Since I was running out of hard drive space a few weeks ago I decided to pickup a new hard drive to use for a storage drive. Most reviews online said that this drive was one of the best, so I decided to get it. While performance was great, there have been some glaring issues that have caused some concern. There is an issue with this drive where it can cause corruption of your data unless you update the firmware on the drive. While I knew this when I bought it, it was still a minor annoyance, even if it only took 2 minutes to update. Once I updated the firmware, I reinstalled Windows 7 on my SSD and got to filling this drive up with all my files. Everything was going fine until a few days later. I turned on my computer from sleep and noticed that the drive had disappeared from Windows completely. Suprised, I tried to reboot my computer and the drive came back like nothing was wrong. After looking up the issue online, it seems to be a common occurance with large drives that doesn't have a definite answer. After updating my sata drivers, applying a microsoft hotfix, switching sata cables and ports, it seems that the issue has gone away. Other than that issue, the drive has been great. Don't let the 5400 rpm fool you. Since it has 3 platters, it still is a very fast drive. I measured max speeds of 137 MB/s and an average of 105 MB/s which is great for a storage drive. Overall I am impressed with this drive and I would recommend it to everyone.

fpoama

Milwaukee, WI

I grabbed this harddisk last November when it wen on sale. I was building up my 3rd desktop computer at that time. My previous 2 builds both used Seagate's product. I don't know why but seems Seagate's HDD nowadays gets more negative reviews than before. So I want to give another brand a try. Samsung F4 2TB happened to go on sale so I purchased one. Just as the product title described, it arrived as an OEM product. No fancy box package, no colorful menu, just a plastic cover. But that doesn't matter much, since for an HDD we only care about its volume and speed. Pros: Large size. 2TB is not the largest in the market, as we can find 3TB ones now. But the cost/byte ratio is the best on 2TB scale. My first desktop only had 6.4G, in 1999. Second had 160G, in 2003. Then came my first laptop with 320G. So 2TB is a huge number for me. I never downloaded any Bluray, so this size is fairly enough. Fast speed. Of coz it's slower than SSD, but as a data warehouse it's enough. Inter file transimission is about 50-60 MB/s. Cons: Some lists 5400 RPM. It's not a big issue. For this size, the large volume of single sector really helps a lot. So it's comparable to 1TB 7200 RPM model. Lost data. That should be my own fault. Several times of reinstallation of OS on different drives, finally lost some data.

mycardson

Mc Lean, VA

Purchased two of these drives to suppliment my ever expanding movie collection. My only regret is I didn't purchase more when I had the chance! The Samsung F4, compared to the other name brand 2TB 7200RPM drives I use, wins hands down in all aspects. Quiet, energy efficient and fast. Yes I did say fast! Don't let the 5400rpm speed fool you, these drives can hold there own especially when transferring large files. In some tests they even surpassed my 7200rpm drives! As for noise, I have these housed in an Antec 900 and I am hard pressed to hear these drives over the case and cpu fans. When tranferring files I would have to lean close to the case just make sure thier there. This drive sips energy, unlike my power hungry 7200rpm. At idle this drive added only a few watts to the kill-a-watt meter. Also if Mass Storage RAID is your thing then this is your drive. No TLER issues here. My only con for this drive would be the fact that some of the earlier drives shipped with questionable firmware. For my use I probably would not have even affected, but as with all hardware if the potentail is there and it can be fixed you should. While it can be seen as a hassle to have to update the firmware, I still have to give this drive 5 stars.

sleddie

Sheboygan, WI