Poofyhairguy's HTPC Recommendation Thread

I've done the firmware flash. It was very easy to do. It was a bad decision on Samsung's part for not changing the version number.

I haven't had a problem with these drives. I recently set up this build (a week ago).

I have also heard mixed thoughts regarding the advanced format green drives.

The Samsung F4s are still solid drives (minus the firmware issue). I feel like all of the 2TB drives currently on the market have some sort of quirk.

For example, I am hesitant to use the WD20EARS advanced format drives due to the sleep settings. The things go to sleep after like 6 seconds of inactivity.

The F4s have good performance and should work fine in ZFS. I have done a decent amount of reading and have consulted FreeBSD forums and Hard Forums regarding F4 performance in ZFS.

It is best to ensure the drive is formatted properly, aligned, and using the correct 4K sector. Especially with ZFS, if they are not configured properly before added to zpool then the drives will be IDed with 512b (emulated by drive) sector.

Also, studies have shown that using them in sets of 3 or 5 are best when running in RAIDZ1 (RAID5).

Nasa Wrote:Great to see you back poofy.

Thanks

Quote:Does that also include a ION/ION2 system + GT430?
Is this powerful enough for 3D?

Yep. That is basically what ION3 will be.

Superorb Wrote:but it's so new that I haven't heard of people with non-JP1 drives confirm that the bug has been fixed.

I hope so, as Samsung's drives were once one of my favorites. My 1.5TB drive of theirs has been good to me. I would love to add back a 2TB EcoGreen, if only so ensure each drive in my array is different.

bmcclure937 Wrote:I feel like all of the 2TB drives currently on the market have some sort of quirk.

Not completely true. I think it is more accurate to say "Green" 2TB drives have quirks. My 7200RPM 2TB Hitachi and Seagate drives have been rock solid since day one, with the trade-off being that they produce more heat and they cost more money.

I have high hopes that my new "Green" Hitachi drive will be the first to break the trend....

Any chance of a link to XBMC4XBOX in the Xbox post?

It does also conect perfectly well to HD TVs via component, runs skins in HD, upscales SD and will also play 720p in XviD

Poofyhairguy, welcome back. Always enjoy reading you're posts.

poofyhairguy Wrote:I hope so, as Samsung's drives were once one of my favorites. My 1.5TB drive of theirs has been good to me. I would love to add back a 2TB EcoGreen, if only so ensure each drive in my array is different.

I have an F4 2TB and an F2EG 1.5TB drive. The F4 has been solid and smoking fast even though it's still unpatched. The F2 has been similar, but just today I noticed SMART is reporting 1 pending write sector, and it's been like that since I checked hours ago. No idea what that means though as there are 0 reallocated sectors.

poofyhairguy Wrote:I have high hopes that my new "Green" Hitachi drive will be the first to break the trend....

+1. I'm hoping the Hitachi drives will prove to be good, but it took months before we found out about the F4 corruption issue. I just wish Samsung assigned a different version number for the newer firmware. Really no excuse for that.

Geeba Wrote:Any chance of a link to XBMC4XBOX in the Xbox post?

Done.

Quote:It does also conect perfectly well to HD TVs via component, runs skins in HD, upscales SD and will also play 720p in XviD

Yeah the Xbox 1 is still the SD champ, but I wouldn't go out of my way touting its upscaling ability seeing as how XBMC's built in upscalers are inferior (for SD content IMHO) to many hardware solutions on the market.

In fact I got an Xbox 1 recently JUST to play SD content on my TV so that my superior TV scaler could do the work, but I never finished the job because I realized that thanks to Sick/Sab/etc. I have become such a resolution snob that I never watch any SD anymore (and XBMC CAN upscale 720p to 1080p adequately). And yeah, 99.999% of the HD content out there is x264 mkvs that shred the old girl.

Thanks for the input, I appreciate any and all contributions.

Superorb Wrote:I have an F4 2TB and an F2EG 1.5TB drive. The F4 has been solid and smoking fast even though it's still unpatched. The F2 has been similar, but just today I noticed SMART is reporting 1 pending write sector, and it's been like that since I checked hours ago. No idea what that means though as there are 0 reallocated sectors.

I didn't know about the new Firmware for these drives before, so I will get another (I gave away the first I had) just to try it out. As my current rate I need to add about 6TBs to my array this year, and I would like those to be a finally working Seagate 5900RPM drive, the aforementioned Samsung F4, and a WD EADS before they completely disappear.

Quote:+1. I'm hoping the Hitachi drives will prove to be good, but it took months before we found out about the F4 corruption issue.

So far according to my first run benchmarks its faster than any other "Green" drive I have, and it is not far behind its 7200RPM counterpart. Looks like a really good drive, lets see if it doesn't get SMART with me in the next few months...