Noisy Seagate ST380013AS - continued

[Nomen Nescio]

Have been using the ST380013AS SATA drive 3 weeks now. And it was noisy
from day 1. Can hear the mechanics of the drive with every seek operation.
What's odd is that I have a ST340014A PATA, which is in the same family of
drives. They have the same specifications according to the Seagate data
sheet.

http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda7200.7.pdf

And yet with the ST340014A PATA, I can't hear the drive at all. If it
weren't for the fact that I had it connected and was writing data to it, I
wouldn't even know it was there. That's how quiet it is. But the
ST380013AS SATA is a very noisy drive. I've found a few other postings on
usenet for this drive, so it's not just me or this drive.

I contacted Seagate technical support and asked them why 2 drives with the
exact same accoustic specifications could sound so different. Their
response was "Our SATA drives are not supposed to be noisy. We are using
one right now and it is as quiet as the non-SATA drives." Then they go on
to say that if it's not the power supply I am hearing, to "exchange the
unit through your original place of purchase."

Well that's easy for them to say. The pIace where I bought the drive from
can be real jerks when it comes to returning stuff. Exchanging the drive
for another of the exact same model doesn't seem like a solution, because
after reading several other posts on the ST380013AS, it seems like EVERY
one of them is noisy. Something about the design. Doesn't seem to have
accoustic management enabled or even SUPPORTED. Tried the Seagate utility
to enable accoustic support, and even the IBM/Hitachi. The IBM/Hitachi
tool said the drive didn't support accoustic management. And the Seagate
utility crashed the system. So it's all a lost cause.

Will try to take back the drive and exchange it for a Raptor. Am somewhat
wary of WD drives though, as I bought one last year that developed a
bearing whine after 2 months into operation. Maybe the Raptor's design is
different.

 

[geno_cyber]

Sorry but I don't get it.
If it's not defective why do you want to return it ?
I'm waiting for an answer from Seagate European support to exchange a failing 80GB ST380023AS SATA
which 2 times out of 3 just doesn't power up anymore, but when it powers up it has no bad sectors,
yet. I wrote about it in other threads posted on this same group, btw.
If your drive is still fully functioning and just noisy then keep using it until it develops some
serious issues which is covered under warranty. Until then, just ensure to backup your precious data
to DVD/CD or another HDU. Use it to store data temporarily if you don't trust it. It might just be
that the acoustic management came disabled for that unit but if it works then it's ok.
With 10-23dB Arctic Cooling fans in my PC cases I can hear the click of every HDUs, either Maxtor,
IBM Deskstar or Seagate ones (I actually own 7 HDUs spanned on 3 PCs for now).

 

[Nomen Nescio]

Sorry but I don't get it.
If it's not defective why do you want to return it ?

A drive that is advertised as being quiet but isn't, is defective. Get it
now?

I'm waiting for an answer from Seagate European support to exchange a
failing 80GB ST380023AS SATA
which 2 times out of 3 just doesn't power up anymore, but when it powers up
it has no bad sectors, yet.

I'll sell you mine. Powers up every time. Why do you need to wait for an
answer from Seagate to exchange the drive? Just generate an RMA and send
it back.

Use it to store data temporarily if you don't trust it. It might just be
that the acoustic management came disabled for that unit but if it works
then it's ok.

I don't understand why people can't read. THE DRIVE DOES NOT HAVE
ACCOUSTIC MANAGEMENT!!!! It's not that it isn't enabled or disabled. It
doesn't have the feature at all. The spec sheet for the drive lies when it
says it's quiet. I know what a quiet drive sounds like as I've used quiet
drives before. I have my computer on my desk and I don't want to sit next
to noisy disk drives. And I certainly don't want to wait until the drive
develops problems before I RMA it. That's ridiculous. Why would I want to
use a drive that has questionable reliability to store backup data? That's
even dumber. No, back to the store it goes. Where it goes from there I do
not know. Hopefully back to the engineer who designed the thing,
preferably hitting him on the head HARD! I've typically had very good luck
with Seagate drives, but with this drive they really got it wrong.

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

I don't understand why people can't read. THE DRIVE DOES NOT HAVE
ACCOUSTIC MANAGEMENT!!!!

It's the result of a patent suit Seagate lost, or something like that (I
wasn't paying much attention.) They had to remove the acoustic
management feature from their drives. I think this may have coincided
with the name change from Barracuda V to Barracuda 7200.7.

Google for 'Convolve AND Seagate AND lawsuit'.

 

[J. Clarke]

It's the result of a patent suit Seagate lost, or something like that (I
wasn't paying much attention.) They had to remove the acoustic
management feature from their drives. I think this may have coincided
with the name change from Barracuda V to Barracuda 7200.7.

The most recent court action was a ruling on 1 SEP 04 involving discovery of
certain documents. So Seagate has most assuredly _not_ lost the suit.
Unfortunately the original filing doesn't seem to be online so it's not
clear whether there were any intermediate orders given. Seagate probably
chose to disable the feature pending outcome of the suit to minimize their
risk.

Considering that counsel for the plaintiff seems to have already pissed off
the judge and that so far Convolve has been reluctant to cooperate in the
suit that _they_ brought it doesn't look too good for Convolve.

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

The most recent court action was a ruling on 1 SEP 04 involving discovery of
certain documents. So Seagate has most assuredly _not_ lost the suit.
Unfortunately the original filing doesn't seem to be online so it's not
clear whether there were any intermediate orders given. Seagate probably
chose to disable the feature pending outcome of the suit to minimize their
risk.

Considering that counsel for the plaintiff seems to have already pissed off
the judge and that so far Convolve has been reluctant to cooperate in the
suit that _they_ brought it doesn't look too good for Convolve.

That's very useful, thank you for posting it. I shall have a google.
If you have any interesting links, could you post them, please?