Quiet Drives, Fast Drives - WD, Seagate, Samsung & Hitachi

[J.Clarke]

Hi,

Whilst I hear the WD 120GB Special Edition drives with 8MB Cache are
super fast I also hear they are super noisy and prone to high pitched
whine.

But, I hear some of the newer Seagates, although quiet, are lacking in
performance - 120GB SATA is not that hot so I have read - and people
are beginning to talk about the Samsung drives as being super-quiet.
Anyone have any first hand info on this?

I've got two Samsungs in my Tivo--they seem to be just a hair louder
than the Seagates in my PC. I have another machine with a WD
drive--that drive was noisy at first, but I moved it to a different bay
to change the resonant frequency of the assembly and it quieted right
down. Still not as quiet as the Seagates. At first I thought they had
failed to start.

Also, I hear that the IBM/Hitachis are considered good now but, um,
after hearing about those faulty IBMs a year or so back and the issues
people had with them I have drawn a mental line through buying them
ever again. Did Hitachi over-come the IBM issues?

That's a religious matter. You won't find reliable answers.

 

[John Smith]

Hi,

Whilst I hear the WD 120GB Special Edition drives with 8MB Cache are super
fast I also hear they are super noisy and prone to high pitched whine.

But, I hear some of the newer Seagates, although quiet, are lacking in
performance - 120GB SATA is not that hot so I have read - and people are
beginning to talk about the Samsung drives as being super-quiet. Anyone have
any first hand info on this?

Also, I hear that the IBM/Hitachis are considered good now but, um, after
hearing about those faulty IBMs a year or so back and the issues people had
with them I have drawn a mental line through buying them ever again. Did
Hitachi over-come the IBM issues?

Thanks,


J.

 

[J.Clarke]

Thanks - what Seagates do you have?

Barracuda IV, 40 gig--the 80s are noisier in that series.

J.

 

[J.Clarke]

Thanks Rod,

I am not up to date on these fluid bearing drives - the WDs aren't but
the Seagates are? Using fluids is down to, what exactly, elminate the
whine or to cut down noise generally?

Fluid Dynamic Bearings. Ball and roller bearings have lots of little
bitty pieces that spin around and if any of them is just the slightest
bit out of true or picks up the tiniest bit of crud then they make a
noise. Fluid dynamic bearings have only one moving part, the shaft, or
its attached bushings. They are designed to work with a specific
lubricant that maintains a continuous film in normal operation, hence no
vibration sources and less noise. Further, since there is in normal
operation no metal-to-metal contact they last longer.

Western Digital has a white paper on their site which states that they
are going to go to fluid dynamic bearings on their entire line, but
there's no timetable or list of models so equipped. Nonetheless it does
have a good short description of the technology

 

[John Smith]

Thanks - what Seagates do you have?

J.

I've got two Samsungs in my Tivo--they seem to be just a hair louder
than the Seagates in my PC. I have another machine with a WD
drive--that drive was noisy at first, but I moved it to a different bay
to change the resonant frequency of the assembly and it quieted right
down. Still not as quiet as the Seagates. At first I thought they had
failed to start.


That's a religious matter. You won't find reliable answers.


--

 

[John Smith]

Thanks Rod,

I am not up to date on these fluid bearing drives - the WDs aren't but the
Seagates are? Using fluids is down to, what exactly, elminate the whine or
to cut down noise generally?

J.

 

[John Smith]

Thanks Rod, the whine is an issue for me on a 120GB 2MB Cache WD that I have
so I think I will opt for a Seagate. They have some made with FD motors but
I can find no mention of fluid.

J.

 

[Li'l ol' me]

Hi,

Whilst I hear the WD 120GB Special Edition drives with 8MB Cache are super
fast I also hear they are super noisy and prone to high pitched whine.

But, I hear some of the newer Seagates, although quiet, are lacking in
performance - 120GB SATA is not that hot so I have read - and people are
beginning to talk about the Samsung drives as being super-quiet. Anyone have
any first hand info on this?

Also, I hear that the IBM/Hitachis are considered good now but, um, after
hearing about those faulty IBMs a year or so back and the issues people had
with them I have drawn a mental line through buying them ever again. Did
Hitachi over-come the IBM issues?

I had one of the dodgy 75GXP drives (a 45 gig) and IBM/Hitachi replaced it
with a brand new 60gig 120GXP, even though mine was already 2 years into
it's warranty and they'd just started one year warranties (R.I.P. 3 year
warranties). So despite what someone else said about IBM warranties,
they're OK by me, especially compared to those cheating scumbags at Maxtor
(but that's another story).

 

[John Smith]

Thanks - that's explains alot.

J.

Fluid Dynamic Bearings. Ball and roller bearings have lots of little
bitty pieces that spin around and if any of them is just the slightest
bit out of true or picks up the tiniest bit of crud then they make a
noise. Fluid dynamic bearings have only one moving part, the shaft, or
its attached bushings. They are designed to work with a specific
lubricant that maintains a continuous film in normal operation, hence no
vibration sources and less noise. Further, since there is in normal
operation no metal-to-metal contact they last longer.

Western Digital has a white paper on their site which states that they
are going to go to fluid dynamic bearings on their entire line, but
there's no timetable or list of models so equipped. Nonetheless it does
have a good short description of the technology



--

 

[John Smith]

Thanks for your help all - I ordered a Seagate VII 120GB with 8MB Cache
today. I don't know much about Samsungs of yet, although people say they are
very quiet, and was a bit concerned how reliable they are. A friend has a
Seagate VII and you can barely hear it right next to it.

J.

 

[Li'l ol' me]

"Li'l ol' me" <richie42@***SPAMOFF**eidosnet.co.uk> wrote in message


Hello, "Li'l ol' me":

Please, don't leave us hanging, any longer! Tell us "another story"
about your sour experience(s), with Maxtor.


Cordially,
John Turco <[email protected]>

I've reported this in another thread, somewhere, but this is how it is.

I have a Maxtor drive that is dead. The front of the drive says something
like: Warranty ends: July 03. So I went to the site (in June) and tried to
RMA it. And this date comes up: Warranty expired 18/5/03. Er, Ok.

So I query this with Maxtor, who tell me the date on my drive is the
'general' warranty and their date is the 'individual' warranty. I explained
to them that if I bought some perishable food that was in date (on the
packet) and got food posioning from it, they couldn't turn round and say
that was only the 'general' use-by date and the 'individual' one was two
weeks ago! They weren't impressed.

Surely the 'individual' date is the one on the 'individual' drive. Is this
the worst example of a company trying to worm out of a warranty? I bet if
I'd tried to RMA it last year it wouldn't have said May 2003!

What a crock!

 

[Rita A. Berkowitz]

Surely the 'individual' date is the one on the 'individual' drive. Is
this

the worst example of a company trying to worm out of a warranty? I bet if
I'd tried to RMA it last year it wouldn't have said May 2003!

What a crock!

That's why you should only buy and use Seagate drives, preferably SCSI.
Seagate doesn't play games, they will cross-ship the drive before you even
get yours out the door. Gotta love their service, I do.



Rita

 

[John Smith]

Thanks all for your help and info people... I received a Zalman 7000 today,
have just installed it in my Asus P4P800 Deluxe and, wow, that awful
annoying high pitch whine of the Intel fan has gone but...

I also changed my WD 120GB with 2MB cache for the Seagate VII with 8MB
cache, drive imaged one drive from the other, and the Seagate is both
noticeably faster and, more importantly, quiet. There was a definite
electrical whine with the WD.

All I can hear now is a gentle light humming coming from, I assume, a
mixture of my Sonata PSU fan, Sonata case fan and the Zalman 7000.

Wow - I think I can begin to use my PC more productively now... Now, how
about a nice flat panel to reduce these awful CRT headaches.... ))

Thanks again for the HD advice,


J.

 

[Mark M]

I've got two Samsungs in my Tivo--they seem to be just a hair
louder than the Seagates in my PC. I have another machine with
a WD drive--that drive was noisy at first, but I moved it to a
different bay to change the resonant frequency of the assembly
and it quieted right down. Still not as quiet as the Seagates.
At first I thought they had failed to start.

Which Samsungs so you have?

 

[Danzig Glenn]

I also changed my WD 120GB with 2MB cache for the Seagate VII with 8MB
cache, drive imaged one drive from the other, and the Seagate is both
noticeably faster and, more importantly, quiet. There was a definite
electrical whine with the WD.

I think that if you have bought (it's right in english?sorry..) a WD
with 8mb of cache(like the saegate) it was more faster than any saegate

but for queit win the saegate



For the monitor ...i'm searching too for a good 17 lcd

if you haven't any particular request like high fidelity image and both
good time of responde by pixel the choose can be easy

else it's a trouble (like my case:/ )


Greetings!