It may come as a surprise to some, but Samsung has been in the hard drive business for many years. Not for it the flashy, fast drives; instead the company concentrates on what are probably the most important factors, namely technical innovation, reliability and reasonable pricing.

The SV1204H is the biggest capacity IDE desktop hard drive currently offered by Samsung and is aimed squarely at those of us who want a lot of capacity but don't need the fastest performance. However, we do want this capacity at a reasonable cost.

A member of the SpinPoint V60 family of value drives, the SV1204H achieves its 120GB capacity by using two 60GB platters (discs). Samsung is not alone in offering 60GB platter drives but the models in this range are considerable cheaper than drives offered by Seagate and Western Digital.

Although the SV1204H uses an ATA/100 interface, its performance is hindered by its slow spin speed; just 5,400rpm compared to its rivals' 7,200rpm. The drive has a quoted read seek time of 8.9ms and a small 2MB buffer, while to aid its performance the SV1204H incorporates a micro-processor that improves the data processing bandwidth.

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Samsung has always aimed to make its drives as quiet as possible and the SV1204H is no exception, using both of Samsung's noise reduction technologies; NoiseGuard and SilentSeek. SilentSeek is designed to dampen down and eliminate any mechanical resonance caused by the actuator arm moving from one track to another (the clicking sound you normally hear as a drive accesses data).

NoiseGuard, meanwhile, is designed to overcome the overall acoustic noise generated by hard drives. This can include head stack vibrations, spindle motor vibration and so on, and the reduction is achieved by using a combination of vibration-absorbing materials and the careful design of the drive cover.

The drive also incorporates Samsung's ImpacGuard disc protection, which strengthens the drive's internals against shock by reinforcing the disc itself. Confirming this strength of construction, Samsung provides a three year warranty with its hard drives.

While the Samsung SV1204H won't break any records in terms of its performance, it is very quiet and does offer loads of capacity at a very reasonable price. It's one for sensible buyers rather than speed freaks.