Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1TB internal Hard Drive SATAII 32MB Cache 7200RPM – OEM

I bought the drive on the back of positive reviews on various review sites (bit tech, hexus etc.). I do agree with the reviews they give, the drive is quick. But these sites don't test for longevity, or lack thereof. I've had this drive for one and a half months, and no longer have it, its on its way back to Samsung. The drive refuses to spin up.
I will, if I remember, update this review following the RMA process detailing my experience. I will also add that this is the only drive of this model I own, so it may be a one-off fault, and I'm sure that not all drives will fail so quickly or at all in their life cycle. (I hope).
I have various other drives, none of which have yet died on me, even after years of use, including a Maxtor (not renowned as the most reliable drives, but I can't fault mine.), Hitachi, and some from Seagate. The drive was not excessively in use, it was used for windows 7 and Gentoo for at most a few hours a day. Next time I'll go for reputation as well as reviews, next drive (to back up and possibly replace this one via RAID 1) will probably be a western digital blue/black/yellow.
All in all, not happy, but this may not be representative of these drives.

--update-- (almost 2 months later)
After returning the drive to Samsung, i expected a lengthy wait for a new one. I posted the drive first class, so Samsung would receive it in a day or two, process the replacement request, do whatever it is companies do for days on end, then post it back using the slowest service known to man... Well, no. They dispatched a brand new drive to me the day after i posted it, and another day later I was putting it in my pc. Very fast turnaround, which is appreciated with something that can be so crucial to the system.
The package i received when Samsung sent me the new drive was also more thorough than what i got on initial purchase. Samsung included mounting screws and instructions, and the drive was very well protected.
no registration or even receipt was needed for the RMA process, just the drive serial number, which is usefull as other information always seems to get lost.

The new drive is still happily spinning, and is just as quick as drive it replaces. I still can't vouch for long term reliability, but fast returns policy and a RAID array can compensate for this. And at least inside the 3 year warranty its free to replace.

overall, Samsung returns are excellent, and the drives quick. I may have had a bad one (all manufacturers have these it seems), and I haven't heard of many others failing at all, less than any drive i can think of. This points to poor luck on my part and hence 4 stars.

I upgraded my Sky HD box (a Samsung manufactured Sky box, which I got in April 2010) with this drive.

This drive is very popular with Sky HD upgraders- although do some research to ensure it is compatible with your box if yours was not manufactured by Samsung (it says on the back of the Sky box).

The drive is reasonably quiet, although does run louder than the drive originally in the Sky Box.

You will need a free program called Copy + to do the upgrade- but it is easy really. Full details on Copy + website Also google the make of your Sky box to get instructions on how to unscrew it to fit the new drive.

My Sky box (which had a 500gb drive in it, but only 250gb in use for "personal storage" so it must have been using 250gb for Sky Anytime) went from being 80% full to 20%

You actually get a proportionately much larger amount of space when you install this because it seems the amount reserved for Anytime did not increase.

I have done absolutely masses of HD recording which would have filled my old Sky box HD a couple of times, but this new drive still has 60% free. I will now be recording all the upcoming HBO shows on the new Sky Atlantic channel!

Definitely recommended if you are running out of space on your Sky HD, but be prepared for it to be a bit noisier, albeit you cannot really hear it when the TV is on.

Just like the previous reviewer, I did quite a bit of research before buying this drive.
I could not be happier, it is really fast and silent in my LaCie FW800 enclosure (much more than the seagate that originally came with it).
On top of everything, it is very reasonably priced. Overall, an excellent value for money.