Samsung SpinPoint T133 400 GB

Introduction

Samsung is slowly becoming a very important player in the hard disk market, as the Spinpoint series is a success. We had a change to play with a new model from the new Spinpoint T133 series, a chance we could not pass up on.

The new series is based on platters of 133GB, the model we tested (a 400GB model) therefore had three of these platters under the hood. The HD401LJ is the top model out of the range and sports 16MB of cache. There is another 400 GB model out of this series on the market, however this model (the HD400LD) only offers 8 MB of cache and has a Parallel ATA connection in stead of a Serial ATA 300 connection like the HD401LJ.

The T133 series has two more 320GB models, both with 8MB of cache but one with a PATA connection and one with a SATA 300 connection, and a 300GB model that sports 16 MB of cache and a SATA 300 conncetion.

Performance

We planted the HD401LJ in the test system we used for all other HD tests this summer, and when looking at the results from HDTune it becomes evident that this drive perfroms very well. The disk reaches an average throughput of 60.1 MB/sec, which means only the Seagate 7200.10 750 GB and the Raptor disks are faster. The access time of the Samsung disk is fairly high, we got a score of 14.2 ms, almost at the bottom of the field.

Performance under PCMark05 gives us a variable impression, as in the total end score the disk ends up in the middle of the field, but the writing speeds are very high, whereas the simulated virusscan test shows a very poor result. The high access times of the disk might have something to do with the poor results in the virusscan test, as we saw a similar effect in the HDTune test. As most of the other Samsung Spinpoint disks we have tested the drive operates very quiet, an important point for some users nowadays.

Conclusion

When you are looking for a quiet hard disk that offers good writing speeds look no further than the amsung Spinpoint T133 HD401LJ. However as we have tested the access time is on the slow side, which can hamper performance in certain areas, as shown in the virus scan test we ran in PCMArk 05.