Problem with wd5000aaks too much noise

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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Mariosxania
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:13 pm
Location: Greece

Problem with wd5000aaks too much noise

Post by Mariosxania » Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:20 pm

High guyz i am a new member and this is my first post.I bought 3 days ago a wd5000aaks hdd and it is too much noisy wehn seeking(iddle is totally silent).I didn't try setting aam lower but is this improving the whole situation?
Also could you plz tell me if sasmsung 500 hdd is silent beacuse i am thinking to buy it.

P.S=sorry for my english i am form greeve so i don't know the language well enough.

justlnluck
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Location: California

Post by justlnluck » Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:39 pm

Hitachi is king right now.

line
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Post by line » Sat Feb 09, 2008 5:31 pm

Hello Mariosxania and welcome to SPCR. :)

Yes, AAM can definitely lower seek noise on your drive. It made a noticeable difference with a WD1600AAJS drive I bought last year.

If the drive is hard-mounted inside the case you can also consider suspending it. The sticky thread can give you some ideas to go with.

lor77
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Location: Hellas

Post by lor77 » Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:35 am

And yes the SAMSUNG HD501LJ is more quite than the WD in my opinion.
Not so pronounced seeks.

Mariosxania
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:13 pm
Location: Greece

Post by Mariosxania » Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:01 pm

Does it worth buying SAMSUNG HD501LJ.I wiil only buy it if is silent otherwise i will keep my wd5000aaks(i can't concetrate with that noise).If i enable aam how much performance i lose?

line
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Post by line » Mon Feb 11, 2008 1:16 am

Enabling AAM is not an on/off thing. You can select from a scale between "best acoustics" and "best performance" and see what works best for you. If you click the "Test" button, you can see in real time how access time is affected.

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/d ... de_208.pdf (p. 11, 12)

I can't speak in numbers about performance loss, but yes, if you go all the way to "best acoustics" you'll experience slower application performance, although STR (sustained transfer rate, as in ghosting a drive) will remain unaffected AFAIK.

lor77
Posts: 205
Joined: Sun Sep 03, 2006 2:08 am
Location: Hellas

Post by lor77 » Mon Feb 11, 2008 4:13 am

You can keep the WD drive suspended in order to decrease the seek noise abit,and set the aam for lower acoustics.Or you can try to exchange it with the samsung drive.

Mariosxania
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:13 pm
Location: Greece

Post by Mariosxania » Mon Feb 11, 2008 12:47 pm

How do i set aam?

line
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Post by line » Mon Feb 11, 2008 1:04 pm

I do it with Hitachi Feature Tool. It is a DOS application and you need to boot to DOS to run it. You can download a bootable floppy or CD-ROM image that contains the tool here:

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Alternatively, you can download Ultimate Boot CD (a bootable CD-ROM image) that includes this tool and run it from there. That's what most folks do, actually. That CD contains a number of other useful utilities like memory and HDD diagnostic software.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com

Another way is to use the Windows application HDDScan. I haven't tried it myself, though.

http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/ ... 2-HDDScan/

plympton
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Re: Problem with wd5000aaks too much noise

Post by plympton » Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:21 am

Mariosxania wrote:High guyz i am a new member and this is my first post.I bought 3 days ago a wd5000aaks hdd and it is too much noisy wehn seeking(iddle is totally silent).I didn't try setting aam lower but is this improving the whole situation?
Also could you plz tell me if sasmsung 500 hdd is silent beacuse i am thinking to buy it.

P.S=sorry for my english i am form greeve so i don't know the language well enough.
Mariosxania,

I just pulled a WD5000aaks from my HTPC last night and replaced it with a Samsung 501lj, and even though I had AAM turned on to its lowest, the seeks just drove me nuts. Also, the drive was about 5oC hotter than the Samsung drive, so it was a win-win.

The Samsung is pretty slow, but that only really matters when doing lots of file copies, etc. For everyday work, you'll never notice. Especially since I boot off of a 5400rpm 2.5" drive, NOTHING could be slower than that! :-)

The WD drive made me crazy, so it's now a backup drive in my office where it can do no harm. :-)

-Dan

Mariosxania
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:13 pm
Location: Greece

Post by Mariosxania » Tue Feb 12, 2008 10:35 am

Ok thanks for the answer plympton.Samsung does not make no sound at all?

plympton
Posts: 229
Joined: Sun Mar 14, 2004 11:40 am

Post by plympton » Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:50 pm

Mariosxania wrote:Ok thanks for the answer plympton.Samsung does not make no sound at all?
Sure, it makes noise, but not the clicking noise of seeks that the WD drive makes.... it's just a purring away most of the time.

-Dan

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