Samsung SpinPoint P80 SP1614N

Samsung has recently enjoyed extended goodwill from the enthusiast community by remaining the sole manufacturer to retain an across-the-board three-year warranty on all of its ATA drives even as competitors retreated to one-year protection on many models. These one year reductions by competitors do not necessarily imply a sudden fall in build quality; indeed, many enthusiasts fail to grasp the immediate accounting benefit through the decrease of paper liability that results independently of actual warranty claims. Samsung's exception nonetheless continues to stand out.

The SpinPoint P80 is the latest in Samsung's performance-oriented 7200 RPM drive line. Like other contemporary drives, the P80 incorporates 80 gigabytes per platter. Samsung joins Seagate in topping out with a two-platter, 160 GB design rather than setting its sights against the three-disk flagships offered by Hitachi, Maxtor, and WD. An 8.9 millisecond seek time and an eight-megabyte buffer round out the drive's vitals.

Samsung, like most other firms, ships the P80 exclusively with fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) motors. When contrasted with traditional ball bearing offerings, FDB motors deliver quieter idle operation as well as purportedly increasing shock resistance.

The P80 is also available in slightly less pricey iterations equipped with a two- rather than an eight-megabyte buffer. Unlike many competing models, the two-megabyte versions also enjoy three-year warranty coverage.

With the P80, Samsung targets mid- to high-end desktop machines as well as light-duty servers that require moderate capacity combined with performance and quiet operation. In the following tests, the Samsung SpinPoint P80 will be compared against the following drives for the following reasons: