Barracuda 7200.7 sata 160gb noise.

[Jaime]

Isn't that model a 2MB Cache one? If so, maybe that is the difference?

When I ordered my drive yesterday I noticed several sites were selling 2MB
cache drives for MORE money than 8MB cache drives.

When I bought my WD 120GB 2MB Cache HD a few weeks back the 8MB Cache
version was about £25 more but, again I noticed yesterday, the 2MB Cache WDs
were generally more expensive than the 8MB ones.

I think this is simply because they are making and selling more of the 8MB
drives so they work out cheaper.

snip

No thats a sata one hence has 8mb cache,

Jaime

 

[Jaime]

Well I fianlly brought this drive and now wish I hadnt. The idle noise is

nice and quiet, however its very noisy when seaking comapred with the cuda
4's I have which arnt exactly quiet either. Is there any way to make it seak
quiter, is this normal.

Just to update, I have read several reviews and they do not refer to noisy
seeks so either my drive is a different version or I am being very noise
sensitive? Is it possible that my drive has soem kind of fault, or that some
drive where shiped with amm enabled which as far as I can tell this drive
doesnt support.

Thanks

Jaime

 

[J.Clarke]

My server doesn't seem to have the post of which the above is a part, so
I'll comment here. What leads you to believe that the drive cannot do
acoustic management? Being unable to perform a function is not the same
as having the function default to being turned off, and if it ends up in
court I suspect that Seagate's lawyers will eat your lunch on this one.

 

[J.Clarke]

So how does Joe Public gauge whether it exceeds the manufacturers
specs or not? Is everyone supposed to have a decibel meter at hand?

If you are going to court then yes, you should have such a meter,
calibrated, or results from same, with testing performed according
to whatever procedure the drive manufacturer defines for such tests.
The drives aren't rated for "Joe Public thinks it's quiet", they're
rated for a specific sound power level when tested in a particular
manner.

I just built two identical PCs for two friends of mine who work in the
same office. One cannot hear the WD 120GB with 8MB Cache drive in his
PC. The other guy can. Of course it is subjective if accurate
measuring devices aren't used and not many of us have those in our
homes.


J.

 

[John Smith]

All possible. I would send it back.

J.

Just to update, I have read several reviews and they do not refer to noisy
seeks so either my drive is a different version or I am being very noise
sensitive? Is it possible that my drive has soem kind of fault, or that some
drive where shiped with amm enabled which as far as I can tell this drive
doesnt support.

Thanks

Jaime

 

[Jaime]

All possible. I would send it back.
Thanks, I'll give them a ring Monday and get shot of it. Looks like the SATA
120GB cuda V is the way to go.

Thanks

Jaime

 

[Jaime]

Well I fianlly brought this drive and now wish I hadnt. The idle noise
is

Probably the last, maybe compounded by a case that makes it more audible.

It is mounted almost identically to the baracuda 4's and I would say its 4
or 5 times as loud as them (of course thats a complete guess though)

Nope.

Thanks, thats helpful to know, I did think that was probably the case
though.

That might have changed over time. The PATA version
does appear to allow the AMM to be changed, even tho
it doesnt report it as being supported for legal reasons.

Is this the 7200.7? Your not confusing it with the V?

Your problem is finding a ute than can change it with a SATA drive.

Hitatchi disk utility (boot disk thing) finds the drive and reports it as
not having AMM, so looks like it could change it if it though it had it.

Are there any previous discusions on the 7200.7 sata (or the pata) in
regards to AMM that I have missed?

Thanks

Jaime

 

[Rod Speed]

It is mounted almost identically to the baracuda 4's and I would say its 4
or 5 times as loud as them (of course thats a complete guess though)


Thanks, thats helpful to know, I did think that was probably the case
though.


Is this the 7200.7? Your not confusing it with the V?

I'd expect that Seagate would most likely have disabled
AMM the same way with both of them, and thats just not
so obvious because Hitachi's Feature Tool doesnt see
the SATA drives, so it cant be used to enable it etc.

Hitatchi disk utility (boot disk thing) finds the drive and reports it as
not having AMM, so looks like it could change it if it though it had it.

Yes, but clearly it can be changed in the PATA
drives, even if they report that they dont support it.

Checking what they report they can do is a separate issue
to what they do if the command is issued to the drive.

It wouldnt be surprising if Seagate chose the easy way
when purportedly disabling that in the drives once they
decided that there was a patent/royalty problem with it.

Are there any previous discusions on the 7200.7 sata
(or the pata) in regards to AMM that I have missed?

Yes, but that one John listed the link to is much better.

 

[Rod Speed]

If you are going to court then yes, you should have such a meter,
calibrated, or results from same, with testing performed according
to whatever procedure the drive manufacturer defines for such tests.
The drives aren't rated for "Joe Public thinks it's quiet", they're rated
for a specific sound power level when tested in a particular manner.

Most of the first world doesnt run off to a court and line the
pockets of parasite lawyers in the process with something like that.

They have much more practical avenues for small consumer claims like that.

 

[Fred]

Why would a utility from Hitachi provide correct
information about a competing manufacturer's drive?

Presumably because IBM chose to do it that way.

Its always been happy to allow it to be
used on other manufacturer's drives.

 

[Fred]

If you are going to court then yes, you should have such a meter,
calibrated, or results from same, with testing performed according
to whatever procedure the drive manufacturer defines for such tests.
The drives aren't rated for "Joe Public thinks it's quiet", they're rated
for a specific sound power level when tested in a particular manner.

Most of the first world doesnt run off to a court and line the
pockets of parasite lawyers in the process with something like that.

They have much more practical avenues for small consumer claims like that.

 

[J.Clarke]

snip

Any guides as to changing this setting as I can't seem to find much
information about HDPARM.

"man hdparm" or "hdparm --help" should get you enough information to
change the acoustic management setting.

"hdparm -M /dev/hda" (or whatever device the hard disk is--for IDE
drives, Primary Master is hda, slave is hdb, secondary master is hdc,
slave is hdd) should get you the current acoustic management status.
"hdparm -M 255 /dev/hda" should set for maximum performance, "hdparm -M
128 /dev/hda" should set for minimum noise.

Note that the "-M" parameter for hdparm is new and experimental and may
not work with all drives.

 

[J.Clarke]

I am sorry if you take offence but I think that thinking is just
simply anal.

It may be anal, but the courts thrive on such anality.

J.

 

[J.Clarke]

And nothing was said about 'correct' information but rather simply to
change settings.

If it can't even tell you the correct information then how would it be
able to change settings?

Hitachi is not Seagate. Seagate is not Hitachi. They are competing
companies. If Seagate drives are noisy or slow and can't be adjusted
while Hitachi drives can, that is to Hitachi's benefit. So why would
they make a tool that worked with Seagate drives? If the two drives
work identically in some particular regard then the Hitachi tool will
work with both. If Seagate changes the way a particular feature is
implemented then Hitachi has no reason to change their utility
accordingly and every reason to not do so.

So the fact that Hitachi utility does not do whatever you want it to do
with a Seagate drive just tells you that Seagate drives are different
from Hitachi drives.

J.

 

[John Smith]

One last point - what amazed me about the VII I got is that it did not have
that thick rubber sleeve that a V Seagate drive of mine had. Maybe heat is
an issue - I don't know - but I suspect one of those rubber sleeves would
have reduced any noise.

J.

 

[Jaime]

I'd expect that Seagate would most likely have disabled
AMM the same way with both of them, and thats just not
so obvious because Hitachi's Feature Tool doesnt see
the SATA drives, so it cant be used to enable it etc.

The feature tool does see the sata drive, even alows me to change the cache
setting on it and gives me the usual details about the drive including that
it does not support AMM. Any suggestions as for a utility that might work?

Jaime

 

[Jaime]

snip

Always read the spec sheet. For the 7200.7 family it is at
<http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda_7200_7_155
9002_2003_03.pdf>

The data sheet indicates that seek noise in quiet mode is 2.8 Bels for
the 120 and 160 and 2.4 for the smaller drives. In performance mode it
is 3.4 and 3.1, a good deal louder.

I don't think Seagate has a utility for switching modes, but if you can
get hold of a bootable Linux distribution you should be able to use
HDPARM to change from performance mode to quiet mode and once done the
drive should remember the setting.

Any guides as to changing this setting as I can't seem to find much
information about HDPARM.

Jaime

 

[Jaime]

"man hdparm" or "hdparm --help" should get you enough information to
change the acoustic management setting.

"hdparm -M /dev/hda" (or whatever device the hard disk is--for IDE
drives, Primary Master is hda, slave is hdb, secondary master is hdc,
slave is hdd) should get you the current acoustic management status.
"hdparm -M 255 /dev/hda" should set for maximum performance, "hdparm -M
128 /dev/hda" should set for minimum noise.

Note that the "-M" parameter for hdparm is new and experimental and may
not work with all drives.

Thanks, I've just been reading some guides, I guess the big question is
whats SATA support like under linux? As you can probably tell I know very
little about linux so its quite difficult to get to grips with such tools.

Also coincidently I think this will alos work to shut up the noisy hard
disk on my sony vaio laptop that clicks like hell, now all I need for that
is a external floppy or cdrom drive to boot from.

Jaime

 

[Mark M]

UK Law changed on March 31st and if you say something is faulty
the onus is now on the vendor to prove it is not faulty plus

Interesting. Do you have a reference to the law or to the change
because I would like to look up some more about this.

 

[John Smith]

The Citizens Advice have a series of consumer rights pdfs on their website.
Several of them, the one about purchasing from the Internet for example,
mentions this.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_world/consumer_affairs/consumer_fact_sheets_index.htm

They are very handy to quote when getting goods exchanged. One vendor
insisted on me paying for the return of a computer case until I mention the
exact wording of the Law... and pointed out that it was now a criminal
offence... the following day a courier arrived to pick up the case.

J.