Although Samsung isn’t the first name to spring to mind when thinking about hard disks, there’s no denying the company is serious about storage. Over the past few years, it’s focused not only on speed but also on reliability.

The products are good, too. All the SpinPoint range disks we’ve tested have been quiet, decent performers and good value. The P120 is no exception. It may lag behind the others with its 250GB capacity, but this is achieved using two 125GB platters, so it’s up with the leaders in terms of data density.

Naturally, this leads to higher transfer rates and, even with an 8MB buffer that’s half the size of most of its competitors, the SpinPoint held its own in our benchmarks. Beginning with HD Tach RW, we measured an average access time of 14.1ms. This translates to 9.93ms once the 4.17ms average rotational latency is subtracted, towards the lower end of the group.

But this didn’t hamper the P120 when it came to sustained transfer rates, as it beat all bar the Raptor X to take second place with 61MB/s. This is all the more impressive when you realise the older Raptor WD740GD could manage 65MB/s only because of its 37GB platters.

This led to a superb turn of speed in our file-copy tests. The SpinPoint read our 100MB file 100 times at an average pace of 64.5MB/s and wrote it back 100 times at 60.4MB/s. Again, only the Raptor X surpassed it. Our 100MB selection of almost 4000 small files didn’t cause the Samsung to break a sweat either, as it read them at 21.1MB/s and wrote them at 13.7MB/s, nipping at the Raptor X’s heels.

Our disk-intensive Photoshop CS2 test is a tough task for any hard disk, and the Samsung couldn’t keep up with the Raptor here. However, it still beat the rest with a time of 5 mins, 14 secs – only the WD Caviar SE16 proved as quick.

But one advantage the Samsung holds over the Raptor X is quietness. In our seek tests, it measured only 38dBA, so it won’t be a distraction even if your PC tower sits next to you on your desk.

The real icing on Samsung’s cake, though, is value. Even if the SpinPoint wasn’t as fast, the price of 56 cents per gigabyte makes it the cheapest on test. But since it’s both fast and quiet, it’s also unbeatable value. If you need more capacity, buy two – it will still be cheaper than any of the 500GB disks on test.