** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 6:58 pm

raw performance will be 3x less unless the partition is aligned correctly..
don't know whether it affects a NAS or only high speed hosts...

http://www.osnews.com/story/22872/Linux ... ard_Drives

With linux you can realign it.. Windows has a tool,too.
You could telnet into the qnap and realign ..

For /dev/sdd, I used fdisk to add a Linux (0x83) primary partition, taking up the whole disk, using fdisk defaults. By default, the partition starts at LBA 63.

For /dev/sdc, I used fdisk the same as with sdd, but after creating the partition, I realigned it. I did this by entering expert mode ("x"), then setting the start sector ("b") to 64.

Once that was finished, I formatted both drives using the command "time mke2fs /dev/sdc1" (and sdd1).

/dev/sdc, which was aligned, took 5m 45.716s to format.
/dev/sdd, which was not aligned, took 19m 53.609s to format.

That's a difference of greater than a factor of three!

Johnhan · Post by **Johnhan** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:45 pm

I want to buy two new 2TB drives for my TS 419p and have decided on the Samsung F3 (I have sent my EARS drives back) In the future when I buy another two drives to expand - will I be able to add the Samsung F4?

I say this because a lot of sellers are now only selling the latest model.

4kb drives seem to be the future - especially with larger drives so will there be compatibility issues with mixed 512 and 4kb drives?

phibes4000 · Post by **phibes4000** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 8:47 pm

Johnhan wrote:I want to buy two new 2TB drives for my TS 419p and have decided on the Samsung F3 (I have sent my EARS drives back) In the future when I buy another two drives to expand - will I be able to add the Samsung F4?

I say this because a lot of sellers are now only selling the latest model.

4kb drives seem to be the future - especially with larger drives so will there be compatibility issues with mixed 512 and 4kb drives?

Based on a response I got in a parallel thread - no. The two drives would be fundamentally different and not act as peers in a RAID array...

QNAP NAS Community Forum