SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive

4th of 6 Samsung drives to die

Reviewed By: batray on 2/25/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: more than 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Works great until it dies.

Cons: This HD501LJ is my 4th Samsung disk drive die. This one worked fined for 14 months of light usage. It was in a fan cooled external USB enclosure and used to store infrequently accessed videos.

Other Thoughts: After 14 months of light use it began to lock-up and stop working intermittently. I moved the drive to another enclosure, and tried it on another system and the same behavior occurred.

Of the six Samsung internal hard drives I have purchased, I have now had four failures. Two 750GB and one 500GB units failed within the first two weeks of use. This one lasted longer, but still. The early failures NewEgg replaced. Samsung gave me a replacement RMA less than 24 hours after requesting one.

Although the guarantee seems to be good, a failed hard drive represents a loss of time (and possibly data) that will not be compensated. Since the last failure was intermittent I managed to get my data off, but I lost data that had not yet been backed up on an earlier failure.

Given the miserable track record I have had with Samsung drives I will not buy any more. Plus I have lost all confidence in the others I still own.

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Great

Reviewed By: Kris on 2/10/2009

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: more than 1 year

Pros: No real problems for more than a year...

Cons: After 7 months it started making clicking noises, I backed up my stuff and restored my computer to factory settings, but after I didall that it stopped clicking and hasn't had another problem since.

Other Thoughts: Other than its brief clicking problem this has been the best hard drive I've ever owned and would gladly buy another one.

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Reviewed By: on 2/10/2009

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Worked until it died.

Cons: It died after a few hours. I got the clunking noise and sent it back.

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