Real performance hit from acoustic management?

[Bert Hyman]

I noticed that my new Maxtor drive had acoustic management enabled
(mid-range, 0xC0) and I spent the afternoon trying to find a utility to
turn it off, finally finding one from Hitachi.

I've got 3 HDs, a CDRW and a DVDRW plus about 5 fans in my machine, so a
little actuator noise isn't going to be noticed.

But, is there a noticeable or measurable performance hit in normal
operations with varying degrees of silencing?

 

[Arno Wagner]

I noticed that my new Maxtor drive had acoustic management enabled
(mid-range, 0xC0) and I spent the afternoon trying to find a utility to
turn it off, finally finding one from Hitachi.

I've got 3 HDs, a CDRW and a DVDRW plus about 5 fans in my machine, so a
little actuator noise isn't going to be noticed.

But, is there a noticeable or measurable performance hit in normal
operations with varying degrees of silencing?

Depends. With a good filesystem and reasonable buffer-cache in the
OS, you will not notice a subjective difference in desktop usage.

Arno

 

[Peter]

I noticed that my new Maxtor drive had acoustic management enabled

(mid-range, 0xC0) and I spent the afternoon trying to find a utility to
turn it off, finally finding one from Hitachi.

I've got 3 HDs, a CDRW and a DVDRW plus about 5 fans in my machine, so a
little actuator noise isn't going to be noticed.

But, is there a noticeable or measurable performance hit in normal
operations with varying degrees of silencing?

Normal operations? That depends what YOU consider as "normal operations".
Best, if you come with a simple test of "normal operations" by yourself and
time it.
First with AM, secondly without AM. Then compare results.
Judge yourself. "Noticeable" to me, might not be "noticeable" to you; or
other way round.

 

[Rod Speed]

I noticed that my new Maxtor drive had acoustic management
enabled (mid-range, 0xC0) and I spent the afternoon trying to
find a utility to turn it off, finally finding one from Hitachi.

I've got 3 HDs, a CDRW and a DVDRW plus about 5 fans in
my machine, so a little actuator noise isn't going to be noticed.

But, is there a noticeable or measurable performance hit
in normal operations with varying degrees of silencing?

You wont be able to pick it in a double blind trial unless you are doing
something very head movement intensive in your 'normal operations'
and even then, the difference wont be dramatic with modern drives.

The much slower head movements you get with optical drives
is noticeable, but hard drives never get anything like that slow.