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Seagate Claims New Drive Silent and Fastest

yknott writes "It seems that Seagate just released a virtually silent hard drive. It emits only 2.0 bels while spinning and 2.4 bels while seeking; the human ear can't hear sounds below 2.5 bels. No more grinding sounds! It features Fluid Dynamic Bearings, and has an internal transfer rate of 69.3 Megabytes per second. " I'm currently questing to build a quieter computer - and while I'd love to test this, I will definitely say that Silent Drives I recently bought from New England Digital is awesome - but is rated to only work with 5400 rpms drives.

9 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Re:at every turn by Glytch · · Score: 5

    LEDS softly blinking,
    Yet no hum of cooling fan.
    What evil magic this?

  2. Re:Solid state by rleyton · · Score: 4

    Have a read of The Innovators Dilemma - When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail - One of the main examples used throughout the book is how the hard disk industry is moving very rapidly, but that even innovative companies breaking new ground in the market, and keeping their customers sweet, still fail and die. I don't have my copy with me, but there was an interesting diagram in the first few chapters, showing how solid state disks are catching up, and will overtake hard disks, in the next few years.

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    ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
  3. But I like the noise! by wiredog · · Score: 5
    It lets me know something's happening. The whacka-whacka of the heads seeking. Blinking lights on the panel. Status messages at the console. Kids these days don't know whether the darned thing's on or off!

    Sigh. There are times I really miss Vaxes.

  4. The human ear by chrysalis · · Score: 5

    "the human ear can't hear sounds below 2.5 bels"
    That's totally false. Humans can hear below 1 bel (except babies, older people, and people with ear diseases) . It's approximately twice the level of human breath.

    -- Pure FTP server - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.

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  5. Tech. support by Molina+the+Bofh · · Score: 5

    - Costumer service, how can I help you ?

    - It's this damn drive you sold me. It's broken. I bought it, installed in my computer and it won't boot.

    - Uh, did you partition and format it before using ?

    - No, but I don't need to do it to know it's not working.

    - Why ?

    - Listen, kid, I know what I'm doing. I have experience with computers. I built mine myself. And this drive is dead. It makes no noise. And I just installed it, and, yes, the power cable's on.

    - (thinking) It's going to be a long day.

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    Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
  6. The problem with FDB... by edmudama · · Score: 5

    The problem with FDB motors is they generate about 15-18C more heat in normal operation. You better have monster airflow around the thing if you want to keep the sucker cool.

    Most drives run around 30-35C in normal operation, and will guarantee they work up to mid-50s. (55C is pretty standard)

    Oh, and if your drive *does* overheat, then your FDB motor will start outgassing which will eventually contaminate the media, producing defects and lost data.

    They say they use "quiet" seek algorithms... A quiet seek = slow in most cases, since you get quieter by just not accelerating the heads quite so hard.

    Like the others, I'll believe it when I don't hear it...

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    More data, damnit!
  7. Can't hear it? by kruczkowski · · Score: 4

    Some of you clam that you want to hear the drive spinning.

    Why don't you connect the PC speaker the to HD LED? And if you want to be realy cool, install a knob to control the volume.

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    hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
  8. Solid state by egjertse · · Score: 4
    Why the tinkering with old technology? With the development that the rest of the computer industry undergoes (ref. Moores Law) - why has the development in the HD department been in a state of virtual stand-still? Except for speed and size (and now noise level) there is pretty much nil difference between HDs now and 40 years ago!

    I mean, come on!! It's 2001, and computers still have moving parts? Why not ditch this ancient tech and pour some more $$ into developing affordable solid-state disks?

    1. Re:Solid state by Liquid-Gecka · · Score: 4

      Flash is still EXTREEMLY expensive. Companies like Micron and Samsung are always looks for ways to drop the cost of solid state drives. Currently I have only seen a 4.3G solid state drive as the largest (Sorry.. no link at the moment) and, while it was fast, it was also extreemly expensive. (In the several thousand range.) It may have been quiet, but it sucked power at a far greater rate than any spinning media drive. Solid state sounds good on paper, and for some tasks it is good, but you have to think of this as a one or the other setup..

      Spinning Media vs Solid State
      Cheap vs Expensive (Pretty much no exceptions, no matter what you do silicon wafers are far more expensive than disks)
      Large vs Small (Solid state is still very restricted by speeds/sizes compaired to spinning media)
      Slow vs. Fast (With the right interface, if they both use IDE it really won't help that much)
      Small vs. Large power use (Even in a idle state flash sucks far more current than a motor. 11ma by 128 parts is 1.408a in its IDLE state)
      Loud vs. Quiet (Solid state is VERY quiet.. =)

      So, pick two or three areas that you are concerned with. If you want all the performance of a flash drive, with the cost of a spinning media drive you won't get a very large drive. Or if you want a large drive that is cheap, you won't get a quiet and fast drive.

      You know how the saying goes.. Good, Cheap, Fast... Pick two.