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Hard Drives Evaluated for Noise, Heat and Performance
Sander Sassen writes "Ever wondered what harddisks offer the best combination of performance and low noise? Hardware Analysis evaluates all recent 5400 and 7200-rpm harddisks and focuses on noise, heat production and overall performance. Their results show that 7200-rpm spindle speed is no guarantee for high-performance and that low-noise and high-performance is not an impossible combination with some harddisks."
If you've ever played Dungeon Siege, you'll be familiar with the occasional sluggish framerate drop when you get near a new area, and the game starts dynamically loading the artwork and terrain resources for that area, giving the game its contiguous feel. Now I understand that SCSI hard drives have the ability to do non-blocking reads and writes, meaning that the CPU is able to keep processing while waiting for data from the hard drive. If what I think is true, then if I had a SCSI drive and played Dungeon Siege, the sluggishness when it loads new data would not occur, since the game would keep playing while it took a few seconds to load the data in the background.
If this isn't true... then wouldn't it be cool if hard drives could do this? Having games get sluggish every time they have to load new artwork resources from disk is annoying as hell.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
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Equally surprising was the performance of Western Digital's 400AB and 800AB, both 5400-rpm harddisks showed exceptional performance on par with all but the fastest 7200-rpm harddisks. If you're looking for an affordable, high-performance and yet silent 5400-rpm harddisk either of these will fit your needs exactly.
I have setup many systems (mainly Dells) that ship with Western Digital HDs. A large number of those drives failed very soon thereafter. When Dell came to replace the drives, they were replaced with Maxtors.
Also, here is a snippet from Gibson Research regarding their SpinRite product.
Note: We no longer purchase Western Digital drives, even though their retail point of sale packaging is pretty and the drives are inexpensive. We decided that reliability is more important than a pretty box and saving a few bucks, so we've switched over to Quantum drives exclusively, and have been having much better luck ... so far.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
Why not develop a speedy drive that can slow itself down if it starts to generate too much heat or if it's not being used (as opposed to shutting it completely off)? I assume it's probably much easier to create a single speed motor than a variable speed one, but what would the disadvantages be?
;)
Of course there may not be any true advantages to such a thing either, although I tend to think that if could run about 4 times faster than normal for 10 second while it loads a single big file it might be worth it. There's also a chance that these alredy exist and I'm just out of the loop
Earth, 1956 AC, IBM 305 RAMAC:
The 350 Disk File consisted of a stack of fifty 24" discs that can be seen to the left of the operator in the above picture. The capacity of the entire disk file was 5 million 7-bit characters, which works out to about 4.4 MB in modern parlance. This is about the same capacity as the first personal computer hard drives that appeared in the early 1980's, but was an enormous capacity for 1956. IBM leased the 350 Disk File for a $35,000 annual fee.
I'm one of the growing number of people who have an entire TERABYTE -- yes, an entire TERABYTE of hard drives; 9 Western Digital Special Edition 120GB's, to be exact, for $1500 total.
:)
I've downloaded and installed EVERYTHING (6 different OS's, too) I can find and so far have used only about 800GB or so
I'm glad they're starting to review noise as a factor, since with the extra cooling installed, the computer sounds almost like a vacuum cleaner, especially with the 550W power supply it takes to power the things. The drives individaully would be really quiet, but with all the cooling and such I have installed, it's almost as loud as this miniature fan I keep nearby.
The fans drown out the crunching when people are grabbing everything off every hd on p2p programs, but all the noise is still worth it when I can call forth any song, music video, movie, or just about anything else at a whim.
Why hasn't anyone developed a device that has DIMM slots for PCXXXX RAM and an IDE/Firewire/USB interface on it?
Seems like that would be the way to go... stick a battery on it, and give it an external power supply... then you have VERY fast and extremely reliable storage. (As long as it is powered).
I have had enough hard drives fail that I would love to have one... maybe once MRAM comes out these devices will start popping up.
Ryan
"[7200 rpm disks] are generally too costly, or a bit overkill, for mundane office applications such as word processing or sending emails"
I'm having enough trouble just finding 5400 rpm disks. The performance (speed-wise) is more than enough for me, and I'd rather go with cool and quiet. The cost difference between 5400 and 7200 drives is marginal (a few bucks).
The thing is, there aren't many 5400 rpm disks around anymore and only sizes up to 80 GB. I'd rather have one big disk than two or three small ones (both heat and noise adds up), but I can't find any 5400 rpm disks at, say, 120GB or so, while 7200 rpm disks are available up to 200GB or so. And as long as the 7200 rpm drives are as hot and noisy as they are, I would rather have 5400 rpm disks.
Perhaps there are larger 5400 rpm disks, but I have yet to see them at any reseller nearby.
There are 010 kinds of people. Those who understand octal, those who don't, and 06 other kinds of morons.
I'll give you my experience with one hard drive: the current model IBM 60GB, 5400 RPM, 12.5mm hard drive. I put it into my Compaq Presario laptop. This drive is silent! It's unbelievable. I use this box for dev, and it regularly thrashes the hard drive -- presumably. I can't hear it if it does. :)
The guy who sits next to me has whatever default drive is in the monster Sony Vaio, and that thing is incredibly noisy.
{* Disclaimer - if you accidentally duct tape your CPU fan and your PSU inlets, please try and smother the flames with your body because (1) No one else should be hurt because of your "specialness", and (2) You'll be doing all of us a favour. Either way, don't blame me. *}
The easiest fix: Take some foam padding, preferably the antistatic kind that most hardware ships in these days, and line your case panels with a layer or two. It'll cut down on a good portion of the noise, and it'll improve your airflow (you didn't really think that air was supposed to go through those decorative holes, did you?) Be sure to keep it thin on the back side, next to the mobo. I know it says antistatic on the box, but do you really want anything touching your mobo?
Next, replace your damn PSU. Standard ones are way too damn noisy. I don't have any links handy (I'm at work), but they are plentiful and easy to find. Oh, and say "damn" alot. It helps.
Getting more in-depth, remove your peripheral drives (CD, HD, etc), and put them back in with rubber washers both between the drive and case, and between the screw and case. It cuts down on vibrations significantly.
Tie up your loose cables. Sounds silly, but I've found that in several systems with significant airflow, they were either moving around or causing turbulence. Either make or buy rounded IDE cables for the best flow.
If you have a very noisy harddrive, yank it from that small and normally loose 3 1/2" bracket and put it in one of your 5 1/4" bays with the help of drive brackets. Insulate around it with antistatic foam padding, use rubber washers, put an ultraquiet mini fan behind it, set to pull air(that old socket 7 fan you have lying around will do just fine). Finally, remove the bezel in front of it, drill some small holes for airflow, insulate with foam padding (remove the padding around the holes ((yes, it is sad that I have to point that out)) ), and pop it back in. Voila! Thicker padding to cut down on sound, it's in the 5 1/4" drive section, which I find is much sturdier and less prone to rattle, and the fan will keep it cooler than it would have been before.
Consider dropping that 52x CD. Sure, it's impressive, but you install all your games with max install, right? (right??) Or better yet, go buy software that will copy your CD to the HD and then subst the directory to a drive letter. Voila! CD at HD speeds. Replace the 52 with something more conservative, and you'll notice a big difference (and lower spinup time)
crud, "subst", I just dated myself...
Consider spring-mount screws for your case fans. I have a whole bag of them, but I'll be darned if I can remember who made them. They're basically just a short metal or plastic spring with a screw at each end. One end screws into the hole on the fan, the other into the case, voila, instant buffer against vibrations.
If things are still too bad for you, consider an external case mod. The quietest I ever did was to replace all of the metal panels on the case with 1/2" beechwood (damn, but it was pretty), but not all of us have the time and patience to work up something like that. The easiest is to take your panels off, and slap some starch/water paste on them. Next, take some thick cloth (or a few layers of thin cloth, if you feel the need to be difficult), load it up with the paste, and then just slap it on your panel. Make sure it's all wrinkly and folded n' chit. Let it dry, and the cloth should stick on just fine, adding another layer of sound barrier for ya. DISCLAIMER 1: This has been known not to stick on some of the new, shiny, smooth cases. DISCLAIMER 2: Take the panels off of your PC BEFORE you start slathering them with starch. Or, at the very least, remember to turn your PC off first. ;-)
Finally, try putting your PC on a phone book or something similar. Sounds silly, but it dulls the noise that resonates into the floor/desk. If it makes a difference for you, then build something more permanant for your case to sit on (or, at the very least, give it some ultracool extra-long legs like the AT-AT Walkers from Star Wars.... complete with little lazer guns on the CD drive... )
Lastly, note that a heckuvalot of the noise you hear could be from your monitor, too. But I will avoid monitor mods for today, lest some yahoo stick a phillips through his tube and show up at my doorstep, ready to share the tale. (it's happened, and I swear he was still smoking).
Hope this helps!
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Why is it that all of these manufacturers use the same 5400 and 7200 rpm speeds for their drives? Why couldn't one manufacturer put out their drives at, say, 6000 and 8000 rpm (from a marketing standpoint, this would be beneficial: kind of like Intel using MHz as a benchmark for comparative "performance" against AMD).
Is there a good reason for this uniformity across manufacturers? Do they use the same motors from a 3rd party supplier? What gives?
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
More and more as time goes by (and drive size increases, and prices drop) I'm seeing much higher percentages of drives with manufacturing defects, or drives that develop errors after several months of typical (home, office, small business, small enterprise server, etc.) use.
I don't even have to resort to 'naming names' - they're all proving bad lately. It's not just our equipment, either. We're handling (on behalf of our customers) RMAs for several different computer resellers in our area, most of whom do not use our supplier(s).
I'm sure anybody would understand the significance of this problem after you've told your tenth customer in a month that their data is irretreivable, AND that they have to wait 4-6 weeks for a new unit or purchase a new one. (Don't even mention data recovery - Joe Homeuser or Suzy Smallbusiness just can't afford thousands of dollars, but it doesn't make their data any less important than a mega-corporation)
I've got a dandy of a hard drive on the bench right now, awaiting customer authorization for replacement. Scandisk froze solid when attempting to diagnose it, so I slave mounted it and began extracting data. After about 200MB or thereabouts, it made the loudest screeching noise I think I've ever heard.
The drive was manufactured less than two years ago, purchased only 1.5 years back.
It's a sad state that the computer industry is in right now, with most components suffering the same fate as hard disk drives. I must replace two power supplies per week, it seems. Granted, we're making a killing on labour on all this defective hardware (why the stores they purchased this equipment from won't help them, I'll never know, and I'm too frightened to investigate) - which, in hindsight, is probably the reason behind the "So what if it only lasts for one year?" line of thinking.
If manufacturers don't have refurb drives or services available, or if they won't replace a defective unit with the next-closest-piece available; that's not our problem, it's clearly a problem with their company policy. Being mechanical, drives are easy enough to repair.
<SUBJECT TYPE=ANALOGY>
KDS (Korea Data Systems) still offers three year warranties on their products, and I'm still extremely ecstatic with their work (which is why they're the first monitor we reccomend, and the monitor we include with our systems). The monitor we're using on our accounting machine (KDS VS-7e) is now almost exactly 3 years, 1 month old. On (literally) the last day of the warranty, I phoned them with a request for an RMA number, due to the control buttons functioning erratically. They gave me the number and I shipped it to them four days after the manufacturer warranty expired. Since I got the number in time (and didn't have to wait a month for it, like one particular HDD manufacturer I don't care to name (or deal with!)); on a Tuesday. It was back on our desk by the Friday of that very same week - return shipping paid in full by KDS. We're working on our 90-day warranty extension right now, but I don't forsee any future problems.
</SUBJECT>
So, all in all, I'm extremely dissapointed with hard drive manufacturers, and judging by current industry trends I doubt very much the situation will improve.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
I've got a case in my living room that I use to access my mp3 server.
I've replaced all the fans with Silencer fans (can't remember where I purchased them, but they were about 10 bucks a pop). I replaced the power supply fan with a silencer fan, added a second case fan, and changed the processor fan to a silencer fan - all rated at 26 dB, IIRC. I then added Dynamat to the inside of the case using their system. The machine is much quieter now. You can't hear the fans over the gentle gurgle of the fish tank nearby.
For my mp3 server, I picked up 5 120 GB WD 5400 HDs from Frys ($99 a pop a few weeks ago) as well as the 3 fan bay coolers for each drive ($15 bucks a pop). I ran the system without the fans briefly, and the top drive was extremely hot. Using the Antec bay coolers, they are all much cooler to the touch. The machine makes a noticible hum, but it sits tucked away in a cool closet, so noise isn't much of an issue there. I was, however, surprised at how quiet the machine was even with all the bay fans (15 bay fans alone, then a power supply and two processor fans (dual proc system)). Laminar flow reduces noise...
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
One comes up on Pricewatch and Google, which frequently highlights vendors, has only brought up articles, reviews, passing references for the ST3120023AS
Note: The second Seagate link gives some idea of where SATA is going, starting at 150MBytes/sec external transfer speed, yet their tech spec indicates 150Mbits/sec. So far benchs show no advantage, unless you prefer/need the wiring change. Your milage may vary.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Something I am surprised nobody has brought up yet is that the frequency of noise which a drive produces is as important (if not more) than the absolute sound pressure level of the noise.
Human ears are more sensitive to midrange sounds and high-frequency noise tends to be more grating than lower frequency "whooshes" at the same sound pressure level.
Much like higher revving engines, higher RPM drives naturally produce higher-frequency noise, so 37dB on a 15k RPM drive (e.g. newest Seagate Cheetah) will typically be more noticeable than 37dB on a 7200rpm drive (older IBM 75GXP drives).
And just when we installed a new box with dual 1.3GHz CPUs, 240GB of RAID0+1 storage and 1GB of RAM (see here) and thought we were ready for just about anything the Slashdot Mob comes along and brings it down to it's knees!
Thanks guys, I'm happy to report the server pulled through although we had to limit the no. of simul. connects to keep things afloat. We'll be going over the server logs today to see where there's room for improvement, as there's some parameters we'd like to change in order to handle such loads better in the future.
Thanks and kind regards,
Sander Sassen
Email: ssassen@hardwareanalysis.comVisit us at: http://www.hardwareanalysis.com