Samsung gets into green lane with EcoGreen F1 1TB hard drives

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 26 May 2008 08:44

Opinion and Analysis

Hot on the heels of its competitors in the hard disk space, Samsung has launched its EcoGreen F1 range of hard drives with massive power savings, fewer parts and a nice price.

Operating at 5400 RPM, Samsung’s new EcoGreen F1 hard drive isn’t so named for blazing speed – you’d need to look at competitors' 10,000 RPM hard drives for that.

Indeed the F1 designation likely has whatsoever nothing to do with the very ungreen Forumla 1 racing, given the licensing implications therein, with the 1 probably signifying the 1TB capacity of the drives instead, although a 3.0Gbps SATA interface is standard, as is native command queuing and 32MB of buffer memory.

Designed for surveillance and audio/video recording instead of super fast disk speeds, in addition to being promoted for use in traditional desktop PCs and external hard drive casings, the EcoGreen F1 primarily excels in the area of low power consumption.

How so, you ask? Well, Samsung claim the drives have 15% lower power consumption than competing ‘green’ drives, and a massive 50% lower power consumption than ‘traditional’ 1TB hard drives.

T.J. Lee, vice president of sales & marketing for Samsung Electronics' Storage Division said: “Since 2003, Samsung's hard disk drives have complied with the (RoHS) restriction of hazardous substances directive as well as the (TBBP-A) brominated flame retardant restriction. The EcoGreen product line is designed to meet consumer demand for eco-friendly, high-performance devices with an optimized cost of ownership advantage."

Samsung have also one-upped their competitors in an interesting way: boosting hard disk capacity to 334GB per platter. Samsung says this is the highest capacity per disk for 1TB drives, and not only reduces parts within the drive itself, but boosts speed and performance.

What else does the EcoGreen F1 offer? Interestingly, Samsung is engaging in a bit of FOD – but there’s no FUD in sight. Please read on to page 2.