According to a number of sources, the actual threshold of human hearing is actually zero decibels. A more commonly-reported threshold is 4 decibels. (0.4 bels).
Because the dB scale is a logarithmic one, each additional ten decibels represents a tenfold increase in intensity, thus a 24dB sound is 100 times louder than a 4dB sound.
I'm all for quieter drives and I applaud Seagate's efforts, but their claims are misleading by two orders of magnitude.
Perhaps what they mean is that 24dB of drive noise falls below the threshold of P/S fan noise. But that's not what their press release states.
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According to a number of sources, the actual threshold of human hearing is actually zero decibels. A more commonly-reported threshold is 4 decibels. (0.4 bels).
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Because the dB scale is a logarithmic one, each additional ten decibels represents a tenfold increase in intensity, thus a 24dB sound is 100 times louder than a 4dB sound.
I'm all for quieter drives and I applaud Seagate's efforts, but their claims are misleading by two orders of magnitude.
Perhaps what they mean is that 24dB of drive noise falls below the threshold of P/S fan noise. But that's not what their press release states.
Sources:
capa6.phy.ohiou.edu/psc105/c3d/chap3c.html
fridge.arch.uwa.edu.au/topics/acoustics/sound/hea
fermi.bgsu.edu/~stoner/P202/sound/sld006.htm
hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/intens.
www.njnet.edu.cn/info/ebook/java/javagame/ch11.ht