[SOLVED] What hard drive do I have?

[NightHawkRMX]

Hello before I built my gaming PC in early 2018, I used a laptop with a 5400rpm 500GB HDD. Around late 2017 the laptop started slowing down to the point it took like 12 minutes to boot, no joke. After a Windows update, it would take over 30min to boot properly. I ran a S.M.A.R.T scan and the HDD was toast at 8% health after only 263 days of power on time. Since I have a relative In the IT field, I contacted him for advice. He gave me a 500gb external slim hard drive to harvest the 2.5in HDD from, tools to back up my data, replace the drive, and reinstall Windows on the new HDD. The laptop still took like 5 minutes to boot with a fresh copy of Windows 10 and a 100% working hard drive. I have no clue why since the laptop has decentish specs with a Bay Trail 4c/4t Pentium N3530 @2.6ghz turbo and 8gb DDR3. With a Windows 10 SSD it takes like 3 min to boot still... That SSD boots my new pc in 25 seconds.

Fast forward to now, where I got so mad at the laptop for still being so slow I went out and built a gaming PC.
2 SSDs and the working 500GB HDD used for games. I thought the 2.5 in HDD looked ugly so it tore the label off of it. I remember seeing a bunch of different manufacturer logos which confused me of the make. I also remember distinctly it saying 7200rpm. Now I did some digging and Crystal Disk Info says this about my system:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskInfo 8.1.0 (C) 2008-2019 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : https://crystalmark.info/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 17763] (x64)
Date : 2019/05/13 17:06:56

-- Controller Map ----------------------------------------------------------
+ Standard SATA AHCI Controller [ATA]
- ST500LM012 HN-M500MBB
- HP SSD S700 120GB
- KINGSTON SA400S37240G

• Standard SATA AHCI Controller [ATA]
• Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller [SCSI]

-- Disk List ---------------------------------------------------------------
(1) ST500LM012 HN-M500MBB : 500.1 GB [0/0/0, pd1] - st
(2) HP SSD S700 120GB : 120.0 GB [1/0/0, pd1] - sf
(3) KINGSTON SA400S37240G : 240.0 GB [2/0/0, pd1]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) ST500LM012 HN-M500MBB
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Model : ST500LM012 HN-M500MBB
Firmware : 2BA30010
Serial Number : S313J9GDA62401
Disk Size : 500.1 GB (8.4/137.4/500.1/500.1)
Buffer Size : 16384 KB
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 976773168
Rotation Rate : 5400 RPM
Interface : Serial ATA
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 6
Transfer Mode : SATA/300 | SATA/300
Power On Hours : 4150 hours
Power On Count : 1790 count
Temperature : 27 C (80 F)
Health Status : Good
Features : S.M.A.R.T., APM, AAM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
APM Level : 0080h [OFF]
AAM Level : FEFEh [ON]
Drive Letter : H:
This says the drive is 5400rpm. I thought for sure the Label said 7200rpm. Also, is this drive from Samsung or after Seagate acquired Samsung? The model name contains a Samsung and a Seagate drive, so which is it?
Seems to be this drive: https://www.seagate.com/files/staticfiles/support/docs/samsung-ds/100698122c.pdf

 

[USAFRet]

Seagate/Samsung 500GB 5400RPM.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152289

Does it really matter?

 

[Barty1884]

It's a 5400rpm drive, no question about it.
It's a Seagate Momentus drive..... a Samsung variant, but still a Momentus drive at it's core. I'm not 100% sure of the distinction.... I think it was right around the time Seagate acquired Samsung's HDD division.... so likely released the same drive under both brands.
https://www.seagate.com/files/staticfiles/support/docs/samsung-ds/100698122c.pdf

 

[retroforlife]

mite want to make sure your games are on the ssd by the way and use the hdd for storage files etc. hdd are pretty slow by solid state speeds . ps is that a used hdd drive ?

 

[fzabkar]

The drive is a native Samsung at its core. There is nothing about it that is Seagate, other than the label and some minor cosmetic changes (eg model number). At the firmware level everything is Samsung, and that's how data recovery tools deal with it.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Yup, it's a used drive the relative gave me. My SSDs are mostly full since there only 120 and 240gb drives. Games that are on the HDD are not used much.
Thanks for the help. Just because I can i am looking back into Icloud because I think I took photos of the drives (with labels then) when i replaced them.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

It really doesn't matter, the curiosity got the best of me. I guess I remembered wrong. I had a picture from the inside of the laptop stored in Icloud. And this is what I found when i zoomed in:

https://imgur.com/a/RtO3HGc

View: https://imgur.com/a/RtO3HGc
Seems to be made in 2013 by Seagate, although it is a Samsung drive.

 

[Barty1884]

I'm still perplexed as to why it's dual branded as Samsung Spinpoint & Seagate Momentus.... The deal was in early 2011, that drive was made in late 2013.... I had assumed the Samsung HDD branding was phased out by then. Clearly not.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Yea, that dual branding really confused me when I originally researched the drive. Well, now I know its a 5400rpm drive with a confusing Identity.
So it is a Samsung Spinpoint drive that's name got changed when Seagate acquired Samsungs HDD division. Correct?

 

[Barty1884]

I don't think that's accurate, no, but can't say with certainty.

I believe it's a Seagate Momentus drive, that was rebadged to maintain some aspect of the Samsung Spinpoint identify..... for whatever reason.
Something along the lines of an ODM situation, for no logical reason that I can think of.

 

[fzabkar]

The drive is a Samsung SpinPoint M8. Seagate has started obfuscating the part numbers, but the firmware architecture is still Samsung's.

https://www.hdd-parts.com/15042423.html
https://www.hdd-parts.com/17042014.html
https://onepcbsolution.com/3354.html

If you want to prove this beyond doubt, then download the drive's firmware modules with the demo version of SHTR/SHT (a Samsung data recovery tool):

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=1921