Seagate 7200.10 Series

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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Seagate 7200.10 Series

Post by Goldmember » Thu Apr 20, 2006 7:48 am

Seagate's website has some information on their future Barracuda 7200.10 series. Capacities of up to 750GB with areal densities of up to 187.5GB per platter. :shock: Here are the Product datasheet, Marketing datasheet and the Model details. I'm interested in the 400GB with 2 platters. 8) The datasheet says it has 3 platters and 5 heads, but the model number says it has 2 platters. The 320GB with 2 platters would be my next choice.

Discovered this info at Storage Review.

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Post by NeilBlanchard » Thu Apr 20, 2006 8:58 am

Greetings,

I wonder if these use the "perpendicular" system, for the magnetic fields?

[Edit: yes it does: http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/dis ... 56,00.html]

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Post by Goldmember » Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:53 am

Hi Neil,

Yep, it's a perpendicular drive. This introduction will give Seagate a perpendicular product in all 4 segments: enterprise, consumer electronics, laptop and now desktop.

I just hope that the 7200.10 has quieter seeks than my 7200.7 200GB SATA (which BTW should be classified as a torture device :wink:).

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Post by Goldmember » Tue Apr 25, 2006 8:03 am


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Post by jaganath » Tue Apr 25, 2006 8:19 am

I expect a 1 terabyte drive will be for sale by the end of this year. To put that in perspective, all the books in the Library of Congress only contain 20 terabytes of information. So you could get the whole of the Library of Congress in a stack of hard drives about 2ft high and 1ft across (with an adequate cooling mechanism).

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Post by JazzJackRabbit » Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:25 am

Man, why do they still keep making ULTRA ATA stuff, moreover, why is it always released before SATA?

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Post by andyb » Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:35 am

The US/UK/EU prices are:

750GB: £311 $555 E448
500GB: £189 $338 E272
320GB: SOLD OUT.??? (I cant read Japanese)

The 500GB is barely any more than the current 500GB 7200.9, which is how it should be. Once it becomes available to the rest of the world it should be about the same money.

The price of the 750GB is about what I guessed last week, I will imagine that in a few months the 400GB will come down to mainstream(ish) prices, as its still silly money per GB (almost as much per GB as the 500GB's).

The 500GB would land in its slot, and the 750GB can be priced as it is, as no-one else has anything that can compete with it (yet).

I dont know whether those prices include VAT or not, can anyone reading this read Japanese, it would be interesting to know.

BTW 4 of those 750GB drives would cost £1460 (VAT+- unknown), with RAID 5, that would make a storage solution of 2.2TB or about 1.95TB formatted (guesstimate).

That would be cool, I would NEVER need more storage ;) just like I have NEVER needed more than 640K of RAM :)


Andy

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Post by leo_fischer » Thu Apr 27, 2006 5:44 pm

The 320GB are 15,580 yen (3Gb/s sata2) or 15280 (1.5Gb/s)
which is approx 138 usd, 110 eur, 183 aud 76 gbp 155 cad at current spot rates.

Quoted prices in Japan are supposed to include 10% consumption tax, and I think akiba watch generally includes this.

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Post by andyb » Fri Apr 28, 2006 1:54 am


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Post by Goldmember » Sat Apr 29, 2006 10:03 am

Thanks for all the input and currency conversions everyone. :) I'm anxiously awaiting some reviews of these drives, especially the 320GB. I found one at PCworld but I wouldn't really call it a review. One concern of mine is that the listed idle noise is 2.7bels. :shock:

FYI: PCworld.com stated that the SATA version ships in SATA-150 mode and that they had to switch a jumper to enable SATA-300 and NCQ.
andyb wrote:That would be cool, I would NEVER need more storage :wink: just like I have NEVER needed more than 640K of RAM :)
Haha, ok sure 'Mr. Gates' :lol: Thanks for the link. I wonder if people realize that instead of spending $540 for a hard drive, they could spend $599 for a Dell 5150 with a 20" LCD. :shock: 8) To each their own. Found that deal @ anandtech.

Take care.

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Post by Goldmember » Fri May 05, 2006 1:21 pm

Some reviews:
GamePC
Big Bruin
PC World Review
PC World Article

Some bad news:
GamePC on page 3 wrote:The drive is near silent when sitting idle, only putting out a very light "hum" sound. However, during intensive disk testing, the drive is quite audible, even what many would consider to be loud. We would put the noise level of this drive on par with Western Digital's 10,000 RPM "Raptor" drive, which like the 7200.10, is quiet during idles but can become quite audible under heavy loads.
GamePC on page 8 wrote:While there are no major flaws with the drive at this time, the one notable qualm we have with the drive is its noise level, which was higher than expected. Seagate claims that the drive is quieter compared to its previous generation 7200.9 drive, whereas we found the opposite to be true. It’s possible that lower-capacity 7200.10 models will be quiet, but the high-end 7200.10 750 GB is what we would consider to be one of the louder 7,200 RPM disks on the market when seeking/writing. It’s not a major qualm, as one could easily use a hard drive silencer unit with his drive to cut that annoyance out. Given that the drive runs surprisingly cool, the drive should be fine in most of these units with any sort of forced airflow over the drive.
It's possible that GamePC had a 'bad drive' but they tested two so I'm not so sure. The good news is that the drive had a seek time of 9.3ms in HD Tach (13.5ms-4.2ms latency) which is lower than Seagate's spec of 11ms.

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Post by HueyCobra » Fri May 05, 2006 2:18 pm

Goldmember wrote:Some reviews:
GamePC
Big Bruin
PC World Review
PC World Article
Thanks for those reviews, Goldmember. The 750GB is debuting at the reasonable price of around $1/GB in Australia, and should fall pretty quickly as availability increases.

I hope it is a quiet HDD as I'll be looking to get one for my new computer, unless something bigger appears :)

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Post by Goldmember » Fri May 05, 2006 3:15 pm

You're welcome. :) I assume you mean $1/GB AUD. Over here, it's selling for around $499 USD or ~$.67/GB USD. As you said, the price should continue to drop as the supply grows. I rarely buy new hardware immediately anymore. I prefer to read some reviews first and then wait for the price to drop a little bit. Makes me feel better. :)

I'm looking for a new hard drive too, as my 7200.7 SATA is very annoying. It constantly does self-diagnostics and its seeks are very loud. I'm gonna use a wait and see approach on the 7200.10.

BTW, I really like your username dude! I'm planning to attend an air show this weekend. I'll be the guy with the earplugs lol. 8)

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Post by Firetech » Fri May 05, 2006 5:41 pm

HueyCobra wrote: Thanks for those reviews, Goldmember. The 750GB is debuting at the reasonable price of around $1/GB in Australia, and should fall pretty quickly as availability increases.
AU$770 :shock: Hope they do drop quickly, given that a 7200.9 300Gb is AU$0.56 per Gb (half the cost). I still want one though..... :wink:

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Post by HueyCobra » Sat May 06, 2006 2:05 am

Goldmember wrote:You're welcome. :) I assume you mean $1/GB AUD.
Yep. Nice easy number.
Goldmember wrote:As you said, the price should continue to drop as the supply grows. I rarely buy new hardware immediately anymore. I prefer to read some reviews first and then wait for the price to drop a little bit. Makes me feel better. :)
Me too. I'm pretty sure I'll get one, just hope the price falls real fast, which is presumably largely dependent on whether WD and Hitachi release their own large perpendicular HDDs (no idea what Maxtor will do since the Seagate buyout).
Goldmember wrote:I'm looking for a new hard drive too, as my 7200.7 SATA is very annoying. It constantly does self-diagnostics and its seeks are very loud.
That doesn't sound too good (pun intended :)). I had a Caviar many moons ago, think it was fine but it was too long ago to remember. Haven't had any problems with WD in the years I can remember, but I'm happy to try Seagate again - I have a lot of respect for their five-year warranty.
Goldmember wrote:BTW, I really like your username dude! I'm planning to attend an air show this weekend. I'll be the guy with the earplugs lol. 8)
Thanks dude. I'm glad the USMC are keeping the Cobra/Viper alive! Have a good time at the air show but leave the earplugs at home - free way to silence your computer! :lol: The last time I went to Avalon was Feb 2001 (lol).
Firetech wrote:AU$770 :shock: Hope they do drop quickly, given that a 7200.9 300Gb is AU$0.56 per Gb (half the cost). I still want one though..... :wink:
$749 at Scorptec. More should filter through staticICE in coming days. (I think the one for $770 also included shipping?) It can only get better :)

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Post by andyb » Sat May 06, 2006 3:37 am

Available in the UK right now. SATA = Top Link, PATA = Bottom Link.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/ ... e_191.html
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/ ... s_157.html

Only the 750GB's, no 500's, or 320's.

Stock here soon.

Again, no sign of <750GB Drives.


Andy

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Post by winguy » Sat May 06, 2006 3:47 am

Does it have AAM?

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Post by andyb » Sat May 06, 2006 8:33 am

No Seagate drives on the market support AAM.

I believe tha last drive that supported AAM was the Cuda 4 (or was it the 5.!!!).

They have a patent issue with another HDD Manufacturer, and dropped support rather than be sued. I guess whoever owns tha Patent doesnt want Seagate to have the Tech, as they are easily the biggest Drive maker around.

I hope its Maxtor that owns it, as Seagate are Buying them, which will mean that Seagate drives will be able to support AAM in the future........... better phrased, Future Seagate drive will support AAM.

However, I think its Hitachi, as they are the only company that will let you download a tool that lets you change the AAM (am I right.???).


Andy

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Post by perplex » Sat May 06, 2006 8:46 am

Does anyone else think it's disappointing that the .10 200GB will be 2 platters? I read that from storagereview forum. I guess it's because 187.5GB is the maximum density they managed for each platter. I was hoping for a single platter 200GB. I guess I'll just buy .9 160GB single platter HDD.

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Post by Doomer » Sun May 07, 2006 10:09 am

andyb wrote:They have a patent issue with another HDD Manufacturer, and dropped support rather than be sued. I guess whoever owns tha Patent doesnt want Seagate to have the Tech, as they are easily the biggest Drive maker around.

I hope its Maxtor that owns it, as Seagate are Buying them, which will mean that Seagate drives will be able to support AAM in the future........... better phrased, Future Seagate drive will support AAM.

However, I think its Hitachi, as they are the only company that will let you download a tool that lets you change the AAM (am I right.???).
Andy
The company that sued them is called Convolve. The legal battle is still going, maybe one day Seagate wins and Barracudas will get AAM.

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Post by andyb » Mon May 08, 2006 1:49 pm

Cheers Doomer.

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Post by elec999 » Mon May 08, 2006 8:13 pm

This is totally offtopic. But Im loosing my mind here, was the Average Latency 4.16ms vs Seek Time 11.0 ms vs random access time.
Thanks

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Post by Goldmember » Tue May 09, 2006 6:29 am

HueyCobra wrote:...I'm pretty sure I'll get one, just hope the price falls real fast, which is presumably largely dependent on whether WD and Hitachi release their own large perpendicular HDDs (no idea what Maxtor will do since the Seagate buyout)..

True. If they don't have any competition then they can charge whatever they want. :P WD, in their most recent conference call, only said that they will release a PMR drive sometime in calendar 2006. In Maxtor's recent 10-Q they said the following,
Maxtor wrote:...Looking ahead, we remain on track to introduce our 160 GB per platter drive in the second quarter of 2006 and we expect its volume to grow through the second half of the year...

We shall see. :wink:
HueyCobra wrote:Have a good time at the air show but leave the earplugs at home - free way to silence your computer! :lol:...
Haha, very funny. I had a blast. The Cobra was surprisingly quiet, but the 2 Harriers reminded me of my old (1998?) Seagate Medalist drive with a bad ball bearing motor. :lol: Here is a gallery of the air show.

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Post by Goldmember » Tue May 09, 2006 6:55 am

andyb wrote:...Again, no sign of <750GB Drives
The same is true over here.
winguy wrote:Does it have AAM?

As andyb and Doomer said, it likely does not have AAM due to Seagate's legal dispute. Andy brought up a good point in that Seagate has likely acquired all of Maxtor's previous agreements, but contracts have a lot of 'what ifs' so we shall see. Let's keep our fingers crossed. :)

EDIT: forgot to mention that I own 2 Maxtor DM9s that support AAM.
perplex wrote:Does anyone else think it's disappointing that the .10 200GB will be 2 platters?... I guess I'll just buy .9 160GB single platter HDD.

Yeah I do. One 200GB platter would have been nice for SPCRers but it may be a moot point if the seeks are as loud as people are now reporting around the net. FYI, there is a thread about the .9 160GB that you should read first.
elec999 wrote:This is totally offtopic. But Im loosing my mind here, was the Average Latency 4.16ms vs Seek Time 11.0 ms vs random access time.
Thanks
:arrow: All 7,200rpm drives have 4.17ms rotational latency
:arrow: All 10,000rpm drives have 3.00ms rotational latency
:arrow: All 15,000rpm drives have 2.00ms rotational latency

When companies state a certain random access or seek time, they do not include the latency. For example, if you test your drive in HD Tach, subtract one of the appropriate latencies and it will give you your seek time or random access time. If the Seagate 7200.10 really had a seek time of 11ms, then the result in HD tach would have been 15.2ms. Hopefully someone else can explain it better than I did lol.

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Post by andyb » Thu May 11, 2006 3:14 am

Hiya people.

A colleauge of mine should have a 750GB 7200.10 turning up at work tomorrow.

Has anyone on SPCR's forums listened to one.???

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, delivery guy just dropped off a load of stuff, including a 3/4 terabyte drive................... Cool :)

When I get a chance a little later I will have a listen, it wont be easy as we have builders in at the moment.!!!!


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Post by HueyCobra » Thu May 11, 2006 3:47 am

Goldmember wrote:
perplex wrote:Does anyone else think it's disappointing that the .10 200GB will be 2 platters?... I guess I'll just buy .9 160GB single platter HDD.

Yeah I do. One 200GB platter would have been nice for SPCRers but it may be a moot point if the seeks are as loud as people are now reporting around the net.
I think it's disappointing too ... because 200GB platters would enable a 1TB drive! :D

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Post by andyb » Thu May 11, 2006 4:32 am

Dissapointing noise i'm afraid chaps and chapettes.

This drive is a 750GB, 698.6GB NTFS formatted SATA beast.

The long stroke seeks are of DM9+ quality: sharp, loud, aggressive, did I mention loud.!!!!

The short strokes are very muted, very much like the 7200.7's 8's, and 9's.

The idle noise as we have come to expect from Seagate drives is a pleasant broadband noise, more, whoosh than anything else, which is likely due to having 4 platters in this beast.

The vibration is relatively low, not as good as some, but this of course varies with every drive sample, even from the same batch.

The performance is exceptional, if anyone has tested a 7200.9 and been happy with the 7200.9's performance, this is faster still.

I will post a HD Tach screendump of a PATA 80GB 7200.9 vs the 750GB SATA beastie if someone can tell me how.


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Post by Goldmember » Thu May 11, 2006 7:03 am

andyb,

Thanks to you and your colleague for reviewing this 3/4 terabyte monster. In your opinion, would suspending the 7200.10 lower the seek noise enough for most of us?

Also, someone over at storage review said their 320GB SATA drive was loud at first and then quieted down after a few days. :? The 320GB is now in stock over here for a very tempting $.36/GB.

Off Topic but...It seems that the storage industry will continue to consolidate down to 2 or 3 players mirroring CPUs and GPUs. This means we will eventually have fewer choices for quiet hard drives. :cry: There is a column about this in CPU magazine.

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Post by andyb » Thu May 11, 2006 8:10 am

Having never suspended a drive I dont know first hand just how much of an impact suspension has.

However being the proud owner or an "SPCR Edition" of the P180, I think that the triple layered sides + soft silicone grommets will reduce the idle noise to a very very slight amount.

However the noise seems to be airborne, and not vibration induced, so P180 and P150 owners will fair better than most.

As mentioned the vibration is relativley small, however I did NOT mention that the seeks are SO sharp that you can easily feel the movement when the drive is on a flat surface.

We had the drive placed on a hardish book, outside of the case, there didnt seem to be ANY noise difference when I was holding the drive to feel the vibration level.

I also didnt mention heat, the drive doesnt get very hot to the touch, after being run for a while in open air, I think this drive would be OK to suspend and not worry too much about it overheating, so long as it has active cooling (suspended drives run hotter).

I will let you know tomorrow whether the drive being in a P180 sounds quieter (my colleauge has a P180). Personally I think the long seeks will be easily audiable, the short seeks and idle noises will vanish.


Andy

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Post by HueyCobra » Thu May 11, 2006 1:29 pm

andyb wrote:However the noise seems to be airborne, and not vibration induced, so P180 and P150 owners will fair better than most.
Thanks for the initial review, andyb. It doesn't sound promising but I hope you get good results inside the P180. I'll be looking to put the drive in a Solo (P150).

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