When I assembled my A64 3000+ system last summer, I went with a Samsung 1614 160GB drive based partially upon the recommendations here. I also went with a Samsung DVD-ROM, based upon things I'd read elsewhere about the quietness of those.
Well, I've only been disappointed with two of the components I put into my system, and they are the two Samsung components described above. The DVD-ROM is exceptionally loud at times, but at least it still works, whereas the 1614 drive is now in the process of dying, experiencing many paging errors and several resulting bad system crashes that have both destroyed some important files and made the system far too unstable for me to rely upon anymore.
So I need a new HD ASAP, and I won't touch another Samsung with a ten foot pole (this is the first time I've ever had such problems with a HD). I'm thinking of something like a Seagate 250GB ST3250823A UATA 8MB 7200RPM HDD (don't want to mess with SATA for my primary drive just yet). I want the drive I choose to be a good mix of quietness and high performance ... would this be a good choice, or are there others I should consider? (Please don't tell me to give a Samsung another try. I'm already facing a lengthy system rebuild because of this Samsung drive, and I'm 0 for 2 in satisfaction with their components to date, so there's no way I'm going to rely upon them in the future.)
Thanks in advance!
- David
Replacing a dying Samsung HD ... recommendations?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
I am very happy with the new Western Digital Hard drives with the Fluid Dynamic Bearings (FDB). They are very quiet, especially if you use any kind of grommets or soft mounting. But you have to check the manufacturing date to be sure you get FDB, bucasue they usually have the same model numbers as the old drives.
CompUSA has a sale on the new WD 160GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drives for $69.99 after mail-in-rebate. When I was in a local CompuUSA store, the manufacturing dates of these drives was very recent (March 2005) so they are the FDB versions.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product ... 7&pfp=cat3
MicroCenter also has a sale on WD 120GB IDE hard drives. The price after MIL is $39.95, which might be good if you wanted 2 drives, one of which you use to backup imoprotant files.
BTW, since you have a Sonata, if you use the following hard drive mounting it will reduce the noise of any hard drive:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=10450
CompUSA has a sale on the new WD 160GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drives for $69.99 after mail-in-rebate. When I was in a local CompuUSA store, the manufacturing dates of these drives was very recent (March 2005) so they are the FDB versions.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product ... 7&pfp=cat3
MicroCenter also has a sale on WD 120GB IDE hard drives. The price after MIL is $39.95, which might be good if you wanted 2 drives, one of which you use to backup imoprotant files.
BTW, since you have a Sonata, if you use the following hard drive mounting it will reduce the noise of any hard drive:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=10450
Sorry for the belated followup ... I've been busy for several days and haven't even had my computer on since writing the original post.
I bought a WD 160GB Cavier SE today, as per the one recommendation in this thread. I hope to try it out within the next couple of days (or this weekend at the latest) ... hopefully it will prove to be at least somewhat quiet.
As to the drive temp, unfortunately I don't know ... it seems to me that there was some sort of a problem that prevented me from accessing any HHD temp sensor, but right now I cannot recall exactly why I was thwarted when I attempted to check it. However I don't think the Samsung's problem was simply heat-related, because within a few weeks of my original purchase the drive started making strange, scratchy seek noises during and after boots on occasion (but as soon as the machine was turned on, if it made noises at all). I think I posted a query about the odd seek noises in these forums, in fact - and I seem to recall not getting any responses at all to that one (oh well).
I bought a WD 160GB Cavier SE today, as per the one recommendation in this thread. I hope to try it out within the next couple of days (or this weekend at the latest) ... hopefully it will prove to be at least somewhat quiet.
As to the drive temp, unfortunately I don't know ... it seems to me that there was some sort of a problem that prevented me from accessing any HHD temp sensor, but right now I cannot recall exactly why I was thwarted when I attempted to check it. However I don't think the Samsung's problem was simply heat-related, because within a few weeks of my original purchase the drive started making strange, scratchy seek noises during and after boots on occasion (but as soon as the machine was turned on, if it made noises at all). I think I posted a query about the odd seek noises in these forums, in fact - and I seem to recall not getting any responses at all to that one (oh well).
Belated followup: if anyone still cares, I just found a program that could read this information. It obviously can't tell me what the drive temp has been all along, but currently the temp sits at 33C, even during heavy drive access, and nothing about the configuration has changed since shortly after the drive was installed.ilh wrote:What was the operating temperature of your HDD over this period?
(I haven't changed drives yet because I've been sick for the last week.)
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NeilBlanchard
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Hello David:
There are several things that can cause premature HD death: dirty AC power is one; is the machine on a UPS? Another is a faulty IDE data cable -- is it an IDE drive and is the cable in good shape? Did you use a "round" cable? These can be pretty lousy...
What is your case? Do you have a fan on the intake/blowing on the HD, or otherwise have good air flow over the HD? Does your room have AC and does it get hot during the summer?
There are several things that can cause premature HD death: dirty AC power is one; is the machine on a UPS? Another is a faulty IDE data cable -- is it an IDE drive and is the cable in good shape? Did you use a "round" cable? These can be pretty lousy...
What is your case? Do you have a fan on the intake/blowing on the HD, or otherwise have good air flow over the HD? Does your room have AC and does it get hot during the summer?
Thanks for responding. I'll respond to your questions in order:
My machine has been on a good-quality APC UPS since day one.
I do use a round cable for the purposes of airflow improvement, but it's a high quality one (read: expensive). I find this idea interesting, though ... certainly a lousy cable could cause data corruption, but actually causing physical damage to the hard drive is something I've not heard of. The S.M.A.R.T. data for the hard drive showed 8 write errors, which is about the same number of times that a failed write on a paging operation has caused the machine to crash. It also showed a massive number of spin up retries, but I don't know if that's even meaningful, because HUTIL still claimed the drive to be healthy. The drive was making strange physical noises at times, more and more as the problems increased, and in particular there was a certain squeaking seek noise it made at times just before the machine would crash.
The case is an Antec Sonata, unmodified. There is not a fan blowing on the drive, but as I said in my last post, the drive temp was not inordinately high even when running a benchmark (at least I don't believe that 33C should be a problem).
I do have AC, and don't think environmental heat is the issue, especially since most of the machine's use to date has been during a Minnesota fall and winter (not exactly the tropics).
There is one possible culprit that I know of for triggering or at least exacerbating the Samsung's problems - right after I built the machine, the original case fan starting having intermittant failures. This did result in two brief instances where the machine got hotter than normal for a few minutes before I noticed that the fan had seized. I thereafter replaced the case fan and resolved that issue. I wouldn't expect that to kill a healthy drive, personally, but suppose that those two brief episodes of extra heat (one of which was minor, but the machine did get quite warm for a few minutes the other time) might have been enough to push a borderline drive over the edge.
One other thing related to the round cable (because I imagine some might point to that as a cause): in the last few days, the Samsung drive had gotten to the point where after the machine had run for a while, the BIOS wouldn't even see the drive anymore until the machine had cooled off for several hours. I'd checked the cable connections, and they were tight and solid. I've since put in the new WD drive, using the same IDE cable, and it's functioned flawlessly thus far (currently reinstalling software with high hopes and crossed fingers).
Thanks for your input. I'm still dead set against the idea of buying another Samsung drive, but more information and experiences are always good.
My machine has been on a good-quality APC UPS since day one.
I do use a round cable for the purposes of airflow improvement, but it's a high quality one (read: expensive). I find this idea interesting, though ... certainly a lousy cable could cause data corruption, but actually causing physical damage to the hard drive is something I've not heard of. The S.M.A.R.T. data for the hard drive showed 8 write errors, which is about the same number of times that a failed write on a paging operation has caused the machine to crash. It also showed a massive number of spin up retries, but I don't know if that's even meaningful, because HUTIL still claimed the drive to be healthy. The drive was making strange physical noises at times, more and more as the problems increased, and in particular there was a certain squeaking seek noise it made at times just before the machine would crash.
The case is an Antec Sonata, unmodified. There is not a fan blowing on the drive, but as I said in my last post, the drive temp was not inordinately high even when running a benchmark (at least I don't believe that 33C should be a problem).
I do have AC, and don't think environmental heat is the issue, especially since most of the machine's use to date has been during a Minnesota fall and winter (not exactly the tropics).
There is one possible culprit that I know of for triggering or at least exacerbating the Samsung's problems - right after I built the machine, the original case fan starting having intermittant failures. This did result in two brief instances where the machine got hotter than normal for a few minutes before I noticed that the fan had seized. I thereafter replaced the case fan and resolved that issue. I wouldn't expect that to kill a healthy drive, personally, but suppose that those two brief episodes of extra heat (one of which was minor, but the machine did get quite warm for a few minutes the other time) might have been enough to push a borderline drive over the edge.
One other thing related to the round cable (because I imagine some might point to that as a cause): in the last few days, the Samsung drive had gotten to the point where after the machine had run for a while, the BIOS wouldn't even see the drive anymore until the machine had cooled off for several hours. I'd checked the cable connections, and they were tight and solid. I've since put in the new WD drive, using the same IDE cable, and it's functioned flawlessly thus far (currently reinstalling software with high hopes and crossed fingers).
Thanks for your input. I'm still dead set against the idea of buying another Samsung drive, but more information and experiences are always good.