My experience with Seagates - IDE 7200.7 & SATA 7200.7

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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xxkrnxstylezxx
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My experience with Seagates - IDE 7200.7 & SATA 7200.7

Post by xxkrnxstylezxx » Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:34 am

I'm not writing a review or anything, but I thought I'd just share my feelings.

I had a 160GB IDE 7200.7 for more than a year. I have to say, they were very quiet (in my experience), didn't make any whining noises, and noise at seek was understandable. I needed extra space so I went with another Seagate, a 200GB SATA this time. Well, I've only had it on for a few hours, but it seems much more noticeable than the IDE version. Even when idle, it seems to spin faster every 2 seconds (I can feel stronger vibration at certain moments) and seek noise is much more pronounced. It is sharper, deeper, louder, etc. And it is also a few degrees higher than the IDE. It isn't too bad, but it isn't as good as the first one I had.

I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but I thought I'd share this. Sorry if I wasted your time. 8)

xxkrnxstylezxx
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Post by xxkrnxstylezxx » Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:47 am

Hmm let me try to explain the difference in seek noise....

IDE - A mouse squeeking (It's higher and softer, harder to hear and to notice)

SATA - A crow cawing (It's lower and tougher and rigid and a little louder. It is easy to hear even when you're not trying to)


Hope you guys like my analogy.

perplex
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Post by perplex » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:28 am

try suspension? :?

frostedflakes
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Post by frostedflakes » Fri Jul 08, 2005 7:36 am

IIRC, some manufacturers ship their SATA drives with more aggressive AAM settings. This was probably done in the early days of SATA to make it appear that SATA drives had better performance (even though the only real difference was the higher bandwidth, which didn't really affect anything, because ATA 133 spec. wasn't even close to being fully utilized).

Unfortunately I don't believe the AAM settings can be changed with the 7200.7 series. So decoupling of some sort will probably be neccessary if you want to keep the drive.

xxkrnxstylezxx
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Post by xxkrnxstylezxx » Fri Jul 08, 2005 10:55 am

Hm...what do you mean by decoupling?

mattthemuppet
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Post by mattthemuppet » Fri Jul 08, 2005 11:13 am

decoupling/ suspension is essentially installing the hard drive so it's not in firm contact with the case (for example, by being bolted into a metal drive bay). As most of the vibration from spinning and seeks is transmitted to the case and amplified by the case sides when the drive is hard mounted, by stopping that vibration being transferred from the drive to the case you cut out a huge amount of vibration = quieter :)

there are a whole load of options (there's a sticky thread in here somewhere) including: laying the drive on foam, hanging it by stretchy elastic cord, sandwiching it within 2 lumps of aluminium etc Each has it's pros and cons, it really just depends what's to hand and what options your case offers you.

I suspended my 7200.7 IDE using 3 lots of elastic cord threaded through my 3.5in drive bay. By twisting them from == to >-< you can slide the drive in the middle and it hangs there quite securely. The drive was pretty quiet anyway, however now I can't hear it even when defragging unless I stick my ear next to the case inlet.

hope that helps!
matt

xxkrnxstylezxx
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Post by xxkrnxstylezxx » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:56 pm

Ooh yeah, thanks. I don't think that'll help the SATA too much. It's louder than you'd think...

badbadtz560
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Post by badbadtz560 » Fri Jul 08, 2005 7:23 pm

I once had an sata seagate... as soon as i turned the comp on.. i turned it back off, and exchanged it back to newegg for two sata samsungs :D... I don't think there's anything taht you can do to get rid of that horrible sound... atleast to any acceptable point

xxkrnxstylezxx
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Post by xxkrnxstylezxx » Fri Jul 08, 2005 8:04 pm

Hmm...

Would a Seagate 250GB 7200.8 IDE be quieter than the SATA? I might exchange it then...

xxkrnxstylezxx
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Post by xxkrnxstylezxx » Fri Jul 08, 2005 8:12 pm


Slidax
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Post by Slidax » Fri Jul 08, 2005 8:59 pm

what i think of both drives (SATA only)
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... 252#193252

BTW elastic suspension works well
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=8240

xxkrnxstylezxx
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Post by xxkrnxstylezxx » Fri Jul 08, 2005 9:56 pm

Hmm I see....thanks for the input

I don't know whether to go with a Seagate 250GB 7200.8 or a Samsung SP2014N 200GB IDE or stay with the SATA for the same price....

I like the extra space of the Seagate but I also like the quietness of the Samsung. And I know Seagates are reliable but I'm not sure about Samsungs (never used them). This is quite a dilemma....

Slidax
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Post by Slidax » Fri Jul 08, 2005 10:36 pm

well unless you are suspending the seagates (or some other form of dampening) they will be noisy.
From memory the samsungs have a decent warrenty so they are also a good option.

Of course it all depends if you will be doing any modifications to your case (i.e suspension)

halbhh
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Seagate 250Gig SATA Zero Vibration

Post by halbhh » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:51 am

Slidax wrote:well unless you are suspending the seagates (or some other form of dampening) they will be noisy
From memory the samsungs have a decent warrenty so they are also a good option.

Of course it all depends if you will be doing any modifications to your case (i.e suspension)
Ya'll can read my topic thread started 8/1/05 for details, but at least my 250Gig 7200.8 Seagate has no vibration, and until we hear otherwise we expect that to be generally true of this model. My case is extremely amplifying of vibrations (got rid of cpu fan and one hard drive because of minor vibration they produced).

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