Unusually quiet Seagate 7200.7 made-in-China 80G HDD

Sooty · Post by **Sooty** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:22 am

Thanks halbhh for that comparison

I’ve just read Edward Ng’s test of a PATA 7200.7 here and it had noisy seeks! So the distinction made by Tamas between SATA and PATA can’t be 100% absolute. All the quiet 7200.7’s appear to be PATA’s, but not all PATA’s appear to be quiet, as Ed’s turned out not to be. One other thing, the 160gb Ed tested was a ‘Plus’ model. What does the ‘Plus’ signify?

Interesting quotes from Ed’s test.

MikeC: “(EDITOR'S NOTE: Several commercial system integrators that I contacted were of the opinion that AAM is NOT enabled in any 7200.7 drive. Seagate's AAM is the subject of a lawsuit; their disuse of this feature is pending the outcome of the case. However, it appears that, at least until fairly recently, OEM buyers could order large batches of the Seagate drive custom configured to their requirements. This means, for example, that HP or Dell might purchase 20,000 80G Barracuda 7200.7 with AAM permanently enabled. If excess inventory is produced, and that inventory makes it to the grey market, then you'd find AAM enabled 7200.7 drives from a few retailers for a brief period.)”

Ed: “A 40G version of the 7200.7 ( ST340014A) that I used to own seemed far superior to this 160G 7200.7 when it comes to seeks. The seeks of my 40G 7200.7 were virtually inaudible; in fact, I recall writing in the forums that my SP1614N's seeks were louder than that of the ST340014A's. Whether AAM was somehow engaged on that drive I can't say at this point. The drive is no longer in my possession.”

halbhh · Post by **halbhh** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:33 am

Yeah, it looks like there are varied results for 7200.7s, and it's interesting to hear the 40G version of the 7200.7 ( ST340014A) I have is also confirmed virtually silent by someone else. Guess I got lucky. I presumed since I had read reviews back then (more than a year ago) that Seagates were just generally like mine: silent.

Good news on the 250gig 7200.8 Sata. This morning there has been no noticable high-pitched tone.

So I guess it is kinda breaking in. I will update in a couple of weeks (put in it in my calendar). In the meantime, I'm interested in anyone elses experience with the 250Gig 7200.8 Sata.

halbhh · Post by **halbhh** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 8:59 am

at Newegg.

ST340014A I've had a year or more and can never hear is also reported by others to be near silent. So quiet in fact, you can't tell when it's busy without putting your ear against the case. Performance is still within 5-30% of the new 7200 drives of various make depending on application, and very close on overall mixed use like system bootup.

Sooty · Post by **Sooty** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 8:41 am

NicktheNorse wrote:
Tamas wrote:Unfortunately you can't change these factory presets.
If you test your two drives access time you get around 12-13ms with the SATA version and 14-15ms with the normal IDE version.

I have noticed these results in various reviews. Will this difference in access time change the percepted speeds of these hard drives in real world use? or will it just be noticeable in benchmarks?

what real world effect does the 2ms higher time actually have? slower game loading times? slower accessing files? slower copying data etc....

Can anyone answer Nick's query?

halbhh · Post by **halbhh** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 3:09 pm

Well, my new 7200.8 has, as Tom's Hardware review notes, a relatively slower access time. But... the same drive is the top performer on level loads of games, where it is loading a large data file. This is almost certainly due to the high data density of the 133G platters on the 7200.8. Access time matters when the files being loaded are fragmented a lot and the drive has to seek them, instead of the simpler sequential loading of a defragged file. Overall, though, the 7200.8 is generally near the top anyway.
I say get the 7200.8 (or for silence the exact above mentioned model 7200.7) and defragment them periodically.

Ned Slider · Post by **Ned Slider** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 9:51 am

Just an update to this aging thread to say I recently purchased a second 80G 7200.7 ata model and it is equally as quiet as my original one purchased last November. Further, my original drive hasn't deteriorated noise wise by developing any high pitched idle whine like some models can. Needless to say I'm very happy with these seagate 7200.7's -they are definately the quietest drives I've experienced

Regards,

Ned

mrochester · Post by **mrochester** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 11:52 am

How have people managed to get rid of the 'chattering' you get with Seagate drives? My PATA 7200.7 starts making a seek type noise when it's been idle for while. In my books, this makes it totally unacceptable for a quietPC.

Ned Slider · Post by **Ned Slider** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 2:13 pm

mrochester wrote:How have people managed to get rid of the 'chattering' you get with Seagate drives? My PATA 7200.7 starts making a seek type noise when it's been idle for while. In my books, this makes it totally unacceptable for a quietPC.

I've not experienced that with either of my two samples.

mrochester · Post by **mrochester** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:30 pm

Really? If someone could tell me how to get rid of it, I'd love to know!

mcree · Post by **mcree** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 3:07 am

I got a couple of 200GB 7200.7s a few weeks ago. They both make a quiet clicky-clacky kinda-like-seek noise for about a minute, at apparently random intervals, maybe every three to five minutes. Now that I am listening for it, it is quite annoying.

RowanDDR · Post by **RowanDDR** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 1:20 pm

Are you sure your system is actually idle when these noises happen? Maybe its windows doing some "helpful" background indexing or some other helpful service that should probably be disabled?

I'm about to buy a new HD, probablythis one .. not sure if thats one you guys are talking about in this thread?

EDIT BY ADMIN: EMBED LONG URLS PLEASE, SEE HOW THE ONE ABOVE WAS DONE!

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 6:12 pm

er. isn't that the surface scan that these Seagates automatically do after a minute or two of idle? there's other threads on it here, I recall some people saying it went away after a couple months, don't remember if you can simply turn it off somehow. anyways, not what I'm here for.

Just wanted to add that I picked up 2 80GB PATA 7200.7s a few months ago (ST380011A), both had the "product of China" or whatever sticker on the antistatic bags, and both are phenomenal. Only caveat is that while I've owned dozens of drives, I've never owned any other truly quiet 3.5" drives; these two are quieter than most of the laptop drives I've owned as well, though. The drives' idle/seek is comparable to my 3G iPod's drive (while still in the iPod).

mrochester · Post by **mrochester** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 1:56 am

er. isn't that the surface scan that these Seagates automatically do after a minute or two of idle? there's other threads on it here, I recall some people saying it went away after a couple months, don't remember if you can simply turn it off somehow. anyways, not what I'm here for

Yes that is it, the surface scan. I've had the drive for months but it still does it.

tkirmuc · Post by **tkirmuc** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:27 pm

What we hear in recently available Seagate drive is their self-diagnostic. According to Seagate support - it is for our better

.

Quotes:
"The drive is doing an off-line scan which cannot be toggled off. This scan
is similar to SMART but more intense. No firmware changes or upgrades are available for SATA or ATA drives."
"Yes, the Seagate 7200.9 series has the same data protection features."

I know it's intense because I hear it even through Prescot's CPU stock fan! I have several 7200.7/8/9 PATA/SATA drives - they all have that buzzing self-diagnostic. Some units are louder, some quieter, but it's there and my ears hear it (especially when you work in the middle of the night).

So - say goodbye to old noisless Seagate drives (and say hello to Samsungs?).

Thanks God, they are still very reliable and reasonably fast.

MikeMcLarenF1 · Post by **MikeMcLarenF1** » Fri Dec 16, 2005 2:45 am

I don't think Seagate is intentionally pissing us off with the sound. If it was all for the better to remove it of course they would, they realize the amount of complains recieved across their WHOLE lineup and obviously they'd like to have happier customers. But the fact that they're not doing a THING about removing them (which should be relatively easy for them) is a mystery. It's not like any of the new drives share the same design, so WHY do they all have it?? This is like why AMD isn't telling us about its lack of Opteron 144's for retailers. There has to be a reasonable answer, otherwise why wouldn't they want to make more money off us.

XIUYAN1 · Post by **XIUYAN1** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:04 am

three yesrs! i am so late.

Unusually quiet Seagate 7200.7 made-in-China 80G HDD

Silent ST340014A and first update on 7200.8 Sata 250

The Quietest Drive you'll find is $53

Look for overall results I think

Buzzing Seagates