Seagate 7200.10 Series

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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Slidax
Posts: 52
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2005 10:55 pm
Location: Australia

Post by Slidax » Sun Jul 09, 2006 6:29 am

Firetech wrote:Where did you get it from, was it by mail and are you not going to try another in case it's just a faulty drive?
yes i im always concerned about that, but i work at a computer parts store and tested 2 7200.10 drives in shop, they both sounded the same in noise, then took one home and yes... in a quieter environment i can really pick it over my older drives :(

just got my 300gb sata2 16mb maxtor today, nice and quiet by comparison, also hdtach benches roughly the same on the avg read (not that i put all my faith in benchmarks) :)
Last edited by Slidax on Sun Jul 09, 2006 6:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

winguy
Posts: 447
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:31 am

Post by winguy » Sun Jul 09, 2006 7:29 am

Slidax wrote:just got my 300gb sata2 16mb maxtor today, nice and quiet by comparison, also hdtach benches roughly the same on the avg read
Got a HDTach screenie for your Maxtor ( 6V300F0 ?)?

Anyone knows the platter density of 6V320F0 ?
DiamondMax 10 Datasheet

Slidax
Posts: 52
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2005 10:55 pm
Location: Australia

Post by Slidax » Sun Jul 09, 2006 2:50 pm

here we are
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7503/bench4ux.gif

if you're purely after every bit of performance you can get, seagate seems to be the way to go. im curious how the burst speed is only what one would expect for a sata1 drive.. although the maxtor and a 7200.9 ive tested in the past (both sata2) scored > 200 burst speeds.


testing was done on an A8N-sli, 3500+

Goldmember
Posts: 220
Joined: Wed Mar 15, 2006 10:16 am
Location: U.S.A.

Post by Goldmember » Sun Jul 09, 2006 6:15 pm

Slidax wrote:Needless to say its going back and im getting another MAXTOR which have been serving me well as of late
Lol. I think you and I are the only 2 people who actually like Maxtor drives. :lol: Of course, that's after using the Hitachi Feature Tool. :wink:
Slidax wrote:...if you're purely after every bit of performance you can get, seagate seems to be the way to go. im curious how the burst speed is only what one would expect for a sata1 drive.. although the maxtor and a 7200.9 ive tested in the past (both sata2) scored > 200 burst speeds...
No worries mate. :) You just forgot to remove the jumper which will enable SATA 2.5. Instructions will be on the top label. Thanks for the updates and pic.
winguy wrote:...Anyone knows the platter density of 6V320F0?...
I believe it's 3 x 106.67GB whilst the 6V300F0 is 3 x 100GB. The DM10 320GB is a very rare hard drive that was only around for a short time. I was hoping Maxtor would come out with a 2 x 160GB before they went bye-bye. :cry:

Quick Tip: You can find out the number of platters in a Maxtor drive by looking at the second character in the SN located on the drive and the retail box. For example, a SN starting with V6....., means the drive has 6 heads. With a max of 2 heads per platter, you can deduce that it has 3 platters.
andyb wrote:This morning I fitted a 250GB 7200.10 SATA into someones PC, over the last week I have played with it a little, and benchmarked it.

Thanks for the update. I believe that particular drive has 2 x 166.67GB platters and 3 heads, not 100% sure. Sometimes I wish that I had Superman's x-ray vision. :shock: 8)

Slidax
Posts: 52
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Location: Australia

Post by Slidax » Sun Jul 09, 2006 8:34 pm

Ok at work now and i can think logically about all this (yes i did have the seagate jumpered to 1.5 lol)
Also my boss is away for the week ;) time to do more testing!

If there are any benchmarking apps and configurations you would like to see used post them here, for starters ill probably be using hdtach,atto and winbench99.. anything else thats free ill also give a run...

should be able to post results in less than a day or 2

Firetech
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Location: Sydney, Australia
Contact:

Post by Firetech » Sun Jul 09, 2006 10:42 pm

Any Seagate NL35.2's you can test against the 7200.10 too? :lol:

Slidax
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Location: Australia

Post by Slidax » Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:46 pm

Test Setup:
Gigabyte K8N-sli Nforce4 SATA2
AMD 3800+ X2
2GB DDR400
All drives tested were set to Sata 3gb mode.
--------------------------------------
ST332062AS
7200.10
320GB
16mb buffer

ATTO
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3562/14ye2.jpg
HDTACH
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/456/10ej1.jpg
------------------------------------------------------------------
ST3250620AS
7200.10
250GB
16mb buffer

ATTO
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/970/12ey3.jpg
HDTACH
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/6756/10xu1.jpg

ATTO RAID 0
http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/4140/18wt1.jpg
HDTACH RAID 0
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/6826/12fq2.jpg

ATTO RAID 1
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/1835/12hf3.jpg
HDTACH RAID 1
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1658/12pp5.jpg
------------------------------------------------------------------
ST3250824AS
7200.9
250GB
8mb buffer

ATTO
http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/1818/15oj2.jpg
HDTACH
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/3753/14tr7.jpg
------------------------------------------------------------------
ST3160812AS
7200.9
160GB
8mb buffer

ATTO
http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/3267/19rs8.jpg
HDTACH
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/7066/15tp1.jpg

------------------------------------------------------------------
WD2500KS
250GB
16mb buffer

ATTO
http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/9566/11cy1.jpg
HDTACH
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/456/17am5.jpg
------------------------------------------------------------------

HDTach Comparisons:

8mb cache vs 16mb cache
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/2103/13ub.jpg

RAID 0 vs Single Drive
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/8666/19te4.jpg

Intel ICH7 RAID 0 vs Nforce4 RAID 0
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/4893/12ht2.jpg

Goldmember
Posts: 220
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Location: U.S.A.

Post by Goldmember » Fri Jul 14, 2006 2:40 pm

Slidax,

Thanks for all of the benchies! That HD Tach screenshot of your 320GB looks awesome. :)

Take care.

Edit: For all your hard work, you get a cookie! :lol:

winguy
Posts: 447
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:31 am

Post by winguy » Sun Jul 16, 2006 11:40 am

take a look at this

which is yours?

Goldmember
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Location: U.S.A.

Post by Goldmember » Sun Jul 16, 2006 12:25 pm

winguy,

Great find!! I knew that there had to be some sort of an explanation to this besides simple manufacturing variance.

Seagate has outsourced its FDB motors to 2 or more companies, just as Samsung used JVC and Nidec FDB motors. Seagate shipped 17.5 million desktop drives in the previous quarter, hence the need for multiple suppliers.

I wish that guy would have run some sort of seek test like HD Tach to see if there was a difference between the Singapore and China manufactured drives.

winguy
Posts: 447
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:31 am

Post by winguy » Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:14 pm

Goldmember wrote:I wish that guy would have run some sort of seek test like HD Tach to see if there was a difference between the Singapore and China manufactured drives.
I doubt there'll be any significant differences.

Go to page 5 and you'll see the PATA "quiet seek" of ~15ms. Thats about 1.7-1.9ms slower than the SATA model. I wonder how much quieter its seeks are compared to the respective SATA model.

Slidax
Posts: 52
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2005 10:55 pm
Location: Australia

Post by Slidax » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:19 am

winguy wrote:take a look at this

which is yours?
very good find!

i'll check on friday or next week (i took the drive back and got maxtor but should still have some seagate 320's in stock at work)

Dhoomstriker
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Aug 29, 2006 3:28 pm

Post by Dhoomstriker » Tue Aug 29, 2006 3:48 pm

Slidax wrote:
winguy wrote:take a look at this

which is yours?
very good find!

i'll check on friday or next week (i took the drive back and got maxtor but should still have some seagate 320's in stock at work)
Indeed, that link was very informative, thanks. I just picked up a Seagate 320 GB 7200.10 (ST3320620A) drive yesterday.

Anytime that the hard drive is plugged in, I hear a high pitched whine coming out of it, similar to what was reported by czr in the thread you linked to. If I unplug the drive, the noise disappears.

I simply can't stand being in the same room with that noise. My two friends concurred. I am going to try and take it back to the store; wish me luck!

Date Code : 07043
Firmware : 3.AAC
Site Code : WU
Product of China
"Drive Spindle Motor" : looks just like the non-silent image that czr posted
Result : high pitched whine. I get a headache within a minute, and I'm not a headache kind of person

I still haven't been able to find a site that explains how the date code works, so if you know, feel free to fill me in.

Yacho
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:56 pm

Post by Yacho » Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:05 pm

well i bought 320 GB drive like a week ago but unfortunelly i dropped it right after i got it from store so i decided to RMA it directly to Seagate... i got it replaced by 500GB model - i should be damn happy about it but im NOT.
FAQ reads that seagate may ship refurbished drives as replacements - well mine dosent have anny refurbished sticker... god damn but its LOUD ! itt falls into a category of "silent ones" i suppose because i got that pink sticky glue not white but hey ! i can hear the damn seeks from another room with door closed at night... drive acts like my old 40 MB seagate 5.25 back in 1991 !
alredy asked seagate about it lets see what they'll answer.

MakaveliReturns
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Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2006 2:46 am

Post by MakaveliReturns » Mon Oct 02, 2006 2:49 am

I bought the 400GB 7200.10 Perpendicular drive from Outpost, and WOW is it loud! I feel just like the above poster, reminds me of old 10GB maxtors (I have one laying around here which still works and makes loud noises!)....

I took the drive out of my PC and the noise was 80% gone! So the sound does travel through the case. I have a 7200.8 250GB drive from seagate and that thing is not even loud! I have 400GB Western Digitals, and they make no noise! Whatsup with seagate forcing down our throats requirements for putting their drives in the PC with rubber feet? Don't get this one. It's a really fast drive though.

Yacho
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Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:56 pm

Post by Yacho » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:05 am

thanks MakaveliReturns, now i know that 3 platter baraccuda's are simply loud as hell - fortunelly i sold mine - ill ship it tomorrow and ill get 2x320 samsungs in raid0 in exchange.... still im very dissapointed with seagate 10 series... :/

Yacho
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:56 pm

Post by Yacho » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:10 am

MakaveliReturns wrote:I bought the 400GB 7200.10 Perpendicular drive from Outpost, and WOW is it loud! I feel just like the above poster, reminds me of old 10GB maxtors (I have one laying around here which still works and makes loud noises!)....

I took the drive out of my PC and the noise was 80% gone! So the sound does travel through the case. I have a 7200.8 250GB drive from seagate and that thing is not even loud! I have 400GB Western Digitals, and they make no noise! Whatsup with seagate forcing down our throats requirements for putting their drives in the PC with rubber feet? Don't get this one. It's a really fast drive though.
how loud is it after putting it on rubber feet then ?

MakaveliReturns
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Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2006 2:46 am

Post by MakaveliReturns » Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:44 pm

I haven't tried it yet, because I haven't decided which to get, a fan & ruber feet setup for a 5 1/4" bay or the Zalman fanless anti vibration kit?

I don't want to return the drive because I got it for cheap. Around $90 after rebate. It's freakishly loud, though, as the noise travels from the drive to my case (Cooler Master Wavemaster).

I could return it and spend $50 more on a WD drive....but too lazy to deal with returns etc.

zenboy
Posts: 65
Joined: Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:25 pm

Post by zenboy » Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:31 am

After a recent "upgrade" (mumble grumble ECS motherboard mumble SATA support), I had to purchase an IDE drive to replace my delightful Samsung SATA hard drive. I decided on a Seagate 7200.10 200G. After a short time I realized that my new machine was quite a bit noisier than my old one, so I started thinking about slowing down fans and whatnot, as I have a lot of cooling overhead.

So I started like I always do, unhooking each fan in the case to see which was causing the most noise. To my surprise, all of them unplugged, my computer was just as noisy. Unplug the hdd? And Voila, a blissful silence. Plug the fans back in? Still as quiet as a mouse. Plug that hard drive back in? Noisy. So I'm looking at options (maybe an enclosure, I guess). Seeks are not particularly sharp or horrible, just the idle noise is awful.

MakaveliReturns
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2006 2:46 am

Post by MakaveliReturns » Thu Oct 05, 2006 3:06 am

I bought a scytech anti vibration 3.5 inch to 5 1/4 inch bay adapter, and the noise/vibration is gone by about 80%!

These drives are quiet in idle, but when seeking, don't let the bugs bite!

nick705
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Location: UK

Post by nick705 » Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:21 pm

zenboy wrote:Seeks are not particularly sharp or horrible, just the idle noise is awful.
Yep, I can confirm this - I've just bought a 320GB PATA 7200.10, and the idle whine is very intrusive. The seeks are quiet, which ties in with the theory that AAM is preset to quiet on PATA drives, and performance on SATA versions.

Performance is pretty impressive - the average sequential read speed is 63.4MB/sec according to HDTach, but the starting speed is over 70MB/sec and the graph is practically flat almost up to the 200GB mark.

I'm not too bothered about the racket as the drive is going into a remote server - I was expecting some seek noise but the level of idle whine took me by surprise. I thought that was a thing of the past with modern drives, unless I have a duff sample... :(

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