Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA : No AAM support too !

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
DoubleJ
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Apr 23, 2003 2:13 am

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA : No AAM support too !

Post by DoubleJ » Mon Apr 28, 2003 1:41 am

Like the Seagate Cuda V SATA (please read thread: WARNING - no 'quiet seek' for Barracuda V SATA!), Maxtor SATA HDD do not support AAM features too !

Here the reply of Maxtor about the DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA :

"...Unfortunately, we do not have any acoustic management software for any of our SATA drives and these drives are not designed to work with acoustic management software.
...
Kind regards,
Brian TS54
Technical Support Team,
Maxtor Ireland Ltd."

Thanks to Suprise for the information about Convolve patent issue (http://www.convolve.com/pr2000-7-12a.html) with Seagate and Compaq.

It seems to be the same problem with Maxtor. Don't know if the WD Raptor SATA has AAM features or not...
So... no more real silent HDD in the future ??? Or is SATA HDDs supports, unofficially, AAM features ? How to know that ?
Well, HDD manufacturers must find a new technology to reduce the noisy heads issue...

ewat
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Jun 28, 2003 6:15 pm

Post by ewat » Sat Jun 28, 2003 6:29 pm

this truly sucks!

i wonder if anybody has found -any- sata acoustic management utility ;\?

perhaps somebody with the skills should hack them up =)

i currently use a dmax9 120gig sata and yes, the read noise is very loud (idle sound is ok)

Shuriken
Posts: 93
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2003 1:34 am
Location: the Netherlands

Post by Shuriken » Sun Jul 06, 2003 2:04 am

It seems only the new Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 will support AAM.

Unicron
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2003 11:30 pm

Post by Unicron » Sun Jul 06, 2003 2:24 am

This is probably because of the same patent problems that Seagate has. It is bullshit that it isn't designed for AAM support.
They just had to turn AAM of because the can't use it because of the patent

Herb W.
Posts: 113
Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2002 8:35 am
Location: Toronto

Post by Herb W. » Tue Jul 08, 2003 11:00 am

I don't think I'd be too concerned about noise with the SATA DiamonadMax Pro 9 - from a recent review at HotHardware:

"We didn't compare the drive to every disk in our lab but the DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA drive has quieter spindle and read head acoustics than either the Western Digital SE or Barracuda V drives we tested."

They make some other accoustic assessments as well. This looks like the best combination of relative quiet and high (I mean REALLY high) performance out there right now... can't wait till the 160 gig hits Toronto so I can build a RAID array with 'em.

aphonos
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 954
Joined: Thu Jan 30, 2003 1:28 pm
Location: Tennessee, USA

Post by aphonos » Tue Jul 08, 2003 1:02 pm

Unicron wrote:This is probably because of the same patent problems that Seagate has. ,snip>
They just had to turn AAM of because the can't use it because of the patent
Speculation. I've got a call into the president of Convolve (at his invitation) to find out the status of the lawsuits with Seagate and Compaq and to see if they have licensed the Quiet Seek et. al. technologies to other manufacturers. I'll report back after we talk.
Herb W. wrote:I don't think I'd be too concerned about noise with the SATA DiamonadMax Pro 9 - from a recent review at HotHardware:

"We didn't compare the drive to every disk in our lab but the DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA drive has quieter spindle and read head acoustics than either the Western Digital SE or Barracuda V drives we tested."

They make some other accoustic assessments as well. This looks like the best combination of relative quiet and high (I mean REALLY high) performance out there right now... can't wait till the 160 gig hits Toronto so I can build a RAID array with 'em.
1. I'm always suspicious of acoustic assessments that come from a source other than SPCR unless they substantiate them with some numbers or test methodology. Otherwise I'm a victim of someone's subjective assessment of noise. Caveat: the hothardware review gives more methodological info than most. :)
2. They didn't have AAM turned on for their Seagate 'Cuda V testing, so a V with AAM would be projected as the quieter of the two drives. Though at a performance cost.
3. "Seek (sound power: bel) 3.5" is not all that quiet and with no AAM, you won't be able to turn it down. Depends on your noise level tolerance.
4. It does seem like the DM+9 SATA is a step in the right direction.

Looks like some adventurous and wealthy soul at SPCR will need to get one and give us their feedback, especially with the drive suspended.

Keel
Posts: 137
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2003 9:45 pm
Location: NJ, USA
Contact:

Post by Keel » Tue Jul 08, 2003 1:30 pm

OMG!!! I LOVE HDD SEEK SOUND...can't get enough of it. The click-click rumble-rumble just sounds really pleasant to me. I guess I'm just special.

My love for HDD seek noises can be compared to my love for A1 steak sauce, I'll put it on anything.

aphonos
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 954
Joined: Thu Jan 30, 2003 1:28 pm
Location: Tennessee, USA

Post by aphonos » Tue Jul 08, 2003 1:56 pm

Keel wrote:OMG!!! I LOVE HDD SEEK SOUND...can't get enough of it. The click-click rumble-rumble just sounds really pleasant to me. I guess I'm just special.

My love for HDD seek noises can be compared to my love for A1 steak sauce, I'll put it on anything.
What's your point?

GamingGod
Posts: 2057
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 9:52 pm
Location: United States, Mobile, AL

Post by GamingGod » Wed Jul 09, 2003 11:53 am

I dont mind seek noise either. I just hate idle whine.

Zhentar
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 918
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 4:00 pm
Location: Madison, WI, USA

Post by Zhentar » Wed Jul 09, 2003 1:44 pm

I have a DM+9 (PATA) and I find it pretty good; almost no audible whine and the click not to be too bad. I'm gonna try enabling AAM with the Hitachi feature tool later. I don't like seek noise, but it can be useful to know what my computer is doing....

If anyone cares to send my folding farm a barracuda 5 or a 7200.7, I'll do a careful comparison :)

pingu666
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 739
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm
Location: swindon- england :/
Contact:

Post by pingu666 » Thu Jul 10, 2003 1:16 pm

well i got a 7200.7 and a dm9 pata, and well the seagate owns the maxtor for noise. seagate is pretty much silent, a smidge of intermitent idle whine. dm9 on spin up and down makes alot of odd noises, and sounds like a fan (airflow woosh). seaking, again seagate by alot, ok maxtor isnt suspened but its way louder, dryer sound. seagate is like its in liquid and very quiet :)
7200.7 is 80gig 1 platter vs 160gig 2 platter dm9

pingu666
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 739
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm
Location: swindon- england :/
Contact:

Post by pingu666 » Thu Jul 10, 2003 1:19 pm

ps they was run on my via rig, which i can make temporary completly silent by stopping all fans, maxtor 25db claims i think are valid tho, my amd rig is noiser :[ ( in which the maxtor resides)

M@rtin
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2003 7:29 am

Post by M@rtin » Sun Oct 19, 2003 4:49 am

I'm sure this has been reported before, but I've just run the Hitachi Feature Tool on my Maxtor 160Gb SATA drive and it works perfectly! The seek noise was getting quite annoying, now it is barely audible with the AAM set midway between performance and silence :)

Post Reply