Samsung Spinpoint M7 500GB Notebook Hard Drive HM500JI

Yep, I’ve got another notebook hard drive today for review, the Samsung Spinpoint M7 500G drive with a model number of HM500JI. I’ve pout it up against he other drives I’ve recently reviewed and added another 2.5” drive into the mix as well. So let’s get started..

Info:

Product Name: Spinpoint M7 500GB Notebook Hard Drive HM500JI

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Provider: Samsung

Price: $54.99 (from Amazon at time of review)

500GB spinpoint SATA 3.0
-formatted capacity: 500GB
-ATA security mode feature set
-SATA native command queuing feature
-ATA S.M.A.R.T. feature set

Drive Configuration:
Capacity: 500GB
Interface: SATA 3.0Gbps
Buffer DRAM Size: 8MB
Rotational Speed: 5,400RPM

Performance Specifications:
Average Latency: 5.6ms
Average Seek time(typical): 12ms
Media Transfer Rate(Max.): 138MB/s
Interface Transfer Rate(Max.): 300MB/s
Drive Reday Time(typical): 4 seconds

The Review::

So it’s a 2.5” hard drive, not much to look at. hard drive are rather boring looking really.

 

Let’s just get right into the comparison and testing.

I’ve got the same drives I’ve been testing lately but I added the 2.5” Western Digital WD2500BEVS 250GB hard drive as well for comparison.

So let’s start with ATTO as we’ve been.

     

Barracuda 7200.12: 133 MB/s Write and 134 MB/s Read

Barracuda LP: 102 MB/s Write and 101 MB/s Read

Momentus 7200.4: 92 MB/s Write and 104 MB/s Read

Samsung HM500JI: 78 MB/s Write and 79 MB/s Read

Western Digital:  55 MB/s Write and 55 MB/s Read

Not that great, but better than the WD drive…

 

Next up would be Crystal Diskmark test in order of fastest to slowest according to Read Speeds here:

    

I think I’d rather have the Seagate Momentus than the Samsung drive for sure.

 

File Systems

Benchmark mounted file systems (i.e. volumes).

This is not the raw disk performance that other benchmarks test – but the speed of the volume itself that depends on many more factors like file system, operating system cache, position on disk, etc. Thus this is the performance you get at the file system level.

Drive Score: is a composite figure representing an overall performance rating based on the average of the read, write, and seek tests, and file and cache size. It is intended to represent drive performance under typical use in a PC

Not much of a surprise here at all.

 

Physical Disks

Benchmark hard disks (i.e. the disk itself, not the file system).

As the test measures raw performance it is independent on the file system the disk uses and any volumes mounted off the disk.

Drive Score: is a composite figure representing an overall performance rating based on the highest read or write speed across the whole disk. Thus the higher the better.

Access Time: is the average time to read a random sector on the disk, analogous to latency response time. Thus the lower the better

Again, we see the Samsung is fairly slow overall.

The drive does seem to run quiet and cool, at least to the touch.

 

Conclusion:

The Samsung HM500JI isn’t exactly the fastest drive out there. It is a 5400RPM drive though, so low speeds are to be expected, still it’s quite slower than I expected it to be.

The drive does run quiet and cool, which is great for a notebook of course.

 

PROS	CONS
+Runs quiet +Seems to stay cool under load	-Not exactly fast

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Scores::	8 out of 10
Overall:
Aesthetic:
Value / Price:
Build Quality:
Usability:

Disclosure:This product was given to Review the Tech for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. This product may have also been bought by us for review purposes and does not influence the review.