? Noisy, perhaps defective Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB IDE ATA133 7200RPM 16MB 9MS FDB

[Sam]

I just got this new hard drive. Imaged my old drive onto this Maxtor.
I noticed it is considerably louder than my WD Caviar SE 200 GB, which
is almost silent.

What I mean by noisy is when it seeks/writes. It's the normal hard
drive noise but amplified considerably. I ran the Maxtor diagnostic
utility and no errors were found. I also ran the burn-in test. When I
ran the seek/write quick test, wow it was really loud. I wish you all
can hear it but when performing other tests it was quite quiet. In
addition, it occasionally makes a faint squealing noise. If anyone
knows of a site where I can post a sound file let me know and I will
record it.

In addition, I have an older 40 GB Maxtor and it is a bit noisy, but
nothing like this. It also doesn't have this faint occasional
squealing noise.

Is the drive defective?

 

[Rod Speed]

I just got this new hard drive. Imaged my old drive onto this Maxtor.
I noticed it is considerably louder than my WD Caviar SE 200 GB, which
is almost silent.

What I mean by noisy is when it seeks/writes. It's the normal hard
drive noise but amplified considerably. I ran the Maxtor diagnostic
utility and no errors were found. I also ran the burn-in test. When I
ran the seek/write quick test, wow it was really loud. I wish you
all can hear it but when performing other tests it was quite quiet.
In addition, it occasionally makes a faint squealing noise. If anyone
knows of a site where I can post a sound file let me know and I will
record it.

In addition, I have an older 40 GB Maxtor and it is a bit noisy, but
nothing
like this. It also doesn't have this faint occasional squealing noise.

Is the drive defective?

Unlikely, some drives are quite noisy and yours is only noisy when seeking.

You may well be able to make it quieter when seeking
by turning the AAM on by Hitachi's Drive Feature Tool.

 

[Sam]

Thanks, that's good.

When using tools such as the Hitachi's Drive Feature Tool, do you
sacrifice performance for quietness?

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks, that's good.

When using tools such as the Hitachi's Drive Feature
Tool, do you sacrifice performance for quietness?

In theory, yes, but I doubt you'd be able to pick the
performance difference in a proper double blind trial.

The short story is that few ever use drives in a way that
you see any effect on real work with the AAM turned on.

 

[Sam]

Rod Speed wrote:
:
:: When using tools such as the Hitachi's Drive Feature
:: Tool, do you sacrifice performance for quietness?
:
: In theory, yes, but I doubt you'd be able to pick the
: performance difference in a proper double blind trial.
:
: The short story is that few ever use drives in a way that
: you see any effect on real work with the AAM turned on.

Rob, I have been reading reviews locally of my drive and everyone seems
to be saying it's very quiet and any noise is hardly noticable. It is
squealing when I'm playing movies of 600 MB in lenght or greater. I am
beginning to thing it is a dud. You?

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Rob, I have been reading reviews locally of my drive and everyone
seems to be saying it's very quiet and any noise is hardly noticable.
It is squealing when I'm playing movies of 600 MB in lenght or greater.

Do the movies have lots of violence in them ? Maybe its horrified ?

I am beginning to thing it is a dud. You?

Unusual that a drive would squeal when retrieving just longer files.

You sure its not just the location of the file on
the drive instead ? Thats much more common.

Post the Everest SMART data, it may well be the drive
recalibrating when its trying to read some parts of the platter.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

Run PowerMax on the drive and see what it says.

 

[Sam]

Rod Speed wrote:
:
:: Rob, I have been reading reviews locally of my drive and everyone
:: seems to be saying it's very quiet and any noise is hardly noticable.
:: It is squealing when I'm playing movies of 600 MB in lenght or
:: greater.
:
: Do the movies have lots of violence in them ? Maybe its horrified ?

That's funny, actually very funny.

: Unusual that a drive would squeal when retrieving just longer files.

: You sure its not just the location of the file on
: the drive instead ? Thats much more common.
:
: Post the Everest SMART data, it may well be the drive
: recalibrating when its trying to read some parts of the platter.
: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181
:
: Run PowerMax on the drive and see what it says.

Will do, in the interim I have ran a partial scan of Spinrite- stopped @
(29.4174%) and this is the info that came back:
ECC CORRECTED Error Count 395757
ECC CORRECTED Minimum 1141
ECC CORRECTED Max 3988
No other reports so far, will run the SMART data and PowerMax and post
the results.