I've been lamenting the loss of lower power, slower drives since the Bigfoot went away. Slower storage started reappearing as second and third tier storage for datacenters, so it was only a matter of time til we got some I guess.
WD Green Power - a new quiet 3.5" hdd standard
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shadestalker
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The market should welcome the arrival of the Quantum Bigfoot^W^W WD GP drives.
I've been lamenting the loss of lower power, slower drives since the Bigfoot went away. Slower storage started reappearing as second and third tier storage for datacenters, so it was only a matter of time til we got some I guess.
I've been lamenting the loss of lower power, slower drives since the Bigfoot went away. Slower storage started reappearing as second and third tier storage for datacenters, so it was only a matter of time til we got some I guess.
Interesting indeed. The whitepaper seems to imply though it has to fully ramp up to 7200rpm before access is possible again (granted anything else would be very difficult to do). Certainly this implies access times in the order of seconds after the drive has entered this mode. I wonder how that compares to access times after the drive has been put in standby mode?MikeC wrote: Low rpm idle, which is what the WD Greenpower PR implied, is actually implemented here: The drive slows to 4200rpm!
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Nice Marmot
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DreamKiller
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RedAE102
- Friend of SPCR
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I've had my 1TB WD GreenPower drive for a little over a month, and I'm thrilled with it. I'm now using it as my primary drive, with a 40GB partition for Windows XP, and the rest for storage of video, music, and pictures. The GP drives represent exactly what I was looking for, and the SPCR philosophy in general: Giving up a little bit of that cutting edge performance for huge gains in power consumption and noise. The fact that it's also the least expensive 1TB hard drive on the market just makes the deal that much sweeter.
Thank you, Western Digital, for listening to a market others have ignored for quite a while!
Thank you, Western Digital, for listening to a market others have ignored for quite a while!
I mourned the end of 5400RPM 3.5" drives way back when. They (usually) easily had heat, power, and vibration advantages over their 7200RPM+ counterparts. These drives can easily provide multiple video streams over GbE which is all a lot of people who buy drives of this much capacity are looking for. It's awesome to see their return. I'd love to see the other manufacturers follow suit, without that 5400-7200RPM BS confusion.
-Evan
-Evan
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Devonavar
- SPCR Reviewer
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Unlikely to happen. USB provides a maximum of 0.5A @ 5V. Two cables gives you 1A = 5W. We know the drive consumes more than this in regular use.LAThierry wrote:Since this 3.5" drive has such low power, it would be very nice to have a USB HD that includes it. Maybe we could finally get rid of those ugly power bricks, simply giving it power with a double USB cables...
For that matter, some notebook drives have issues with dual cables, though this usually has more to do with USB ports being shared than the drives themselves.
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dhanson865
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http://www.wdc.com/en/company/releases/ ... F6C62FF%7D
http://www.storagereview.com/guide/mediaDensity.html discusses "how they do that" aspects of density.
From another section you get the statement
Now the big question is when will the green power get 320GB platters and how will we tell the difference when it comes time to buy one? For older drives with 8MB caches the new 320GB platters will be paired only with 16MB caches so that'll be a clue. For the Green Power series I think the capacities will make it obvious.
I'm assuming there will be a 600GB, 625GB, or 640GB model eventually (depending on marketing and manufacturing decisions) and that would be my target item as I prefer single and double platter models and they don't currently have a single platter green power model.
I'd like to point out here the existing specs of the 250GB platter models.
N.O. Shock is Non-operating shock, higher is better.
For all items other than capacity and shock lower is better.
Vibration was listed in specs as Operating - Random - 10-300 Hz, 0.00x g² / Hz by comparison a WD Caviar SE16 250GB lists Virbration as Operating - Random - 7-500 Hz (0.00221 g² / Hz)
For those who don't know. Increased platter density means faster performance on top of more capacity.320 GB-per-platter technology will be deployed across WD's desktop, enterprise, CE and external hard drive product lines, including additional capacity points, throughout this calendar year. [2008]
http://www.storagereview.com/guide/mediaDensity.html discusses "how they do that" aspects of density.
From another section you get the statement
areal density ... [has] an influence on both positioning and transfer performance
Now the big question is when will the green power get 320GB platters and how will we tell the difference when it comes time to buy one? For older drives with 8MB caches the new 320GB platters will be paired only with 16MB caches so that'll be a clue. For the Green Power series I think the capacities will make it obvious.
I'm assuming there will be a 600GB, 625GB, or 640GB model eventually (depending on marketing and manufacturing decisions) and that would be my target item as I prefer single and double platter models and they don't currently have a single platter green power model.
I'd like to point out here the existing specs of the 250GB platter models.
Code: Select all
WD Caviar® GP Series
Cap N.O. Shock Idle dBA Seek0 dBA Seek3 dBA R/W Watts Idle Watts Standby Watts Sleep Watts Vibration
WD5000AACS 500GB 300G 24 29 25 6.0 3.3 0.97 0.97 0.004 g²
WD7500AACS 750GB 250G 25 27 25 7.5 4.0 0.30 0.30 0.008 g²
WD10EACS 1TB 250G 25 27 25 7.5 4.0 0.30 0.30 0.008 g²For all items other than capacity and shock lower is better.
Vibration was listed in specs as Operating - Random - 10-300 Hz, 0.00x g² / Hz by comparison a WD Caviar SE16 250GB lists Virbration as Operating - Random - 7-500 Hz (0.00221 g² / Hz)
On tomshardware they tested this drive and mentioned:
"WD goes down this path with its Caviar GP drives, as the firm adjusts the rotation speed anywhere between 5,400 RPM and up to 7,200 RPM dynamically for each model."
Is this proven to be incorrect info now?
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/11/wd_caviar_gp/
"WD goes down this path with its Caviar GP drives, as the firm adjusts the rotation speed anywhere between 5,400 RPM and up to 7,200 RPM dynamically for each model."
Is this proven to be incorrect info now?
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/11/wd_caviar_gp/
As much as I'd like to say Tom's is wrong, if you read up to the last page of the review they clarify that "t can run at speeds between 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM, which WD defines at the factory, to save energy whenever high performance isn't needed", so the word "dynamically" is kinda misleading. Basically it's WD saying that they might release 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives in the same series, without necessarily saying that they're changing anything.
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JazzJackRabbit
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floffe wrote:As much as I'd like to say Tom's is wrong, if you read up to the last page of the review they clarify that "t can run at speeds between 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM, which WD defines at the factory, to save energy whenever high performance isn't needed", so the word "dynamically" is kinda misleading. Basically it's WD saying that they might release 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives in the same series, without necessarily saying that they're changing anything.
So basically what they are saying that you're not guaranteed to get 5400RPM model? That's a huge bummer. 5400RPM and all that follows with it (lower noise, lower heat consumption, lower heat dissipation) is the only appeal of this drive.
The Tomshardware article had it wrong, yes. Anything wrong left over in the article was missed by them when they went back and edited it to be less wrong. I believe they tried to clarify using the company line, rather than just outright saying the truth:
These drives are always 5400rpm no matter what, the end.
These drives are always 5400rpm no matter what, the end.
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defaultluser
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It's nice to see the return of performance 5400 RPM drives. It seems with every iteration that 7200 RPM drives get hotter and nosier, and the only ones that are remotely quiet sacrifice performance. I've used quiet 5400 RPM drives in the past (like Seagate's U6), but the performance hit was huge.
With the GP, you get a little less performance, but a lot less noise and heat!
Although I have not used a 5400 RPM drive as my boot/game drive since 1999, I think this one is deserving of a shot. This is also the first drive I've seen in years to make me want to leave Seagate (the last one was the IBM 75GXP, that was a mistake). After the poor acoustics of my 7200.10, I'm ready to drop Seagate forever, and the 3-year warranty and low noise make that attractive.
Hell, if performance isn't what I want it to be, I'll treat it as a stopgap, then make it a data drive once I can replace it with a cheap SSD.
With the GP, you get a little less performance, but a lot less noise and heat!
Although I have not used a 5400 RPM drive as my boot/game drive since 1999, I think this one is deserving of a shot. This is also the first drive I've seen in years to make me want to leave Seagate (the last one was the IBM 75GXP, that was a mistake). After the poor acoustics of my 7200.10, I'm ready to drop Seagate forever, and the 3-year warranty and low noise make that attractive.
Hell, if performance isn't what I want it to be, I'll treat it as a stopgap, then make it a data drive once I can replace it with a cheap SSD.
It's the ideal HTPC drive. I've got one in my PC along with a dual digital HDTv tuner card (so I do things like watch and record at the same time). It doesn't feel any slower than any previous drive i've had. I've never heard of the hard drive being the limiting factor for watching and recording HDTV.LorenzoS wrote:I've been considering a 500GB WD5000AACS GreenPower drive for an HTPC build. Will this drive be fast enough to record and play multiple High Def TV recordings simultaneously? That would be the most performance I would need.
The drive used in the Apple TV is a 4200rpm 40gb 2mb cache laptop drive so I'd imagine a 5400rpm 250GB (platter) 16mB cache desktop drive will be ok
Aris: "As far as i know, no pc hard drive has ever had dynamic rotation speed control. If its a 7200rpm drive, then it always spins at 7200rpm."
MikeC: "Yup, that's right -- at least until the new Hitachi P7K500 -- which is described as having dynamic rotation speed control, even if only in idle."
What? Are you not aware of APM (Advanced Power Management) implemented on all IBM/Hitachi drives since 75GXP? Even SPCR reviews of drives like 7K250, 7K400, 7K500 and 7K1000 mention the low-rpm idle state.
If P7K500 can't operate at reduced rpm while heads are loaded and drive is active, there's nothing new in P7K500 that wasn't available in previous half a dozen generations of IBMtachi HDDs... except for constant small improvements that have little-by-little made Hitachis more power efficient.
P7K500's power consumption claims are quite low and makes me wonder how could regular minor improvements achieve such an improvement if it still operates at 7200rpm when in active state and 4200...4500rpm when idle.
mczak: "The whitepaper seems to imply though it has to fully ramp up to 7200rpm before access is possible again (granted anything else would be very difficult to do). Certainly this implies access times in the order of seconds after the drive has entered this mode. I wonder how that compares to access times after the drive has been put in standby mode?"
From my experience, accelerating from low-rpm mode to 7200rpm takes roughly half the time required to spin-up from 0rpm. Also it causes less wear and tear.
From unload idle to operational, time required is less than a second. Maybe half a second. It's a long time compared to regular seek, even full seek from extreme end to another, but it's understandable as heads have to be loaded slowly from the ramps to prevent head crashes.
LAThierry: "Since this 3.5" drive has such low power, it would be very nice to have a USB HD that includes it. Maybe we could finally get rid of those ugly power bricks, simply giving it power with a double USB cables..."
Devonavar: "Unlikely to happen. USB provides a maximum of 0.5A @ 5V. Two cables gives you 1A = 5W. We know the drive consumes more than this in regular use."
15...30W during spin-up... most of which from +12V line. USB only supplies 5V. Of course you can produce 12V from 5V with a power converter consisting of switching circuitry (DC->AC) + transformer and rectifier circuit. This surely isn't 100% effective so you had to pull around 50W from your USB ports in order to spin up a 3.5" HDD. Having a Y-cable isn't enough... you need a split USB-cable to connet to 20 USB ports... or at least 10 port if we're optimistic and assume they could supply a short overcurrent spike. Still, could motherboard really supply the maximum current (or even double amperage) to all USB ports simultaneously? I have my doubts.
Tom'sHW: "WD goes down this path with its Caviar GP drives, as the firm adjusts the rotation speed anywhere between 5,400 RPM and up to 7,200 RPM dynamically for each model."
"Dynamically" as in "with no prior nor posterior notification of changes that are made". Nothing new... it's just the way how WD (mis)handle their customers.
floffe: "As much as I'd like to say Tom's is wrong, if you read up to the last page of the review they clarify that "t can run at speeds between 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM, which WD defines at the factory, to save energy whenever high performance isn't needed", so the word "dynamically" is kinda misleading."
Well, if WD uses words "whenever high performance isn't needed", then WD is actually implying dynamic rpm. But in reality, WD marketing people are just delusional and suffering from some kind of god-complex. They think they have the right to decide when high performance is needed. It's kinda like the Seagate AAM dispute. Seagate's official statement says (even though they don't say it so frankly): Seagate drives that are locked to performance state quiet enough and don't need AAM control. And some of Seagate drives are locked to quiet mode. They on the other hand perform well enough and don't need AAM control. Customer needs no control. Customer doesn't even need to be aware. Seagate has spoken - end of discussion.
How is WD's policy any different? Well, they do still offer higher degree of control but the policy on releasing RELEVANT information, they are even worse than Seagate. And by relevant I mean:
- rpm
- platter count
...you know, the stuff that really matters. I really couldn't care less if it's 1.5 Gbit/s or 3.0 Gbit/s or RAID or non-RAID. Those have very little meaning compared to physical parameters of the drive.
MikeC: "Yup, that's right -- at least until the new Hitachi P7K500 -- which is described as having dynamic rotation speed control, even if only in idle."
What? Are you not aware of APM (Advanced Power Management) implemented on all IBM/Hitachi drives since 75GXP? Even SPCR reviews of drives like 7K250, 7K400, 7K500 and 7K1000 mention the low-rpm idle state.
If P7K500 can't operate at reduced rpm while heads are loaded and drive is active, there's nothing new in P7K500 that wasn't available in previous half a dozen generations of IBMtachi HDDs... except for constant small improvements that have little-by-little made Hitachis more power efficient.
P7K500's power consumption claims are quite low and makes me wonder how could regular minor improvements achieve such an improvement if it still operates at 7200rpm when in active state and 4200...4500rpm when idle.
mczak: "The whitepaper seems to imply though it has to fully ramp up to 7200rpm before access is possible again (granted anything else would be very difficult to do). Certainly this implies access times in the order of seconds after the drive has entered this mode. I wonder how that compares to access times after the drive has been put in standby mode?"
From my experience, accelerating from low-rpm mode to 7200rpm takes roughly half the time required to spin-up from 0rpm. Also it causes less wear and tear.
From unload idle to operational, time required is less than a second. Maybe half a second. It's a long time compared to regular seek, even full seek from extreme end to another, but it's understandable as heads have to be loaded slowly from the ramps to prevent head crashes.
LAThierry: "Since this 3.5" drive has such low power, it would be very nice to have a USB HD that includes it. Maybe we could finally get rid of those ugly power bricks, simply giving it power with a double USB cables..."
Devonavar: "Unlikely to happen. USB provides a maximum of 0.5A @ 5V. Two cables gives you 1A = 5W. We know the drive consumes more than this in regular use."
15...30W during spin-up... most of which from +12V line. USB only supplies 5V. Of course you can produce 12V from 5V with a power converter consisting of switching circuitry (DC->AC) + transformer and rectifier circuit. This surely isn't 100% effective so you had to pull around 50W from your USB ports in order to spin up a 3.5" HDD. Having a Y-cable isn't enough... you need a split USB-cable to connet to 20 USB ports... or at least 10 port if we're optimistic and assume they could supply a short overcurrent spike. Still, could motherboard really supply the maximum current (or even double amperage) to all USB ports simultaneously? I have my doubts.
Tom'sHW: "WD goes down this path with its Caviar GP drives, as the firm adjusts the rotation speed anywhere between 5,400 RPM and up to 7,200 RPM dynamically for each model."
"Dynamically" as in "with no prior nor posterior notification of changes that are made". Nothing new... it's just the way how WD (mis)handle their customers.
floffe: "As much as I'd like to say Tom's is wrong, if you read up to the last page of the review they clarify that "t can run at speeds between 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM, which WD defines at the factory, to save energy whenever high performance isn't needed", so the word "dynamically" is kinda misleading."
Well, if WD uses words "whenever high performance isn't needed", then WD is actually implying dynamic rpm. But in reality, WD marketing people are just delusional and suffering from some kind of god-complex. They think they have the right to decide when high performance is needed. It's kinda like the Seagate AAM dispute. Seagate's official statement says (even though they don't say it so frankly): Seagate drives that are locked to performance state quiet enough and don't need AAM control. And some of Seagate drives are locked to quiet mode. They on the other hand perform well enough and don't need AAM control. Customer needs no control. Customer doesn't even need to be aware. Seagate has spoken - end of discussion.
How is WD's policy any different? Well, they do still offer higher degree of control but the policy on releasing RELEVANT information, they are even worse than Seagate. And by relevant I mean:
- rpm
- platter count
...you know, the stuff that really matters. I really couldn't care less if it's 1.5 Gbit/s or 3.0 Gbit/s or RAID or non-RAID. Those have very little meaning compared to physical parameters of the drive.
I didn't mention in previous post that I've had a 1TB variant for a few months now. I can verify that it's is very quiet and likely completely masked in any system they are integrated into, providing some means of decoupling and intelligent placement. It probably wouldn't be obtrusive when hard-mounted to a regular system but most of us don't use computers that could be considered mainstream.
My sample vibrates a bit... about the same as my MaXLine II (which is also 5400rpm and with 4 platters but ball-bearings). Obviously WD doesn't make the nasty whine... and luckily it doesn't have bad sectors either. I was a bit disappointed with the vibration but that was probably because of too high expectations and not due to the drive itself. My 7K400 (5-platter) vibrates less when it's running at ~4500rpm... but that is lower rpm than that of WD's.
I haven't listened that closely to the drive lately as it's noise is now drowned under the noise of 7K250 and 7K400 in my server/cruncher/HTPC... which is not too quiet anymore. (I might consider buying more of these WDs so that I can retire the noisier Hitachis to offline back-up duty. That way I would benefit from all the changes I did to make the computer quiet in the first place.)
From what I remember about the noise, prior to installing it into the case (I powered it up from a fanless power brick) the idle noise was very low but a bit jerky. The jerkiness was most apparent when the drive was spinning up from stop and it reminded me of my 2.5GB Bigfoot ...except for volume which was a hundred times lower and the lack of more constant bearing whine that wasn't present in the background. Or maybe I should call it growl as 3600rpm Bigfoot is incapable of whining. It's simply too slow for it. But at least it didn't make any high-pitched squeals as it spinned up. My Hitachis make that. They also squeel when in low-rpm idle. Two of them running in low-rpm next to each other may cause a nasty psychoacoustic effect.
Overall, WD GP is the quietest drive right after my 2.5" Samsung HDD. And it doesn't trail the Samsung that much either. Considering the difference in capacity (120GB vs 1000GB), performance and price-per-GB, I would consider WD GP a winner and use 2.5" HDD is capacity is absolutely not needed (i.e never use several of them to reach higher capacity but rather use a single GP locally, or one 2.5" locally and a separate server in another room).
My P80 80GB is holding the third place and naming the fourth would be more difficult... and pretty pointless because I don't consider any of them worth recommending. (7K250 & 7K400: high turbulent noise in operational rpm, electrical squeel in low-rpm mode; WD3200JB: alternating hissing noise, turbulent high-pitched hiss related to actuator arm position; Maxtor: more pure tone than Hitachi, about as noisy, some of my samples also exhibit electric whine, run pretty darn hot; Samsung PL40: electric whine and vibrates like crazy; + lots of other drives which are not only obsolete but very noisy as well)
I hope other manufacturers would offer 5400rpm variants as well. It may be a bit unlikely, though. I'm happy as long as at least WD continues to supply them (but I'd hope they'd be more honest with their marketing material). And I hope they continue to improve it even further. 5400rpm drives phased out due to manufacturers' unwillingness to invest on cheaper low-rpm segment. Maxtor was the last one to offer 5400rpm alternatives but they continued to supply them equipped with obsolete ball-bearings.
Edit: 4200rpm -> 3600rpm. Bigfoots are slow.
My sample vibrates a bit... about the same as my MaXLine II (which is also 5400rpm and with 4 platters but ball-bearings). Obviously WD doesn't make the nasty whine... and luckily it doesn't have bad sectors either. I was a bit disappointed with the vibration but that was probably because of too high expectations and not due to the drive itself. My 7K400 (5-platter) vibrates less when it's running at ~4500rpm... but that is lower rpm than that of WD's.
I haven't listened that closely to the drive lately as it's noise is now drowned under the noise of 7K250 and 7K400 in my server/cruncher/HTPC... which is not too quiet anymore. (I might consider buying more of these WDs so that I can retire the noisier Hitachis to offline back-up duty. That way I would benefit from all the changes I did to make the computer quiet in the first place.)
From what I remember about the noise, prior to installing it into the case (I powered it up from a fanless power brick) the idle noise was very low but a bit jerky. The jerkiness was most apparent when the drive was spinning up from stop and it reminded me of my 2.5GB Bigfoot ...except for volume which was a hundred times lower and the lack of more constant bearing whine that wasn't present in the background. Or maybe I should call it growl as 3600rpm Bigfoot is incapable of whining. It's simply too slow for it. But at least it didn't make any high-pitched squeals as it spinned up. My Hitachis make that. They also squeel when in low-rpm idle. Two of them running in low-rpm next to each other may cause a nasty psychoacoustic effect.
Overall, WD GP is the quietest drive right after my 2.5" Samsung HDD. And it doesn't trail the Samsung that much either. Considering the difference in capacity (120GB vs 1000GB), performance and price-per-GB, I would consider WD GP a winner and use 2.5" HDD is capacity is absolutely not needed (i.e never use several of them to reach higher capacity but rather use a single GP locally, or one 2.5" locally and a separate server in another room).
My P80 80GB is holding the third place and naming the fourth would be more difficult... and pretty pointless because I don't consider any of them worth recommending. (7K250 & 7K400: high turbulent noise in operational rpm, electrical squeel in low-rpm mode; WD3200JB: alternating hissing noise, turbulent high-pitched hiss related to actuator arm position; Maxtor: more pure tone than Hitachi, about as noisy, some of my samples also exhibit electric whine, run pretty darn hot; Samsung PL40: electric whine and vibrates like crazy; + lots of other drives which are not only obsolete but very noisy as well)
I hope other manufacturers would offer 5400rpm variants as well. It may be a bit unlikely, though. I'm happy as long as at least WD continues to supply them (but I'd hope they'd be more honest with their marketing material). And I hope they continue to improve it even further. 5400rpm drives phased out due to manufacturers' unwillingness to invest on cheaper low-rpm segment. Maxtor was the last one to offer 5400rpm alternatives but they continued to supply them equipped with obsolete ball-bearings.
Edit: 4200rpm -> 3600rpm. Bigfoots are slow.
I'm using Seagate 1TB drives because I get them from a friend at seagate. They are far from quiet and out of the 3 in my server, 1 died within a month. I'm still trying to get him to get me another. Oh well, I'm happy enough with 2.75TB for now. (2 1TB Seagate drives and one 750 that I actually bought cause it was so cheap it was practically free) Right now I'm wishing I had a friend at WD.
(2 1TB Seagate drives and one 750 that I actually bought cause it was so cheap it was practically free) Right now I'm wishing I had a friend at WD.The quietest drive is truly the one that doesn't work at all
Not much power draw either...
Recent reliability reports on retailer sites range from atrocious to horrendous. I don't think I've seen comments on drives that uniformly bad since the IBM Deathstar.
Recent reliability reports on retailer sites range from atrocious to horrendous. I don't think I've seen comments on drives that uniformly bad since the IBM Deathstar.
storagereview review
Didn't see this posted, so for those who want another take, check out StorageReview's review ( Link http://www.storagereview.com/1000.sr). They compare the 1TB WD CaviarWD10EACS , Seagate Barracuda ES.2, and Hitachi 7K1000. The review also provides data on the 750GB Seagate and Caviar and 150GB Raptor for reference.
Not surprisingly, WD's offering is identified as the quietest they've every measured or listened to.
Z
Not surprisingly, WD's offering is identified as the quietest they've every measured or listened to.
Z
For reasons not clear to me, the "enterprise" RE2 (WD1000FYPS) is currently selling in the UK for nearly £30 *less* than the WD10EACS - in fact, it's nearly as cheap in terms of GB/£ as the 500GB drives currently occupying the sweet spot.
I'm aware of the RE2's TLER RAID optimisation, but are the drives otherwise mechanically identical (they're all marketed as Green Power), and is there any reason *not* to get the RE2 for ordinary desktop use, and go out for a nice vindaloo curry with the change?
/edit: oops, missed this thread on exactly the same subject...
I'm aware of the RE2's TLER RAID optimisation, but are the drives otherwise mechanically identical (they're all marketed as Green Power), and is there any reason *not* to get the RE2 for ordinary desktop use, and go out for a nice vindaloo curry with the change?
/edit: oops, missed this thread on exactly the same subject...
Last edited by nick705 on Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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martinreed22
- Posts: 43
- Joined: Mon May 05, 2003 9:31 am
- Location: UK
I must've had bad luck with my 5000aacs since it's write and read sounds are sharper and louder than any of the Samsung 501LJ I have had.
But this is only when I use the drive as a bootdrive so I had to remove Vista from it and make a second partition on the Samsung instead for dualbooting XP 64 and Vista 64.
But as a media/download drive it's perfect. Idle noise is very low.
But this is only when I use the drive as a bootdrive so I had to remove Vista from it and make a second partition on the Samsung instead for dualbooting XP 64 and Vista 64.
But as a media/download drive it's perfect. Idle noise is very low.
Hi,
I've got a question about the following line in the review:
I contacted WD and they said to unplug the data cable and if the drive continues to make the noise it's a problem with the drive otherwise it's a problem with the cable. With the data cable unplugged it doesn't click but I have tested several cables / sata ports and the noise happens with all of them.
I made a recording (users.on .net/~slick0/hddclick.mp3 , sorry, it wouldn't let me direct link as it is my first post) of the click and was wondering if this sound and/or experience was consistent with the one in the review or if there is a problem with the drive itself.
Thanks.
I've got a question about the following line in the review:
I recently purchased a WD7500AACS and it makes a random clicking noise, it seems to happen more when the drive is being accessed or just after it has been accessed.Besides idle and seek noise, the Green Power produced one more noise: A pair of sharp clicks whenever the heads were loaded or unloaded (that is, whenever the drive went into or came out of idle mode).
I contacted WD and they said to unplug the data cable and if the drive continues to make the noise it's a problem with the drive otherwise it's a problem with the cable. With the data cable unplugged it doesn't click but I have tested several cables / sata ports and the noise happens with all of them.
I made a recording (users.on .net/~slick0/hddclick.mp3 , sorry, it wouldn't let me direct link as it is my first post) of the click and was wondering if this sound and/or experience was consistent with the one in the review or if there is a problem with the drive itself.
Thanks.