do decoupled drives die from the wobble ?

srolesen · Post by **srolesen** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 3:06 pm

i've noticed my top drive makes a spinup noise, then a click and soon after another spinup noise. it's suspended useing rubber bands and i noticed it wobbles, so does the 3 other drives in my system suspended in the same way. I'd guess the wobble is about 1/25 of a milimeter.

i've looked in a few pc's where the harddrives are mounted directly to the chassis, and though the chassis was wobbeling/vibrating some when i looked at the harddisks there was no wobble.

the reading head of the harddrives is held in place by floating over the spinning harddrive platter floating 1/200'000 of a milimeter over the platter.
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ ... eight.html

so does suspended harddrives die from the wobble wearing out the plate bearing, or does it shake the head so much it eventually starts to crash with the platter ?

spookmineer · Post by **spookmineer** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 4:06 pm

It has been discussed a little while ago:
WD guy on hard drive suspension: "It's horrible!"

Perhaps, suspending it from both above and below (with tension from both sides) will end any wobble.

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 4:23 pm

i've noticed my top drive makes a spinup noise, then a click and soon after another spinup noise. it's suspended

I have the exact same thing in a Solo. It's a WDC and the two Samsungs don't do this. I don't know why.

srolesen · Post by **srolesen** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:31 pm

spookmineer wrote:It has been discussed a little while ago

oops, i didnt see that, sorry.

"Perhaps, suspending it from both above and below (with tension from both sides) will end any wobble"
it's allready suspended like that, i used strong clothing elastic.
the worst wobbler is a maxtor 6L300S0.
the two with the least wobble are wd AAKS drives, with am enabled.

Greg have you had any smart warnings yet?

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:11 pm

srolesenm, I have no SMART data at all in Speedfan with my setup. It doesn't list my HDs. There are three of them. Can't figure out why. I have on other computers. So the answer is no. Speedfan is the only software I have ever used that had SMART.

twoscoreandfour · Post by **twoscoreandfour** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:50 pm

If you are running Vista you need to run Speedfan as Admnistrator. Howeve it only show's the temps I think, not full SMART data. For that you can use SiSoft's Sandra or Everest

srolesen · Post by **srolesen** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 11:10 am

turns out i didnt have AAM enabled on the wobbling drive, it's enabled now. and the drive is vibrating less, and 3 degrees cooler

i used hddscan to enable AAM instead of maxtors old tool wich didnt work.
http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/ ... 2-HDDScan/

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:00 pm

I downloaded Sandra and I don't see anything that would indicate a problem. It is true I don't know much of what those things mean, but some are obvious with "error" in their name or titles such as Uncorrectable Sector Count.

srolesen · Post by **srolesen** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:37 am

Greg F. wrote:I downloaded Sandra and I don't see anything that would indicate a problem. It is true I don't know much of what those things mean, but some are obvious with "error" in their name or titles such as Uncorrectable Sector Count.

if you have AAM enabled Sandra should report it as a performance inhibitor and suggest you to turn it of. so probably havent got it enabled

Gojira-X · Post by **Gojira-X** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:42 am

Sppedfan will show SMART Data for all hdds so long as they are connected to the controllers it is monitoring. You have to click the "Run as administrator" box in the application properties for sppedfan.

I haven't yet figured how to run autostart speedfan and have it run as administrator on startup.

srolesen · Post by **srolesen** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:24 pm

Gojira-X wrote:I haven't yet figured how to run autostart speedfan and have it run as administrator on startup.

maybe you can make a shortcut in startup folder, right-click, choose properties and then Compatibility tab. Check box for "Run this program as an administrator".

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:36 am

Although I do not bother with suspending drives anymore , I have had a Western Digital 36gb Raptor suspended in an old P4 for 4 or more years without an issue The machine is no longer in use but I loaned it to my daughter while we repaired hers and after six months sitting , before which it ran for it's entire life 24/7 there were no issues with the drive ,or anything else for that matter ( the drive has been suspended with 10mm surgical rubber tube (the same as used on Spear guns - but smaller diameter ) the rubber is showing signs of perishing but the drive is not . It worked for me but I no longer bother because it is just too much trouble when you have multiple machines .

MoJo · Post by **MoJo** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:54 am

I have been running drives suspended for years, at least 20 of them. I have never had any problems and my benchmark results look normal. I once did a before and after benchmark and found no difference between Antec P182 rubber grommets and suspension.

Terje · Post by **Terje** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 1:23 pm

with the small movements we are talking about here, I am wondering if the suspension is good or bad for the drive.

Consider:
- The high spinning dish does after all introduce a significant stability to the drive thanks to the centripetal force. Try to hold a spinning drive in your hand and rotate it and you will feel it (don't do it with a drive with important data on it

)
- The suspension does after all also isolate the drive from vibrations from the outside such as other drives, someone walking past the computer or jumping next to it if it is placed on somthing like a wooden floor or even it you just bump into it with your leg

Also notice that the head is suspended from the disc by the air pressure caused by the spinning disk. If you have tried to open a hard disk and played with the internals, you would probably notice that the heads are actually pressed pretty hard against the drive when its not spinning, so I suspect the air pressure keeping the heads away from the platter is quite strong. It takes more than a little woble to make them crash, it takes a hard shock. Some real G's.

I should not argue with people from WDC about this, but I doubt their statement is true outside of the lab.

I suspect suspension isolate the drive from vibrations that can hit it hard (a leg hitting the computer) rather than damage it.