WARNING - no 'quiet seek' for Barracuda V SATA!

Phoner · **Posted:** Tue Apr 15, 2003 8:45 pm

My new 120G Barracuda V Serial ATA drive has a MUCH louder seek noise than my old Barracuda IV. So I found out Barracudas have two settings: 'performance seek' and 'quiet seek.'

But then I tried to enable 'quiet seek' without success, and just had this email exchange with Seagate Tech Support:

Seagate: "This drive doesn't support acoustic management. "

Me: "WHAT!? The manual for the drive gives the specs for both 'performance
seek' and 'quiet seek.' How then can it not have a 'quiet seek'
setting??"

Seagate: "The product manual may not have been updated. This generation of the drive, doesn't support the feature in question."

This is completely lame. Until this is fixed, if ever, I have to discourage anyone from getting this drive. Get the regular ATA version instead.

Rusty075 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 15, 2003 9:04 pm

Huh, that sucks.

Everybody that is/was considering buying one should write them an email. If enough people tell them that not supporting AAM is going to cost them money they may add that functionality via a firmware update.

Never hurts to try.

beefybeef · **Joined:** Mon Apr 14, 2003 3:36 am **Posts:** 24

I've just bought the 'Cuda 7200.7 non-SATA drive. According to the Intel Application Accelerator the drive doesn't support 'Auto-Accoustic Management'. Just great. :cry:

Geoff.

dukla2000 · **Posted:** Wed Apr 16, 2003 5:16 am

Yup - Dru mentioned this in his review of the 7200.7 80Gb non-Sata

I got a 7200.7 40Gb and certainly it wont play ball (Drive temp & the Hitachi utility). But I will say that when it is 'rubber mounted' (another fetish of mine - joke - between rubber bands) it is silent to my ears.

ps - just realised I am off-topic - you were talking about the 'cuda V Sata. But seems 'recently' Seagate have stopped this option?

DoubleJ · **Joined:** Wed Apr 23, 2003 2:13 am **Posts:** 5

Hi all,

That's true, the new Barracuda V SATA HDDs do not support AAM feature.

I had write to Marc Noblitt, Product Planning at Seagate (and member
of the SATA workgroup). My email was forwarded to Craig Wade and here
the answer:

"Marc and Jean,

Seagate drives do NOT support the AAM feature. We did at one time but due to legal issues we now do not support this funcation.

Regards,
Craig Wade
Senior Staff Applications Engineering
Asia Pacific Customers"

The PDF document about the HDD Barracuda V SATA series is not up-to-date. But what is the usefulness of the Seashield, if the HDD is not really
silent (heads are noisy) ? Don't know...

I do not know exactly why Seagate does not support any more the AAM.
Apparently there were issues, maybe with the AAM patent ??

Now my HDD is plugged into a Silent Drive case, but I cannot close the case and I must ventilate it (otherwise the HDD is too hot and the computer freeze).
But I have reduced the heads noise (reduced, not eliminated!).

So :

Barracuda V ATA : AAM support.
Barracuda V SATA : No AAM support.
7200.7 ATA : No AAM support.

Now the questions are : Does SATA standard support or not the AAM (patent issue) ? And why ATA 7200.7 HDDs does not support the AAM too ?

Dru · **Posted:** Wed Apr 23, 2003 2:08 pm

I find that interesting about the AAM Patent. I didn't know one existed. If there is such a beast, then shouldn't only one hard drive maker be using this feature? Or perhaps you have to pay a licensing fee?

The drives were released in this order: IV, V, 7200.7. So if the V series doesn't have AAM, then neither will any further drives have it. :cry:

Well, I hope Seagate comes out with a similar silencing technology that won't infringe on patents.

dukla2000 · **Posted:** Wed Apr 23, 2003 2:21 pm

Calling all microcode hackers: the V (Sata) and 7200.7 have 'silent seek' in their specs, yet presumably disabled in the microcode. Any volunteers how to enable it?

Or we may see Seagate release a firmware upgrade at some time in the future (probably right after pigs land at Heathrow).

Phoner · **Posted:** Wed Apr 23, 2003 5:01 pm

I got sick of the seek noise and sandwiched the drive in aluminum, surrounded by foam. Now it is silent but I am poorer $60.

surprise · **Joined:** Wed Apr 23, 2003 8:34 am **Posts:** 6

Compaq and Seagate got sued from Convolve for using silent seeks,
because this company has licensed exclusively a technology from MIT
named "Input Shaping".

Essentially everything with a controlled, slow brake is patented, how
stupid... And even the possibility to switch between fast and silent seeks
is patented, come on... next i'll patent hairdryers with two settings -
o, wait, they are already existing

http://www.convolve.com/pr2000-7-12a.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/11943.html
http://www.computerworld.com/softwareto ... 91,00.html

aphonos · **Posted:** Fri Apr 25, 2003 7:49 pm

surprise wrote:

Compaq and Seagate got sued from Convolve for using silent seeks,
because this company has licensed exclusively a technology from MIT
named "Input Shaping".

Essentially everything with a controlled, slow brake is patented, how
stupid... And even the possibility to switch between fast and silent seeks
is patented, come on... next i'll patent hairdryers with two settings -
o, wait, they are already existing

http://www.convolve.com/pr2000-7-12a.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/11943.html
http://www.computerworld.com/softwareto ... 91,00.html

I guess we say buh-bye to either quiet 'Cudas or affordable 'Cudas. Doesn't look like convolve is going to let it be both ways.

Guess we have to keep an eye on the settlement of this suit. I'm initially drawn to think convolve is the bad guy, but Seagate may be the one in the wrong.

DanOnKeys · **Posted:** Thu May 29, 2003 11:05 am

Has anybody heard anything else about Seagate the the future of AAM? I'm getting pretty discouraged

. . .

hopester · **Joined:** Fri May 30, 2003 5:22 am **Posts:** 3

Hitachi Feature Tool

The above worked fine for me (2x120GB CUDA V SATA drives connected to the ICH5 on the Abit IC7-G)

Seagate technical support also told me it could not be done :wink:

Ralf Hutter · **Posted:** Fri May 30, 2003 5:38 am

hopester wrote:

Hitachi Feature Tool

The above worked fine for me (2x120GB CUDA V SATA drives connected to the ICH5 on the Abit IC7-G)

Seagate technical support also told me it could not be done :wink:

Are you saying that you were able to turn on the AAM feature on your SATA Seagates by using the Hitachi Feature Tool?

DanOnKeys · **Posted:** Fri May 30, 2003 5:45 am

hopester -- you're giving me hope! As soon as I can scrounge up the $$, I think I'll get me a cuda V SATA.

hopester · **Joined:** Fri May 30, 2003 5:22 am **Posts:** 3

Ralf Hutter wrote:

hopester wrote:

Hitachi Feature Tool

The above worked fine for me (2x120GB CUDA V SATA drives connected to the ICH5 on the Abit IC7-G)

Seagate technical support also told me it could not be done :wink:

Are you saying that you were able to turn on the AAM feature on your SATA Seagates by using the Hitachi Feature Tool?

Yes, it was my last try before I was going to RMA the drives and get the PATA versions. Luckly it worked

Ralf Hutter · **Posted:** Sat May 31, 2003 8:45 am

Someone over at Anandtech had good results using the Hitachi Feature tool on their Seagate and specifically mentioned that it was hopester's post here at SPCR that turned him onto it. Way to go hopester!

halcyon · **Posted:** Sat May 31, 2003 1:22 pm

hopester,

can you confirm that the AAM feature is not only turned on (as informed by the Hitachi tool), but actually also results in decreased noise and decreased performance?

If the feature is there and truly enabled, you should see decrease in both.

I just want a confirmation before jumping on this myself

Has anybody tried this on the 7200.7 SATA drives?

Maybe somebody should (after confirmation) post a new thread about this, otherwise the information will not be noticed by many in this thread.

Great find people! Thanks!

regards,
Halcyon

hopester · **Joined:** Fri May 30, 2003 5:22 am **Posts:** 3

AAM Off - Loud as hell

AAM On - Peace at last

As you can see AAM increase the access time (like it should)

I doubt it will work with the 7200.7 drives as I think they have disabled the feature.

Kind regards,

Hopester

halcyon · **Posted:** Sun Jun 01, 2003 11:10 am

Hopester,

thank you! Your findings are very good news indeed.

cheers,
halcyon

Td_nw · **Posted:** Sun Jun 01, 2003 7:22 pm

hopester wrote:

I doubt it will work with the 7200.7 drives as I think they have disabled the feature.

Kind regards,

Hopester

Well, I have two 7200.7 arriving and I was hopeing to use Ftool v1.80 on them. (Guess I did not do enough homework. :cry:

) I will still try and see what happens.

When a feature is "disabled" - that does not mean removed does it?

DeadBySundown · **Posted:** Mon Jun 02, 2003 4:28 am

hopester wrote:

Hitachi Feature Tool

The above worked fine for me (2x120GB CUDA V SATA drives connected to the ICH5 on the Abit IC7-G)

Seagate technical support also told me it could not be done :wink:

Thanks for the tip, hopester.

I'd tried running the Maxtor AAM tool on my Maxtor drives (1 x 120GB on an IDE channel, 2 x 80GB on a RAID channel), and the Maxtor tool wouldn't even recognize the drives.

The Hitachi tool found all the drives, even the ones on the RAID controller, and had no trouble setting AAM. The difference in seek noise is just amazing.

Sweet.

pingu666 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 02, 2003 4:36 am

hmm i better try it, after i backup me data

gbass01 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 22, 2003 8:49 pm

Just used Hitachi FTool 1.80 to successfully turn on AAM on my Seagate Barr V 120MB. Much quieter.

gbass01 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 23, 2003 8:45 am

The custom AAM value setting of the FTool 1.80 does not change the noise level gradually when used on the above HD. Values of 192 and below are "on" and 193 and above are "off".

Spoonfed · **Joined:** Mon Jun 23, 2003 1:51 am **Posts:** 15

Good to see confirmation that it works on Barra V's.

Barra V's are still obtainable here in Australia (i guess we are always behind:) but the 7200.7 is taking over FAST.

Im going 3 60gb drives, i'll go the V, if not i'll try and get a Samsung (no doubt harder here than in the states)

prjparry · **Joined:** Wed May 28, 2003 11:46 pm **Posts:** 20

Read this thread with interest...

Downloaded the feature tool which installed to a floppy disk.
Rebooted machine with floppy as boot device. The tool only finds the hard disk on IDE1 and the two optical devices on IDE2.
It does not recongnise the devices on the SATA raid controller.

Any suggestions on how I can get the devices recongnised so I can lower the acoustics????

Thanks

Paul

DanOnKeys · **Posted:** Thu Jun 26, 2003 4:54 am

I didn't have trouble getting my SATA cudaV recognized -- maybe try unplugging all of your PATA drives and rebooting (just to set AAM).

stuart · **Joined:** Thu Jun 26, 2003 8:01 pm **Posts:** 6

Has anyone been able to use the feature tool with a SATA RAID Controller? When I boot up and try to use the tool, it doesn't see my drives.

kork · **Joined:** Mon Mar 17, 2003 4:04 am **Posts:** 28

stuart wrote:

Has anyone been able to use the feature tool with a SATA RAID Controller? When I boot up and try to use the tool, it doesn't see my drives.

Sort of relevant: the IBM/Hitachi HD tool could not touch the AAM settings on my two PATA Cuda V's while they were connected to a RAID controller (it did recognize the drives, though). After I switched them over to a normal IDE channel everything worked fine.

WARNING - no 'quiet seek' for Barracuda V SATA!

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