does the firmware dictate the speed at which hard drives rotate?

if they do ... then a firmware modification to the barracuda series that allows them to spin at 5400 would be nice.

If its not the firmware then what does dictact the RPM? and can that be changed? will changing the RPM require other parameters to do with seeking/reading/writing to be changed?

and how much noise difference would there be if it was rotating at 5400 rather than 7200 RPM?

any ideas?

every little bit helps though - I have a brand new single platter 40Gb Barracuda IV - if it runs 33% slower surely you would get noticably less noise. We cant say for sure until we actually test it but nobody has tried it yet, so it might be worth looking into - not just for noise - as its spinning slower it should consume less power; making it much safer to use with the smart drive/silent drive enlosures.

Hello:

I have two 120GB Barracuda V's (in two machines) and I looked in the Disk Wizard 2002 and I did not find any way to change the seek speed -- how is this done?

See http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm and scroll down to "Feature Tool (v1.80)". BTW, it worked quite nicely to quiet my IBM 180XP (or it's called) for normal operations (both idle and seek), though the drive still has the same rather loud random chirposity.

it may or may not work :\
also ive spied a 5400.1 drive somewhere

if you look at the datasheets from seagate the single platter barracuda IV is marginally quieter than the 5400.1 (seek on Barracuda IV is 2.5 Bels compared to the 2.7 Bels of the 5400.1)

on the other hand that drive uses less than half the power consumption of the barracuda IV

One thing the 2.5 vs 2.7 bel spec does not touch upon is the whine component of 7200 drives. I am guessing that as little whine as the 'cuda IV has, the 5400rpm drive may have less. Not having heard a 5400.1 before, I can;t really say. I do know that the 'cuda has what I would call a trace amount of whine. Virtually inaudible under 99% of circumstances; I think I heard it only becase I was comparing it to a drive that seems to have even less whine.

I bought a 5400.1 and it's louder than the cuda iv. It has an ackward whine just before and during access (not the seek noise mind you) but a whine that was not exhibited in the cudas (IV & V). I ran it in a completely fanless situation (even psu) so perhaps I'm being very picky. Nevertheless, it was enough to bother me. Perhaps the absense of the SeaShield would be a factor?

I'm gonna get a Samsung SpinRite 120GB 5400RPM and see how they are.. I needed more space neways.


I do like the slimmer design though.

my .02

PS.
If there's anyway to make cuda iv run at 5400, i'd love to hear it.

i think some drives aam would make em drop down to 5200
5200 is budget, so i imagine its lacking the soundproofing
ibm etc stopped making 5200 drives cos there was no profit tobe had

Is there any way I can get my Maxton from 7200 to 5400 ???

Wait a second. Can anyone post a link to either 1) a person that says they've adjusted the rotational speed of their hard drive or 2) a program that definitely has this feature (I assume such a feature would be listed amongst its features)?

The supremely excellent Hitachi Feature Tool allows you to change the SMART seek acoustic setting of the drive, but I see nothing in its feature list nor have I encountered any option while using it that indicated it is capable of changing the rotational speed of the drive. The equally excellent Nero CD Speed will let you slow down your CD drives, but couldn't care less about your hard drives.

I kind of suspect that not only is there no software to slow down hard drives, but that running a hard drive at a variable speed would somehow interfere with the integrity of the current system by which hard drives work. Otherwise, I'd expect that battery-limited devices like notebooks would have additional power modes for their hard drives besides "on" and "spun down". Similarly, hard drive firmware seems to lock out access to the drive until the drive is "spun up" when booting the computer. I don't know why a fixed rotational speed would be vital to the operation of current hard drives, but it sure seems like it is.

itll be a damn site cheaper i imagine to have 1 speed
ive heard ibms drop down to 5400 with aam, that was when the whole click of death thing was at the fore
it was a solution...