hard drive history


21st century: big, cheap, bland

Samsung V60 SV0602H

Photo: Red Hill.

Samsung SpinPoint V60

This was the last gasp of the mainstream 5400 RPM hard drive. By this time, there was really no good reason not to have a 7200 RPM model, and so far as I can remember Samsung didn't even bother to bring the V60 into Australia.

The drive illustrated, a 60GB SV0602H, probably came out of a cheap, low-performance mass market branded system — only a Compaq or a Dell would think it was worth a noticable performance penalty for the sake of saving perhaps three dollars — and is the only V60 we can remember seeing.

Some years later 5400 RPM drives would come back into vogue, but those later units were very different, and made for different reasons.

Performance1.42Reliabilityno data
Data rate498 Mbit/secSpin rate5400 RPM
Seek time8.9msBuffer2MB
Platter capacity60GBInterfaceATA-100
SV0221H20GB1 head
SV0301H30GB1 head
SV0412H40GB2 heads
SV0602H60GB2 heads
SV0813H80GB3 heads
SV1204H120GB4 heads