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Storage Samsung Spin point 1Tb problems?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by popotheflyingpanda, 19 May 2009.

  1. popotheflyingpanda

    popotheflyingpanda What IS a Dremel?

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    Ok so i just got a new samsung 1Tb hdd and it installed fine and every thing loaded up some videos and it worked great.

    However I have noticed some freezing happening lately with my comp, it will stutter for a second and then continue on, its most noticeable when i play music.

    I think this is connected to the hdd because every time my comp, freezes for a second, I can specifically hear the hdd head move, like its resetting or something.

    Its not terribly annoying but maybe once every hour or two is, well, annoying :wallbash:

    Anything is appreciated!
    Thanks in advance :thumb:
     
  2. PureSilver

    PureSilver E-tailer Tailor

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    Er - I don't know what it is, but I think you should back everything up, just in case...!
     
  3. GK7

    GK7 What's a Dremel?

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    Do you have 2 hard disks or just the single Spinpoint 1TB ?

    I have 2 hard disks installed and when the spinpoint is not in use - I can hear it spinning down and parking the head. So this might be what's causing the noise.
     
  4. adam_bagpuss

    adam_bagpuss Have you tried turning it off/on ?

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    it may not the HDD just cause its making a noise.

    Anti-virus running in the background ?

    up to date drivers ??? for everything

    any stuttering in games ?

    what OS are you using and what are your specs ?
     
  5. popotheflyingpanda

    popotheflyingpanda What IS a Dremel?

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    I have a seagate (I think) 250Gb hdd and the samsung spinpoint

    Nope, I am very picky about what goes on my computer

    To my knowledge my drivers are good and up-to-date

    Not that I have noticed, but i haven't been playing many games lately, school and stuff (i should fix that though :D)

    I am running Vista 64-bit (don't hate, it runs great! :D )
    Q6600
    Nvidia 260
    Gigabyte mb, cant recall which one
    4Gb o' ram
    and those two hdd

    Hope this can help you help me :D
    Anybody else?!?!?!?!?
    Thanks
     
  6. lcdguy

    lcdguy Minimodder

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    take the samsung back if you can. if not you have a very lovely paper weight. Samsung drives are by far the crappiest drives ever made. I spent $400+ on 4 750's for a 2 TB hardware raid and they would not work at all. the array would never get past 15% initialization. Swapped them out for 750GB WD Black editions they work like a charm. I know what your going to say. but i am not using them in a raid. ok fine. when i took them out the raid and used them as single drives they still gave me head aches. I have confirmed this with my co worker and many other people over here in canada. and i think one of the issues is that the samsung drives don't 100% comply with the SATA II / I specifications resulting in problems (which is why they are much cheaper). Backup your data and swap them out for some seagate/wd drives. As an example in all my years i have owned over 20 Seagate and WD drives out of all of those drives i sent 1 back for RMA. in january i bought 4 samsung drives which i have now gotten rid of. Btw my drives were from the Samsung Spinpoint F1 RAID edition series.

    and for those wondering. no it was not onboard raid but a 3ware 9690SA-4i SAS raid card.
     
  7. PureSilver

    PureSilver E-tailer Tailor

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    Er - what? I currently run 1 640GB SpinPoint F1 in this Lian Li, two 1TB F1s in a family computer back home, a 128GB SSD in the MacBook and a third 1TB F1 on my external backup. Yes, they're all made by Samsung, and no, I've never had a failure. This bloke is either the first or nearly the first to turn up complaining of issues with his drive*, so I'm not sure he supports your grand theory of Samsung iniquity.

    What's this about not complying with SATA-II? Any external sources for that?

    *On this forum, obviously.
     
    Last edited: 20 May 2009
  8. C-Sniper

    C-Sniper Stop Trolling this space Ądmins!

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    My drive makes the same noise, I notice it the most after bringing the drive back online after I have put it into hibernation or shut it down. I believe that it is just parking the head as I have had 5months of this and no problems.
     
  9. mm vr

    mm vr The cheesecake is a lie

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    Usually that is the click of death, which means the drive is about to die.

    I remember, though, that we had multiple threads here last year when the F1's first became popular about them clicking, but none died.

    I'd say have a backup of everything on it and heavily use it. If it dies, send it back.


    I'd like to read that too.
     
  10. PureSilver

    PureSilver E-tailer Tailor

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    Mine don't click at all (and wasn't Click Of Death a ZIP Drive thing anyway? *Looks back into the mists of the very dawn of time*.)

    But the noise is indeed almost certainly made by the drive heads parking; what's causing that is much harder to diagnose. At a guess, the drive has 'lost its place' and reset to have another go at reading or writing (that, IIRC, was what the ZIP problem was, although obviously they have nothing in common except both being used to store data), which would fit your symptoms. That's the hardware failure.

    The only software alternative I can imagine is some sort of conflicting drive read/write instruction, or backlog, that is giving conflicting instructions to the drive to try too many things at once, although I don't think it's likely.

    If owners says clicking is OK, then don't worry, but I'd keep everything backed-up. CoD wasn't to be taken lightly with ZIP and I highly doubt it's good news for HDDs.
     
  11. crosshair

    crosshair It's life Jim but not as we know it

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    Hmm. Odd that. I've had two 750Gb SpinPoint F1s and both have worked like a charm...:thumb:
     
  12. lcdguy

    lcdguy Minimodder

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    like i said in single drive mode it should be fine. but i was also having problems with that (any executable i had backed up or downloaded to it was instantly corrupted. Took out the samsungs and boom everything was magically fine.
     
  13. pimonserry

    pimonserry sounds like a party.

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    Nope, full-blown clicking hard-drives typically signal impending failure. We get it all the time at work.
     
  14. PureSilver

    PureSilver E-tailer Tailor

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    I wouldn't know - haven't had to deal with ZIP since I left school and never had a hard-drive click (although I have had one half a RAID 0 die and have several damaged by, get this, lightning conducted through the house's network cables). For OP's sake, what's full-blown clicking? Continuous? Every half-hour? Every time a specific action is attempted? I think his is very intermittent, but see if what he said corresponds with what you know?

    Also, check out the sound recording here of a dying/deceased WD drive. That's the same spring-loaded click that the ZIPs used to do, on a slightly quieter scale, but it sounds a far cry from what OP describes of moving of heads. Is this the sort of thing you hear, pimonserry?
     
    Last edited: 20 May 2009
  15. Krikkit

    Krikkit All glory to the hypnotoad! Super Moderator

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    I think you guys are jumping to conclusions a little too soon.

    OP: Back up everything on there, just in case.

    What motherboard are you using to control it with? I remember Bindi had issues with an ICH7 stuttering under access.

    What about your PSU? What wattage is it? Try changing both the leads to the drive. I've just managed to sort out a housemate's computer which had a weird, intermittent problem, turned out to be a dodgy SATA cable causing no end of problems. After all the pain that caused me, I've moved swapping SATA cables to the top of my list with strange problems.
     
  16. flame696

    flame696 Terminating People Since 1980....

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    Dont worry to much about it. I have 2 samsung f1 1tb hdd and they do exactly the same thing even my 160gb samsung f1 does the same. The reason this happens is the drives hibernate when not in use so when you go into the hdd it will take it a few seconds to restart again just like when u put your comp to sleep. The noise is the arm resetting itself wen not in use. You drive isnt going to fail its just what the hdd do when not in use.
     
  17. trig

    trig god's little mistake

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    funny story. my samsung does the same thing...i "gently" tap the case with my foot, and it stops...yes, i back up all the time lol...
     
  18. SazBard

    SazBard 10 PRINT "C64 FTW"

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    Maybe its some sort of power management "feature", go into power management and select always on (xp) and for vista I have no idea, i cant get to my laptop at the moment :p

    But you can edit the profiles and tell it to never spin the drive down.

    Maybe its this?

    my 2p worth.
     
  19. popotheflyingpanda

    popotheflyingpanda What IS a Dremel?

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    well i think i should describe this a little more:

    The hdd doesn't click continuosly, so i'm not too afraid of losing the disk, but i have backed up everything :D
    The sound I am hearing happens only once in a while, and sounds as if the head is seating itself. However the only times that this has happened is NOT when I'm accessing the disk, but say surfing the webs while playing music, the computer hangs for a second and then continues.
    I can access the hdd normally and there are no hangs or lags, and it works pretty much normally

    I'm gonna try some things: change the power/sata cables and see if there are any setting to be messed with. :D

    This is interesting, because i rarely turn my computer off nowadays, (its so easy to just hit the sleep button on vista) I probably should restart/ shutdown every once in a while

    My psu is a Ultra 600w, i got off of ebay (sketchy i know but it was cheap and it has worked fine so far) And i will trying changing the leads out

    I don't know exactly what my mb is (at school right now) but it is a gigabyte 775 ddr2 2 pci-e, thats about all i can remember, I will post later today with the exact model

    Thanks a bunch for these great ideas, I love the 1Tb of space and hope i don't have to replay it!!!
     
  20. pimonserry

    pimonserry sounds like a party.

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    That sounds like what the posters above are describing: after periods of minimal HDD usage, the heads are parking themselves to save energy/whatever. Your new description definitely doesn't sound like the constant clicking a dying HDD can emit.
    The slight lag when going back to heavy HDD usage also concurs with the head-parking idea.
    Thus, to conclude, it sounds like it's no real problem.

    If you're running Vista, go to Control Panel, type Power in the search box and click Power Options. Take a look in the Advanced bits of there and see if there's anything to do with HDD power savings, if you really don't want the Samsung to park it's head.
     

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