Hard drive preformance

H

half_pint

Anyone know of a good site that compares different hard drive (IDE)
preformance, ie speed and noise?
I am particularly concerned about noise, which manufacturers have
reputations for noisy or quiet drives

Thanks.
 
S

Shep©

Anyone know of a good site that compares different hard drive (IDE)
preformance, ie speed and noise?
I am particularly concerned about noise, which manufacturers have
reputations for noisy or quiet drives

Thanks.
My old IBM is quiet.My Maxtor is silent.
My 10 penn'th.



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S

Synapse Syndrome

half_pint said:
Anyone know of a good site that compares different hard drive (IDE)
preformance, ie speed and noise?
I am particularly concerned about noise, which manufacturers have
reputations for noisy or quiet drives


BTW, there are two tyoes of noise that HHDs make.

The noise of the platters spinning is reduced by Fluid Dynamic Bearings FDB.
Most companies offer drives with these.

The sound of the heads seeking seems to increase the faster the drive is,
generally, from my experience.

ss.
 
H

half_pint

Synapse Syndrome said:
BTW, there are two tyoes of noise that HHDs make.

The noise of the platters spinning is reduced by Fluid Dynamic Bearings FDB.
Most companies offer drives with these.

The sound of the heads seeking seems to increase the faster the drive is,
generally, from my experience.

Yes thats the noise I headt its sounds lilke a small car changing gear
(badly).
The spinning noise is negligible or at least a more pleasant noise.
 
P

Paul Murphy

half_pint said:
Anyone know of a good site that compares different hard drive (IDE)
preformance, ie speed and noise?
I am particularly concerned about noise, which manufacturers have
reputations for noisy or quiet drives

Thanks.
In terms of speed/performance the storage review site is a goodie :
http://storagereview.com . Something I don't like about them is that they
don't always reflect models available in Europe and also don't provide noise
level tests while the drive heads are seeking/reading/writing - i.e. not
just under idle. Often the idle noise is just the tip of the iceberg with
seek noise far exceeding this so idle noise readings don't show the whole
picture. I remember reading a review of several different drives including a
Samsung P80 drive like my own. Only idle noises were shown and the Samsung
wasn't the quietest but then under seek conditions its noise level only
increases very slightly whereas all the others had much more pronounced
noise increases (I also have the Maxtor drive listed in the same review and
it sounds like there's a little jack hammer in there during seeks - hardly
fair). I've had several Samsung drives now and they've all been
exceptionally quiet - particularly during activity. With a 3 year warranty
they're a great choice for home theatre PCs but the only problem is they
currently only go up to 160 GB.

Paul
 
S

Synapse Syndrome

Paul Murphy said:
In terms of speed/performance the storage review site is a goodie :
http://storagereview.com . Something I don't like about them is that they
don't always reflect models available in Europe and also don't provide noise
level tests while the drive heads are seeking/reading/writing - i.e. not
just under idle. Often the idle noise is just the tip of the iceberg with
seek noise far exceeding this so idle noise readings don't show the whole
picture. I remember reading a review of several different drives including a
Samsung P80 drive like my own. Only idle noises were shown and the Samsung
wasn't the quietest but then under seek conditions its noise level only
increases very slightly whereas all the others had much more pronounced
noise increases (I also have the Maxtor drive listed in the same review and
it sounds like there's a little jack hammer in there during seeks - hardly
fair). I've had several Samsung drives now and they've all been
exceptionally quiet - particularly during activity. With a 3 year warranty
they're a great choice for home theatre PCs but the only problem is they
currently only go up to 160 GB.


Yeah, Samsung seems to be the best buy at the moment. They're so cheap in
brown box packages at PC World and they get good reviews.

ss.
 
K

kony

In terms of speed/performance the storage review site is a goodie :
http://storagereview.com . Something I don't like about them is that they
don't always reflect models available in Europe and also don't provide noise
level tests while the drive heads are seeking/reading/writing - i.e. not
just under idle. Often the idle noise is just the tip of the iceberg with
seek noise far exceeding this so idle noise readings don't show the whole
picture. I remember reading a review of several different drives including a
Samsung P80 drive like my own. Only idle noises were shown and the Samsung
wasn't the quietest but then under seek conditions its noise level only
increases very slightly whereas all the others had much more pronounced
noise increases (I also have the Maxtor drive listed in the same review and
it sounds like there's a little jack hammer in there during seeks - hardly
fair). I've had several Samsung drives now and they've all been
exceptionally quiet - particularly during activity. With a 3 year warranty
they're a great choice for home theatre PCs but the only problem is they
currently only go up to 160 GB.


Did you try adjusting the Maxtor's seek noise with their ACM
utility? If ACM is off the drive may be a lot louder seeking.
 
P

Paul Murphy

Did you try adjusting the Maxtor's seek noise with their ACM
utility? If ACM is off the drive may be a lot louder seeking.

The default way its shipped the drive has no accoustic management enabled -
hence its noisey. There was also no ACM software for this particular model
of drive on Maxtors website (was there for other drives though), so I sent
an email to Maxtor and they sent me software with instructions needed to
hush it up. Having run that to make it as quiet as possible (this was all
several weeks ago), I can state that the drive still isn't quite as quiet as
the stock standard Samsung p80 during general use (I haven't needed to do a
thing to that in terms of ACM) but it is much improved in terms of noise - I
understand this has some impact on performance though so there's a trade
off.

Paul
 

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