Mailing List Archive

Hard drive recommendation
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My 9 month old 80 gig drive recently died in my Myth box, so I sent it
back under warranty. Rather than swapping the drive with a new 80, the
reseller has refunded me with the original amount of money. Obviously 9
months ago, hard drives were rather more money, so I get to buy a nice
shiny new 120 or 160 gig for next to nothing.

So, a couple of questions before I go buying a new drive:

1. Any recommendations on a good drive for Myth? (quietness is a must)

2. is 7200rpm actually useful? The system has a single BTTV card, but I'm
planning to add a PVR350 at some point in the future, so it will
eventually be capturing 2 streams at once while paying another. If I
don't get any real benefit from a 7200rpm drive then getting a 5400rpm one
would cut noise and heat (not to mention they're cheaper).

3. Not really related to the drive itself, but does anyone know where I
can get rubber drive mountings? I don't want the full-blown drive
enclosures with heatsinks on them, etc. Just some rubber mountings to
bolt the drive down with.

- --

- Steve http://www.nexusuk.org/

Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence

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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
On Fri, 2004-02-20 at 14:14, steve@nexusuk.org wrote:

> 3. Not really related to the drive itself, but does anyone know where I
> can get rubber drive mountings? I don't want the full-blown drive
> enclosures with heatsinks on them, etc. Just some rubber mountings to
> bolt the drive down with.

Local Hardware store and get some rubber hydraulic O rings. Works great
and are very cheap.

Jayson G
Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
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On Friday 20 February 2004 12:14 pm, steve@nexusuk.org wrote:
> My 9 month old 80 gig drive recently died in my Myth box, so I sent it
> back under warranty. Rather than swapping the drive with a new 80, the
> reseller has refunded me with the original amount of money. Obviously 9
> months ago, hard drives were rather more money, so I get to buy a nice
> shiny new 120 or 160 gig for next to nothing.

Cool. I've replaced many drives under warranty, but never from a reseller,
always the manufacturer.

> So, a couple of questions before I go buying a new drive:
>
> 1. Any recommendations on a good drive for Myth? (quietness is a must)
>
> 2. is 7200rpm actually useful? The system has a single BTTV card, but I'm
> planning to add a PVR350 at some point in the future, so it will
> eventually be capturing 2 streams at once while paying another. If I
> don't get any real benefit from a 7200rpm drive then getting a 5400rpm one
> would cut noise and heat (not to mention they're cheaper).

7200rpm generally generates more heat and consumes more power. It gives faster
seek/access times and higher throughput. That's important if those things are
performance bottlenecks for whatever you are doing. IMHO, 5400rpm is more
that adequate for a dedicated MythTV box.

> 3. Not really related to the drive itself, but does anyone know where I
> can get rubber drive mountings? I don't want the full-blown drive
> enclosures with heatsinks on them, etc. Just some rubber mountings to
> bolt the drive down with.

Cheap O-rings can work fine. Actually, I've never heard noticeable noise from
a drive itself from more that a foot outside the case that rubber-mounting
would fix. There simply isn't much audio-frequency vibration for most drives
to transfer to the chassis. My problem is heat dissipation, and
rubber-mounting a drive is like insulating it from transferring heat to the
chassis. Remember, the drive mounting cage or brackets are usually the
primary "heatsink" that cools the drive. The metal contact along both sides
of the drive drains _way_ more heat from the mechanism than moving air with a
fan. Fans are the primary noise source in every machine I've built. I've had
a few noisy drives, but in the past couple years they've all been pretty
quiet, mostly WD and Maxtor units here. (I replaced 12 IBM units after a huge
round of failures a couple years ago, they had a bad model series back then.)

By the way, you are digitally signing your posts, but your key isn't on any of
the usual keyservers. What keyserver do you use so I can tell my system where
to go to update my keychain? There's not much point to using signatures if
nobody can validate your key. ;)
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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
steve@nexusuk.org wrote:

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>
>
>My 9 month old 80 gig drive recently died in my Myth box, so I sent it
>back under warranty. Rather than swapping the drive with a new 80, the
>reseller has refunded me with the original amount of money. Obviously 9
>months ago, hard drives were rather more money, so I get to buy a nice
>shiny new 120 or 160 gig for next to nothing.
>
>So, a couple of questions before I go buying a new drive:
>
>1. Any recommendations on a good drive for Myth? (quietness is a must)
>
>

Look into the Barracuda 7200.7 line...

Or visit http://www.silentpcreview.com and look over their forums and
the "recomended" section of the main site.
Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
> Look into the Barracuda 7200.7 line...

Speaking of which, I think there is a deal for one of these listed at
techbargains.com right now.. $130 or so for a 200G drive.

-Chris

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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
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On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, James L. Paul wrote:

> Cheap O-rings can work fine. Actually, I've never heard noticeable noise from
> a drive itself from more that a foot outside the case that rubber-mounting
> would fix. There simply isn't much audio-frequency vibration for most drives

The (temporary) drive I have in the box ATM whines quite loudly, which
resonates through the case. If I hold the drive in my hand instead of
letting it touch the case then it's much quieter. Of course, the drive I
have in there ATM is one that was running for quite a while in one of the
servers at work and was replaced because we thought it was probably about
to die - it is much noisier than my old 80 gig drive that did die.

> to transfer to the chassis. My problem is heat dissipation, and
> rubber-mounting a drive is like insulating it from transferring heat to the
> chassis. Remember, the drive mounting cage or brackets are usually the
> primary "heatsink" that cools the drive. The metal contact along both sides
> of the drive drains _way_ more heat from the mechanism than moving air with a

Hmm.. I never thought about the heat dissipation problem... I have a
couple of old P200 heatsinks kicking around here so I might try mounting
them on the drive to see if that dissipates the heat if it proves to be a
problem.

> fan. Fans are the primary noise source in every machine I've built. I've had

I've got a Zalman heatsink on the CPU with the CPU fan running at minimum
speed and a QuietPC PSU. I think the PSU fan is probably the noisiest
part of the PC, but I don't think I can do much about that since I
need the air flow generated by the PSU fan to keep some air flow going
through the case. The CPU temperature is about 55 degrees, which is
higher than I would usually have in a noisy machine, but I don't think
it's really a problem.

> By the way, you are digitally signing your posts, but your key isn't on any of
> the usual keyservers. What keyserver do you use so I can tell my system where
> to go to update my keychain? There's not much point to using signatures if
> nobody can validate your key. ;)

I haven't got around to putting it on a key server yet, although it's
available on my website. Which keyserver would you recommend BTW?

- --

- Steve http://www.nexusuk.org/

Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence

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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
Chris Petersen wrote:

>>Look into the Barracuda 7200.7 line...
>>
>>
>
>Speaking of which, I think there is a deal for one of these listed at
>techbargains.com right now.. $130 or so for a 200G drive.
>
>
>

I've got the 200gb 7200.7 in my main Myth box. It's hot, but I've never
heard it running, not even during boot up.
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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
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On Friday 20 February 2004 1:31 pm, steve@nexusuk.org wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, James L. Paul wrote:
> > Cheap O-rings can work fine. Actually, I've never heard noticeable noise
> > from a drive itself from more that a foot outside the case that
> > rubber-mounting would fix. There simply isn't much audio-frequency
> > vibration for most drives
>
> The (temporary) drive I have in the box ATM whines quite loudly, which
> resonates through the case. If I hold the drive in my hand instead of
> letting it touch the case then it's much quieter. Of course, the drive I
> have in there ATM is one that was running for quite a while in one of the
> servers at work and was replaced because we thought it was probably about
> to die - it is much noisier than my old 80 gig drive that did die.
>
> > to transfer to the chassis. My problem is heat dissipation, and
> > rubber-mounting a drive is like insulating it from transferring heat to
> > the chassis. Remember, the drive mounting cage or brackets are usually
> > the primary "heatsink" that cools the drive. The metal contact along both
> > sides of the drive drains _way_ more heat from the mechanism than moving
> > air with a
>
> Hmm.. I never thought about the heat dissipation problem... I have a
> couple of old P200 heatsinks kicking around here so I might try mounting
> them on the drive to see if that dissipates the heat if it proves to be a
> problem.

If it's not a problem, then, well... no problem. ;)
My heat issues are more exaggerated than most, since the ambient temperature
in my living room is usually around 85F and so dumping heat from electronic
gear is more difficult. Most of my serious gear has been watercooled for
years, but I haven't done that to my Myth box. Yet.

> > fan. Fans are the primary noise source in every machine I've built. I've
> > had
>
> I've got a Zalman heatsink on the CPU with the CPU fan running at minimum
> speed and a QuietPC PSU. I think the PSU fan is probably the noisiest
> part of the PC, but I don't think I can do much about that since I
> need the air flow generated by the PSU fan to keep some air flow going
> through the case. The CPU temperature is about 55 degrees, which is
> higher than I would usually have in a noisy machine, but I don't think
> it's really a problem.

I had a Swiftech unit cooling my Athlon 1.4 but it was marginally unstable on
very hot days, so I tried replacing it with a cheap Spire copper-core cooler,
the one that spreads the fins out wide and uses a larger fan for more flow
and less noise. I was surprised to find that it was unable to cool the CPU
enough to make it even 20 seconds into compiling anything. I'm back to the
smaller cooler again, but I'll probably switch to watercooling this summer.
My MythTV box has only been running since last September and the only
instability issues I've had have been heat-related.

> > By the way, you are digitally signing your posts, but your key isn't on
> > any of the usual keyservers. What keyserver do you use so I can tell my
> > system where to go to update my keychain? There's not much point to using
> > signatures if nobody can validate your key. ;)
>
> I haven't got around to putting it on a key server yet, although it's
> available on my website. Which keyserver would you recommend BTW?

I don't think it matters much, any PGP keyserver should do fine, I think they
all sync with each other. The group I default to includes pgp.mit.edu,
blackhole.pca.dfn.de, and wwwkeys.pgp.net. That's what came set up with GPG,
I've never had to explicitly configure which one to use. So far, everybody
else who's been posting here lately has their keys in that group, so my GPG
client just finds their keys without any problem. :)
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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
> 1. Any recommendations on a good drive for Myth? (quietness is a must)

I am running Samsung Spinpoint 160GB, 7200rpm, 8MB cache drives in a
couple of boxes and they're extremely quiet. They also run quite cool
(as measured by DTemp on a Windows box). There are both PATA and SATA
versions. Here's one:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-152-015&depa=0

> 3. Not really related to the drive itself, but does anyone know where I
> can get rubber drive mountings? I don't want the full-blown drive
> enclosures with heatsinks on them, etc. Just some rubber mountings to
> bolt the drive down with.

http://www.mcmaster.com is a fantastic source for all kinds of fasteners.
Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
On 20 Feb 2004 at 22:14, steve@nexusuk.org wrote:

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> Hash: SHA1
>
>
> My 9 month old 80 gig drive recently died in my Myth box, so I sent it
> back under warranty. Rather than swapping the drive with a new 80,
> the reseller has refunded me with the original amount of money.
> Obviously 9 months ago, hard drives were rather more money, so I get
> to buy a nice shiny new 120 or 160 gig for next to nothing.
>
> So, a couple of questions before I go buying a new drive:
>
> 1. Any recommendations on a good drive for Myth? (quietness is a must)
My Seagate 200GB 8MB Buffer EIDE HDD is very very quiet With rebate,it cost me
$100
>
> 2. is 7200rpm actually useful? The system has a single BTTV card, but
> I'm planning to add a PVR350 at some point in the future, so it will
> eventually be capturing 2 streams at once while paying another. If I
> don't get any real benefit from a 7200rpm drive then getting a 5400rpm
> one would cut noise and heat (not to mention they're cheaper).
>
> 3. Not really related to the drive itself, but does anyone know where
> I can get rubber drive mountings? I don't want the full-blown drive
> enclosures with heatsinks on them, etc. Just some rubber mountings to
> bolt the drive down with.

>
> - --
>
> - Steve http://www.nexusuk.org/
>
> Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> Comment: Public key available at http://www.nexusuk.org/pubkey.txt
>
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>
Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
> Van: steve@nexusuk.org
>
> <snip>
> So, a couple of questions before I go buying a new drive:
>
> 1. Any recommendations on a good drive for Myth? (quietness is a must)

I use a Maxtor 120GB with liquid bearings (and 8MB cache). I can't really
hear it above the fan of my Pundit (yes, I have Q-Fan on) after I set the
Accoustic Mananament Control to 192, the recommended level by the HD
itself. This HD was easier to get than the Seagate Barracuda IV, which is
tested by magazines at 40dB (instead of mine, 41dB).

Henk Poley <><
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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
hi folks,

On 20.02.2004 23:14, steve@nexusuk.org wrote:

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> Hash: SHA1
>
>
> My 9 month old 80 gig drive recently died in my Myth box, so I sent it
> back under warranty. Rather than swapping the drive with a new 80, the
> reseller has refunded me with the original amount of money. Obviously 9
> months ago, hard drives were rather more money, so I get to buy a nice
> shiny new 120 or 160 gig for next to nothing.

nice! :)

> So, a couple of questions before I go buying a new drive:
>
> 1. Any recommendations on a good drive for Myth? (quietness is a must)

even though I don,t have myth up and running yet, and thererfore cannot
comment on the actual requirements from experience, I went for two
ic35l180avv207-1 from hitachi/ibm (see
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200211/20021127IC35L180AVV207_1.html
for details), mainly for the three year warranty with the 8mb-version
and the possibility to have it go into a quiet-mode. you might also want
to check out http://storagereview.com/php/benchmark/bench_sort.php to
get an idea on idle noise in db(A).

today, i'd go for a samsung sp1416n or c model (c=serial ata) - they got
a very favourable test in the 3/04 c't magazine for both, performance
and noise. if i can get the advantage of faster seek-times of 7200rpms
at that noise level (0.9 sone max), why not? :) furthermore, bang for
buck in germany is not bad, currently.

> 2. is 7200rpm actually useful? The system has a single BTTV card, but I'm
> planning to add a PVR350 at some point in the future, so it will
> eventually be capturing 2 streams at once while paying another. If I
> don't get any real benefit from a 7200rpm drive then getting a 5400rpm one
> would cut noise and heat (not to mention they're cheaper).

see other posts for 7200 comments - cutting noise with the sp1416n seems
difficult to me, cutting heat would be 2deg celcius to the sv1604n,
according to http://storagereview.com/php/benchmark/bench_sort.php ... :)

> 3. Not really related to the drive itself, but does anyone know where I
> can get rubber drive mountings? I don't want the full-blown drive
> enclosures with heatsinks on them, etc. Just some rubber mountings to
> bolt the drive down with.

no experience from my side.

hth, greets, tobi... :)

> - --
>
> - Steve http://www.nexusuk.org/
>
> Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Public key available at http://www.nexusuk.org/pubkey.txt
>
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> =CEGQ
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>
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>
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--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Professur fuer Graphische Datenverarbeitung Projekt medienquadrat
SnailMail: Bauhaus-Universitaet Weimar, Fak. Medien, D99421 Weimar
Location: D99423 Weimar Karl-Haussknechtstr. 7 Zimmer 111
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
I just ordered a Western Digital Caviar 250 Gigs hard drive. Model
number is WD2500JB. Got it from Dell through a bargain posted to
xpbargains.com.

Since it is back ordered I still have a chance to cancel the order. So,
does anyone have one of these beasts? Care to share your experience with
it?

There are a few things in the world I hate more than a hard disk crash
or a poor quality hard disk :-)

Thanks!

Eloy.-

steve@nexusuk.org writes:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>
> My 9 month old 80 gig drive recently died in my Myth box, so I sent it
> back under warranty. Rather than swapping the drive with a new 80, the
> reseller has refunded me with the original amount of money. Obviously 9
> months ago, hard drives were rather more money, so I get to buy a nice
> shiny new 120 or 160 gig for next to nothing.
>
> So, a couple of questions before I go buying a new drive:
>
> 1. Any recommendations on a good drive for Myth? (quietness is a must)
>
> 2. is 7200rpm actually useful? The system has a single BTTV card, but I'm
> planning to add a PVR350 at some point in the future, so it will
> eventually be capturing 2 streams at once while paying another. If I
> don't get any real benefit from a 7200rpm drive then getting a 5400rpm one
> would cut noise and heat (not to mention they're cheaper).
>
> 3. Not really related to the drive itself, but does anyone know where I
> can get rubber drive mountings? I don't want the full-blown drive
> enclosures with heatsinks on them, etc. Just some rubber mountings to
> bolt the drive down with.
>
> - --
>
> - Steve http://www.nexusuk.org/
>
> Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Public key available at http://www.nexusuk.org/pubkey.txt
>
> iD8DBQFANobc5zUOsIV3bqERAmF1AJ9Fg9ofcUw5DO+3doLeuDddlsmX8wCfbiLq
> NUoziAnVQ3okerlriZu0NLo=
> =CEGQ
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
On Feb 21, 2004, at 05:38, Eloy A. Paris wrote:

> I just ordered a Western Digital Caviar 250 Gigs hard drive. Model
> number is WD2500JB. Got it from Dell through a bargain posted to
> xpbargains.com.
>
> Since it is back ordered I still have a chance to cancel the order. So,
> does anyone have one of these beasts? Care to share your experience
> with
> it?

That's the same drive I've got in my primary Myth box. Not the quietest
drive around, but also not the loudest. I have no complaints about it.

> There are a few things in the world I hate more than a hard disk crash
> or a poor quality hard disk :-)

Western Digital is generally top-notch, in my experience.

--
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

Got a question? Read this first...
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
MythTV, Fedora Core & ATrpms documentation:
http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/
MythTV Searchable Mailing List Archive
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/archive/MythTV_C2/
Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
On Friday 20 February 2004 18:48, J. Donavan Stanley wrote:
> Chris Petersen wrote:
>
> >>Look into the Barracuda 7200.7 line...
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Speaking of which, I think there is a deal for one of these listed at
> >techbargains.com right now.. $130 or so for a 200G drive.
> >
> >
> >
>
> I've got the 200gb 7200.7 in my main Myth box. It's hot, but I've never
> heard it running, not even during boot up.

Yeah, I got one of these a little while back via the rebate CompUSA was
offering ($100 after rebates), and I was quite surprised & impressed at how
quiet it is. I can never hear it running at all, even when there's a lot of
disk activity.

I hear the Barracuda V is even quieter, if that's possible.

-JAC

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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
Jarod C. Wilson wrote:

> On Feb 21, 2004, at 05:38, Eloy A. Paris wrote:
>
>> I just ordered a Western Digital Caviar 250 Gigs hard drive. Model
>> number is WD2500JB. Got it from Dell through a bargain posted to
>> xpbargains.com.
>>
>> Since it is back ordered I still have a chance to cancel the order. So,
>> does anyone have one of these beasts? Care to share your experience with
>> it?
>
>
> That's the same drive I've got in my primary Myth box. Not the
> quietest drive around, but also not the loudest. I have no complaints
> about it.
>

I bought the WD2000JB at Sam's Club before Christmas for $150. It was a
bargain I couldn't turn down at the time and even though it's rated at
35db (vs. ~25db for the Seagate and Maxtor's) it's still pretty quiet.
The fan's (Power supply and CPU) in my Pundit drown it out. The 7200
RPM is nice, but since I switched to JFS on my video partition, the
filesystem performance is so good I could probably ditch it and go to a
5400 to run a little cooler.

>> There are a few things in the world I hate more than a hard disk crash
>> or a poor quality hard disk :-)
>
>
> Western Digital is generally top-notch, in my experience.
>
I agree. I've used WD's since the late 80's and they've consistently
been highly reliable. I've only ever had 2 fail, and those were from a
batch a 1GB drives that I suspected were faulty. WD replaced them under
warranty and I've never had any problems with WD since.

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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
> > 3. Not really related to the drive itself, but does anyone know where
I
> > can get rubber drive mountings? I don't want the full-blown drive
> > enclosures with heatsinks on them, etc. Just some rubber mountings to
> > bolt the drive down with.
>
> http://www.mcmaster.com is a fantastic source for all kinds of fasteners.

They only have about 130,000 fasteners ;) Anything you were thinking of
specifically?

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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
On Sunday 22 February 2004 07:59 am, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
> On Friday 20 February 2004 18:48, J. Donavan Stanley wrote:
> > Chris Petersen wrote:
> > >>Look into the Barracuda 7200.7 line...
> > >
> > >Speaking of which, I think there is a deal for one of these listed at
> > >techbargains.com right now.. $130 or so for a 200G drive.
> >
> > I've got the 200gb 7200.7 in my main Myth box. It's hot, but I've never
> > heard it running, not even during boot up.
>
> Yeah, I got one of these a little while back via the rebate CompUSA was
> offering ($100 after rebates), and I was quite surprised & impressed at how
> quiet it is. I can never hear it running at all, even when there's a lot
> of disk activity.
>
> I hear the Barracuda V is even quieter, if that's possible.

Just an update on the Seagate 7200.7: I bought a 200GB 7200.7 last week, and
it exhibits the behavior described here:

http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/view_message/20081647

Basically, when the drive is idle for a a little bit, it will, all on its own,
decide to start seeking around and reading mass amounts of data.

It's relatively loud and very annoying, when the computer would otherwise be
quiet. I've worked around this by running a little shell script that runs
'hdparm -I /dev/hdb' every second to prevent the drive from ever being
detected as idle, but that's not really an ideal solution. I certainly would
not have bought the drive if I had known of this in advance.

Isaac
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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
Did you try using hdparm -M? Works on my 250GB Maxtor just fine, infact it
sets the acoustic management permanently in the drive. I can't hear any
seeking anymore. 5400 rpm is the way to go though :) Less airflow needed
above all.

Btw, all fast-rpm drive do that (or should) ibm deathstars didn't, and well
it's obvious by the name what happened when the head didn't move. I'd say
your drive might be on it's way to an early death if you're fooling it by
just querying hardware information.

> Just an update on the Seagate 7200.7: I bought a 200GB 7200.7 last week,
and
> it exhibits the behavior described here:
>
> http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/view_message/20081647
>
> Basically, when the drive is idle for a a little bit, it will, all on its
own,
> decide to start seeking around and reading mass amounts of data.
>
> It's relatively loud and very annoying, when the computer would otherwise
be
> quiet. I've worked around this by running a little shell script that runs
> 'hdparm -I /dev/hdb' every second to prevent the drive from ever being
> detected as idle, but that's not really an ideal solution. I certainly
would
> not have bought the drive if I had known of this in advance.

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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
Isaac Richards wrote:

>On Sunday 22 February 2004 07:59 am, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
>
>
>>On Friday 20 February 2004 18:48, J. Donavan Stanley wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Chris Petersen wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>Look into the Barracuda 7200.7 line...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Speaking of which, I think there is a deal for one of these listed at
>>>>techbargains.com right now.. $130 or so for a 200G drive.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I've got the 200gb 7200.7 in my main Myth box. It's hot, but I've never
>>>heard it running, not even during boot up.
>>>
>>>
>>Yeah, I got one of these a little while back via the rebate CompUSA was
>>offering ($100 after rebates), and I was quite surprised & impressed at how
>>quiet it is. I can never hear it running at all, even when there's a lot
>>of disk activity.
>>
>>I hear the Barracuda V is even quieter, if that's possible.
>>
>>
>
>Just an update on the Seagate 7200.7: I bought a 200GB 7200.7 last week, and
>it exhibits the behavior described here:
>
>http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/view_message/20081647
>
>Basically, when the drive is idle for a a little bit, it will, all on its own,
>decide to start seeking around and reading mass amounts of data.
>
>It's relatively loud and very annoying, when the computer would otherwise be
>quiet. I've worked around this by running a little shell script that runs
>'hdparm -I /dev/hdb' every second to prevent the drive from ever being
>detected as idle, but that's not really an ideal solution. I certainly would
>not have bought the drive if I had known of this in advance.
>
>Isaac
>
Weird, my 160GB ATA100 model hasn't ever done that yet... when I'm
active on the computer there's always music playing, so it woulnd't
happen, but the hard drive was never doing useless seeking like that
when I get up, or come back from school, where it would be idle for
hours. Maybe a different firmware version...

Pete
Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
On Sunday 29 February 2004 11:09 pm, D Banerjee wrote:
> Did you try using hdparm -M? Works on my 250GB Maxtor just fine, infact it
> sets the acoustic management permanently in the drive. I can't hear any
> seeking anymore. 5400 rpm is the way to go though :) Less airflow needed
> above all.

Acoustic management seems to be completely disabled in the drive's firmware,
with no way to turn it on.

> Btw, all fast-rpm drive do that (or should) ibm deathstars didn't, and well
> it's obvious by the name what happened when the head didn't move. I'd say
> your drive might be on it's way to an early death if you're fooling it by
> just querying hardware information.

That's certainly not true. My slightly older 'cuda V in the same machine
doesn't do anything like this (think _very_ heavy harddrive thrashing noise
every few minutes when idle).

Isaac
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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
Perhaps not so loudly, but it should be moving the head around, in the
least. My 15k cheetah does it, 10k ibm dgvs does it, and my old 7200 rpm
Micropolis did it, pretty much the same as normal seeking but for a minute
at a time. Although not constantly when idle. Mind you they are all
hot-running scsi drives.

You might want to try smartctl too, it _can_ control off-line smart testing,
which may eliminate some of your noise (as per your link it seems to be one
thing it is doing). I can certainly turn on offline scanning on my drives,
hopefully you can turn it off.

Try --offlineauto=off

> That's certainly not true. My slightly older 'cuda V in the same machine
> doesn't do anything like this (think _very_ heavy harddrive thrashing
noise
> every few minutes when idle).

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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
D Banerjee wrote:

>> > 3. Not really related to the drive itself, but does anyone know where
>
> I
>
>>>can get rubber drive mountings? I don't want the full-blown drive
>>>enclosures with heatsinks on them, etc. Just some rubber mountings to
>>>bolt the drive down with.
>>
>>http://www.mcmaster.com is a fantastic source for all kinds of fasteners.
>
>
> They only have about 130,000 fasteners ;) Anything you were thinking of
> specifically?

Yeah, it's hard to find what you need there :-) Try searching for item
9311K138 - then click the "Catalog Page" link in the left frame. You'll
see a few choices.
Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004, Isaac Richards wrote:

> Just an update on the Seagate 7200.7: I bought a 200GB 7200.7 last week, and
> it exhibits the behavior described here:

The 120GB 7200.7 I just bought also does it. :(
I think some rubber drive mountings will help a lot (I'm pretty sure most
of the sound is resonating through the case), but I've not got around to
getting any yet.

- --

- Steve http://www.nexusuk.org/

Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence

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Re: Hard drive recommendation [ In reply to ]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004, D Banerjee wrote:

> Did you try using hdparm -M? Works on my 250GB Maxtor just fine, infact it
> sets the acoustic management permanently in the drive. I can't hear any
> seeking anymore. 5400 rpm is the way to go though :) Less airflow needed
> above all.

5400's seem to be getting less common though. When I was looking around
for drives then all of the cheaper drives seemed to be 7200's.

One thing that worries me about maxtor is that they offer a 1 year
warranty, wheras most (all?) of the rest are 3 years. Makes me wonder if
there are reliability issues with the drives.

- --

- Steve http://www.nexusuk.org/

Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence

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