Lowest RPM large hard drive
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pandamonium54
- Posts: 82
- Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 6:33 pm
- Location: St. Louis, MO
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Lowest RPM large hard drive
I want the largest capacity hard drive that spins at the slowest speed. I'm aware that there are 5400 RPM TB drives (I own two), but I want one even slower. These would be for DVR or WHS use. Basically they'd sit idle/unused most of the time. Since Tivos don't spin down their hard drives, the only thing I can think of is to get a hard drive that spins slowly to begin with. So are there any 4200 RPM (or even 3600 RPM) hard drives out there?
I'm not an expert on this topic, but I believe 3600 rpm drives (and 4500 rpm drives) went out of vogue back in the 80s and 90s. Some notebook drives still run at 4500 rpm spec, but nothing over 100 GB. About the slowest I know of is the WD Scorpio Blue which comes in a 1TB version and spins at 5200 rpm iirc.
Honestly, with the advent of the WD Green series and similar drives, I think 5400 rpm about as low as you need to go. Vibration and noise in my 1TB Green are virtually non-existent, and idle power is very low. A similar notebook drive would be better.
Honestly, with the advent of the WD Green series and similar drives, I think 5400 rpm about as low as you need to go. Vibration and noise in my 1TB Green are virtually non-existent, and idle power is very low. A similar notebook drive would be better.
You cannot have both slowest spindle and highest capacity. Which of the two is primary?
Highest possible capacity with as slow spindle as possible for that capacity
= 2000GB, either WD Green WD20EADS or WD20EARS, or Samsung F3 Ecogreen
Lowest possible spindle for highest possible capacity at that rpm...
that would be a real tricky one. Either we'd be looking at 3600rpm 3.5" drive from 15 years in history (and being stuck with capacities lower than 1GB), or possibly some 1" Microdrive with a couple of gigabytes at most.
Whoops, forget that. Bigfoots are 3600rpm and they come in capacities a bit higher, 6.5GB. There's Bigfoots with 19GB capacity but they're 4000rpm. Bigfoots are also physically bigger (5.25") if that's a good thing.
To get slower than 3600rpm, you could get a RAMAC 350. They're around 1200rpm but they're not that precise electronics so you could probably undervolt the drive motor and spin it slower if you want to. 5MB of capacity. 8 KB/s read and write speeds. To use RAMAC 350 you'd need a specific RAMAC 305 computer. It weighs upwards from 4 tons so you need to find room from the basement to prevent floor from collapsing. Basement mounting is also preferential because 50-platter hard-drive assembly is quite noisy even at 1200rpm. Granted, if you have Tek Skillz, you could build a computer to access RAMAC 350 and drop the tonnage of you computer equipment to fraction of that.
It seems they were 1200rpm up to IBM RAMAC 1405. 10MB per module and 1 and 2 module models available, thus up to 20MB for the flagship.
These obviously won't fit into a Tivo or DVR, or be capable of handling the throughput for recording/playback of even SDTV. You'd need a RAID0 of these... obviously you'd need to implement the RAID0 hardware yourself considering the proprietary interface used between IBM RAMAC HDDs and IBM RAMAC capable computers.
Highest possible capacity with as slow spindle as possible for that capacity
= 2000GB, either WD Green WD20EADS or WD20EARS, or Samsung F3 Ecogreen
Lowest possible spindle for highest possible capacity at that rpm...
that would be a real tricky one. Either we'd be looking at 3600rpm 3.5" drive from 15 years in history (and being stuck with capacities lower than 1GB), or possibly some 1" Microdrive with a couple of gigabytes at most.
Whoops, forget that. Bigfoots are 3600rpm and they come in capacities a bit higher, 6.5GB. There's Bigfoots with 19GB capacity but they're 4000rpm. Bigfoots are also physically bigger (5.25") if that's a good thing.
To get slower than 3600rpm, you could get a RAMAC 350. They're around 1200rpm but they're not that precise electronics so you could probably undervolt the drive motor and spin it slower if you want to. 5MB of capacity. 8 KB/s read and write speeds. To use RAMAC 350 you'd need a specific RAMAC 305 computer. It weighs upwards from 4 tons so you need to find room from the basement to prevent floor from collapsing. Basement mounting is also preferential because 50-platter hard-drive assembly is quite noisy even at 1200rpm. Granted, if you have Tek Skillz, you could build a computer to access RAMAC 350 and drop the tonnage of you computer equipment to fraction of that.
It seems they were 1200rpm up to IBM RAMAC 1405. 10MB per module and 1 and 2 module models available, thus up to 20MB for the flagship.
These obviously won't fit into a Tivo or DVR, or be capable of handling the throughput for recording/playback of even SDTV. You'd need a RAID0 of these... obviously you'd need to implement the RAID0 hardware yourself considering the proprietary interface used between IBM RAMAC HDDs and IBM RAMAC capable computers.
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pandamonium54
- Posts: 82
- Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 6:33 pm
- Location: St. Louis, MO
- Contact:
What you said about the microdrive isn't really true. Seagate makes a 3600rpm microdrive that is 5GB. There's no 2GB limit here. Mine doesn't support S.M.A.R.T. though if that's important to you.whiic wrote:You cannot have both slowest spindle and highest capacity. Which of the two is primary?
Highest possible capacity with as slow spindle as possible for that capacity
= 2000GB, either WD Green WD20EADS or WD20EARS, or Samsung F3 Ecogreen
Lowest possible spindle for highest possible capacity at that rpm...
that would be a real tricky one. Either we'd be looking at 3600rpm 3.5" drive from 15 years in history (and being stuck with capacities lower than 1GB), or possibly some 1" Microdrive with a couple of gigabytes at most.
Whoops, forget that. Bigfoots are 3600rpm and they come in capacities a bit higher, 6.5GB. There's Bigfoots with 19GB capacity but they're 4000rpm. Bigfoots are also physically bigger (5.25") if that's a good thing.
To get slower than 3600rpm, you could get a RAMAC 350. They're around 1200rpm but they're not that precise electronics so you could probably undervolt the drive motor and spin it slower if you want to. 5MB of capacity. 8 KB/s read and write speeds. To use RAMAC 350 you'd need a specific RAMAC 305 computer. It weighs upwards from 4 tons so you need to find room from the basement to prevent floor from collapsing. Basement mounting is also preferential because 50-platter hard-drive assembly is quite noisy even at 1200rpm. Granted, if you have Tek Skillz, you could build a computer to access RAMAC 350 and drop the tonnage of you computer equipment to fraction of that.
It seems they were 1200rpm up to IBM RAMAC 1405. 10MB per module and 1 and 2 module models available, thus up to 20MB for the flagship.
These obviously won't fit into a Tivo or DVR, or be capable of handling the throughput for recording/playback of even SDTV. You'd need a RAID0 of these... obviously you'd need to implement the RAID0 hardware yourself considering the proprietary interface used between IBM RAMAC HDDs and IBM RAMAC capable computers.
I never said there's a 2GB limit. I didn't say it was 2GB, nor that there's a solid limit of any sort. I used expression "a couple of gigabytes", because I didn't know exactly how many. 5GB microdrive is still smaller than the 15-year old Bigfoot CY-series.
Your data on biggest microdrive is also incorrect as there's 8GB microdrives as of year 2005. Like 5.25" HDDs, 1.0" is also dead now so what was achieved in 2005 hasn't been improved since. There's simply not enough benefit for using a 1.0" CF form factor HDD that has lower data density than similar sized CF flash drive. (1.8" mini laptop HDD will be the next one to die. 2.5" will be around for many years to come, 3.5" will be the last HDD form factor as returning back to 5.25" would recreate some of the platter stability problems that were once reality (even with densities much lower than current). Sure, there's fluid bearings nowadays but I still doubt comeback of 5.25" as the platters themselves may bend and wave, no matter how precise the bearings would be.)
Your data on biggest microdrive is also incorrect as there's 8GB microdrives as of year 2005. Like 5.25" HDDs, 1.0" is also dead now so what was achieved in 2005 hasn't been improved since. There's simply not enough benefit for using a 1.0" CF form factor HDD that has lower data density than similar sized CF flash drive. (1.8" mini laptop HDD will be the next one to die. 2.5" will be around for many years to come, 3.5" will be the last HDD form factor as returning back to 5.25" would recreate some of the platter stability problems that were once reality (even with densities much lower than current). Sure, there's fluid bearings nowadays but I still doubt comeback of 5.25" as the platters themselves may bend and wave, no matter how precise the bearings would be.)
You did say there's a 2GB limit but in different words. You see the word couple means two, much like a boyfriend and a girlfriend are a couple because there are two of them. Also you accuse me of offering incorrect data in reference to the largest available microdrive when I never at any point made that claim. You, on the other hand did make that claim and I quote you here "possibly some 1" Microdrive with a couple of gigabytes at most. " Again, learn to speak English because when you say something is a couple of gig's at most it means two gig's at most. It's the exact same thing. My point was 5GB was obviously more then 2GB so your wrong and probably not qualified to give advice.whiic wrote:I never said there's a 2GB limit. I didn't say it was 2GB, nor that there's a solid limit of any sort. I used expression "a couple of gigabytes", because I didn't know exactly how many. 5GB microdrive is still smaller than the 15-year old Bigfoot CY-series.
Your data on biggest microdrive is also incorrect as there's 8GB microdrives as of year 2005.
zodeax,
English is my third language. Not my first, not my second... and you, sir, FAIL at your first. Go back to school, American.
- a pair who associate with one another; "the engaged couple"; "an inseparable twosome"
match: bring two objects, ideas, or people together; "This fact is coupled to the other one"; "Matchmaker, can you match my daughter with a nice young man?"; "The student was paired with a partner for collaboration on the project"
a pair of people who live together; "a married couple from Chicago"
link together; "can we couple these proposals?"
a small indefinite number; "he's coming for a couple of days"
pair: form a pair or pairs; "The two old friends paired off"
two items of the same kind
copulate: engage in sexual intercourse; "Birds mate in the Spring"
(physics) something joined by two equal and opposite forces that act along parallel lines
English is my third language. Not my first, not my second... and you, sir, FAIL at your first. Go back to school, American.
Well I'm man enough to admit I didn't realize that couple can mean more than 2, so that's my mistake there and I apologize. Our American school's are a joke and I'm not proud of them so try and forgive me on that one. It doesn't change the fact though that you were also wrong by saying that I claimed to know what the largest capacity microdrive was. When did I say that? I didn't say that, in fact you were the one who claimed to know "at most" how big they come. It's ok to admit your wrong from time to time. It shows maturity.whiic wrote:Your data on biggest microdrive is also incorrect as there's 8GB microdrives as of year 2005.
Rather ironically, a quick Google seems to indicate that a "couple" when referring to a "small indefinite number" is in fact primarily an Americanism. It *can* be used in this manner in the UK (the OED flags the usage as "informal"), but it would generally be regarded as a rather sloppy and vague use of the term.
Interestingly, the Latin origin of "copula" (connection) is related to "copulate", and I suppose taken in that context it could certainly involve more than two parties. One would, of course, need to be wary of the dreaded "nut brush" if one were to demonstrate its practical application.
Interestingly, the Latin origin of "copula" (connection) is related to "copulate", and I suppose taken in that context it could certainly involve more than two parties. One would, of course, need to be wary of the dreaded "nut brush" if one were to demonstrate its practical application.