Conclusions
The fact that Samsung, a relatively small player in the hard drive market, is the first to offer a three-platter terabyte drive is an impressive feat in itself. But this is more than just a symbolic milestone. The Spinpoint F1 employs its three 334GB platters to provide incredible performance with low power consumption and noise levels.

The transfer rates this drive can sustain are staggering, and as we saw in our FC-Test results, it makes little difference whether you're throwing the drive a heaping helping of smaller files or just a few extremely large ones. Other terabyte drives—or even Raptors—are simply no match for the F1 if you're pushing files around. WorldBench performance is good, too, and the Spinpoint fared pretty well in our disk-intensive multitasking tests.

Perhaps more impressive than the F1's performance are its acoustics, which are surprisingly low. The drive is easily the quietest 7,200-RPM terabyte drive we've ever tested, and at idle, its noise levels are all but identical to those of Western Digital's near-silent GreenPower drives. Having only three platters to propel also helps the F1 achieve the lowest power consumption we've seen from a terabyte drive spinning at 7,200RPM.

If the Spinpoint has a weakness, it's the drive's performance under multi-user workloads simulated by our IOMeter testing. The F1 just doesn't scale well as the number of simultaneous I/O requests increases, ruling it out as a candidate for demanding server-class environments. However, this weakness does little to harm the drive's competency in desktop applications, its true mission in life.

The Spinpoint F1 1TB can currently be had for as little as $270 online, which is a fantastic price given the drive's blend of blistering performance with blissfully low noise levels. In fact, this drive is such a good value that we've given it our coveted Editor's Choice award. Samsung may not be the first name you associate with hard drives, but if you're shopping for a high-capacity storage upgrade, the Spinpoint F1 should be at the top of your list.