Samsung HD501LJ

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

eldoctor.Sylvain
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:59 am

Post by eldoctor.Sylvain » Thu Mar 29, 2007 3:09 am

Hello. Does anyone know how to manage seek noise on this drive?

I tried to use the HD501LJ HUTIL available on Samsung web site, but run from a dos7 it does not detect my sata adapter...

alfred
Posts: 127
Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2006 8:32 pm

Post by alfred » Thu Mar 29, 2007 5:53 am

You may try the newest Ultimate Boot CD (version 4.0) to launch Hitachi's F-Tool under a linux boot, and see if your SATA controller is being recognized.

IdontexistM8
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 2:55 pm
Location: on your GPS

Post by IdontexistM8 » Tue May 01, 2007 10:38 am

Has anyone tried one in an external enclosure yet?

Ralf Hutter
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 8636
Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
Location: Sunny SoCal

Post by Ralf Hutter » Wed May 02, 2007 4:44 am

IdontexistM8 wrote:Has anyone tried one in an external enclosure yet?
I've been using one in an Antec MX-1 for the past month or so. Runs super-cool. Got rid of most of the Samsung hum by sitting the enclosure on four 1/2" x 1/2" x 1/2" Sorbothane pads.

IdontexistM8
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 2:55 pm
Location: on your GPS

Post by IdontexistM8 » Wed May 02, 2007 9:15 am

Had a quick look at the enclosure..are you using the fan?

Ralf Hutter
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 8636
Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
Location: Sunny SoCal

Post by Ralf Hutter » Thu May 03, 2007 7:02 am

IdontexistM8 wrote:Had a quick look at the enclosure..are you using the fan?
Yes, it's very, very quiet. Can't hear it at 1 meter. Keeps the HDD in the low/mid 30ºC range at idle and load.

IdontexistM8
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 2:55 pm
Location: on your GPS

Post by IdontexistM8 » Thu May 03, 2007 7:30 am

Sounds good, thanks.

fjf
Posts: 192
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:44 am
Location: Europe

Post by fjf » Sun May 06, 2007 2:46 am

I just got one of those, I suspended it, and I have to say I am impressed. This thing is dead silent!. I cannot hear it. Sometimes I think I can hear the seeks, but otherwise it is a great HDD. After suffering two 160GB seagates for a couple of years, this is a relief!.

IdontexistM8
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 2:55 pm
Location: on your GPS

Post by IdontexistM8 » Wed May 23, 2007 8:49 am

Has anyone seen any variations in vibration noise?

I just got two drives from Dabs.com which I've put in those Antec enclosures. One runs very quiet with minimal vibration, while the other vibrates considerably. They're clearly from the same batch..serials only a few digits apart.

An RMA job or something else?

alfred
Posts: 127
Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2006 8:32 pm

Post by alfred » Wed May 23, 2007 9:59 am

Not the slightest variation in vibration noise in my experience (8 drives from 3 batches); that is, vibration level is moderately high on all drives. Make sure you double-check AAM setting on both drives.

IdontexistM8
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 2:55 pm
Location: on your GPS

Post by IdontexistM8 » Wed May 23, 2007 11:14 am

This is when idle so AAM is not really applicable.

I isolated the two drives from their enclosures on a soft service and the problem drive exhibits more motor noise and definitely higher vibration.

I've contacted Rexo (RMA centre in the UK) for advice but I'll probably RMA it as the difference between the two drives is marked.

Perhaps I've got an incredibly quiet one and the other is just normal. :lol:

alfred
Posts: 127
Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2006 8:32 pm

Post by alfred » Wed May 23, 2007 11:10 pm

IdontexistM8 wrote:Perhaps I've got an incredibly quiet one and the other is just normal. :lol:
Then perhaps I've got eight incredibly quiet ones ;)

JaYp146
Posts: 186
Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:17 pm
Location: Cleveland, OH
Contact:

Post by JaYp146 » Sun May 27, 2007 11:55 pm

Not only is my HD501LJ super quiet (while being vertically suspended in foam in my NZXT Adamas case), but it's also ridiculously fast.

This thing obliterates my old WD SATA1 drive in winRAR decoding, game level loads, everything I throw at it. Looking forward to keeping this one for a lonng while.

IdontexistM8
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 2:55 pm
Location: on your GPS

Post by IdontexistM8 » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:15 am

Well I got my replacement drive and it's pretty similar (perhaps marginally better) to the one I RMA-d...so I'm thinking the statement I made before is probably accurate.

fresh
Posts: 89
Joined: Sun Dec 24, 2006 2:30 pm
Location: Slovenia

Post by fresh » Mon Jun 04, 2007 1:30 pm

Can't say the little bugger didn't impress me as well. Silent and fast - like spiderMAN 8)

Chri
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:39 pm

Post by Chri » Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:58 pm

After having read this thread, I had decided to get a HD501LJ as a second drive for my new Mac Pro.

But now that I have it, I am kind of unhappy with my HD501LJ. There is significant idle noise due to vibration, and the worst thing is: the vibration is not constant but varies in strength with a period length of apporoximately 1.5 seconds. Is this an indication for something being not right with my drive ? After reading here that many people are really happy with the noise of their HD501LJ, I wonder If I maybe just got a bad drive.

Besides the noise, I have another issue, which might be related to the drive as well: It happens from time to time that the System hangs for some minutes. I haven't been able to confirm that this is related to the drive, but I have this hunch, because it happened on both Mac OS and Windows XP during or after operations made on that drive, but it never happend using a different partition that only operates the other drive (system drive).

I am running HDDScan now. I hope I can find some problem there, so I can RMA the drive (I'm live in Germany).

EsaT
Posts: 473
Joined: Sun Aug 13, 2006 1:53 am
Location: 61.6° N, 29.5° E - Finland

Post by EsaT » Tue Jun 05, 2007 4:30 am

Idle sound varying doesn't sound good. It should stay constant if drive isn't doing anything.


Hasn't there been enough of data that these Samsungs tend to be vibrators requiring soft mounting?
Most people in this forum probably use soft mounting which mostly "hides" vibration so you should remember to look only applicable part of data instead of generalising it.

Chri
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:39 pm

Post by Chri » Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:01 am

I have used soft mounting and was able to drastically decrease the resonance caused by the case. Otherwise it would have been horrible. But still the vibration is clearly audible and adds significantly to the overall noise level of the machine. It is clearly more quiet without the disk.

After some discussion, I now think that the varying strenght of vibration noise might indeed not be caused by the disk itself, but by the superimposition of drive vibration frequency and case resonance frequency.

Unfortunately I am not able to test the drive in free air, because the Mac Pro does not feature wired SATA2 connections but has its connectors arranged so that the drive is plugged automatically when you put it into one of the slots.

I also wasnt able to get HUTIL 2.03 running to check my disk for errors. I used the UltimateBootCD for booting and starting DOS works fine. But when the HUTIL is startet and prompts me to press either Y or N to verify that I am aware of possible data loss, the System does not react to any keyboard input anymore.
I assume this is an issue with the Mac Pro not being a PC. Unfortunately I don't have a SATA2 enabled PC to run the utility.
Any suggestions ?

I think I will buy another HD501LJ today and check out if it is any different.
Or would you suggest that I should go for a different drive ?

IdontexistM8
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 2:55 pm
Location: on your GPS

Post by IdontexistM8 » Tue Jun 05, 2007 7:30 am

Well Rexo have offered to replace the replacement and pick it up via UPS so I can't fault them.

I'm still pondering what the odds of getting a super quiet or not are.

whiic
Posts: 575
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:48 pm
Location: Finland

Post by whiic » Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:43 am

"There is significant idle noise due to vibration, and the worst thing is: the vibration is not constant but varies in strength with a period length of apporoximately 1.5 seconds."

You also mentioned you have another drive. That solved the cause of variation. It's because of minute differences in rpm that noise varies in strength over time. 1.5 seconds means 40 rpm. So, if one of your HDD rotetes at 7200rpm, the other rotates at 7240 or 7160 rpm. Or if one rotates at 7199rpm, the other rotates at 7239 or 7159 rpm. What the rpms are, I don't know excactly. All I know is that they are relatively close to 7200rpm and that the difference is 40 rpm.

To make the pulsating noise disappear, you'd need to decouple one of your two HDD. Then, vibration of only one HDD will transmit to computer case, making it constant humming with no variance over time. I would suggest decoupling the one that vibrates more.

And decoupling both is of course the best way because not only would you get rid of the annoying variance, you'd also get rid of constant humming.

But you're a Mac user, so I don't think you can do pretty much anything to anything to improve anything.

Chri
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:39 pm

Post by Chri » Sat Jun 09, 2007 8:48 am

Thank you for these hints.

Actually I was a PC user for 13 years, and I still have 2 PCs. However, you are right that I have problems figuring out a good solution to decouple my harddisks in my Mac Pro, because it has its specific way to mount the disks. I tried to put a kind of foam between the mounting rack and drive and also between the screw heads and the mounting rack. It did improve, but still not perfect. The Mac Pro case has a closing mechanism that also fixes the Harddisk racks. If I close it, the resonance will be annyoing, so I leave the lever open and now the noise is very very little.

About the HUTIL. I found that the PC in my living room has SATA Connectors, so I just attached my first 501LJ there and got the HUTIL 2.03 running (finally). Its now doing the self-test.

Is it enough to run one testloop, or would you recommend to run several ?

Regards,

Chri

IdontexistM8
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 2:55 pm
Location: on your GPS

Post by IdontexistM8 » Fri Jun 15, 2007 3:47 pm

Well after trying out the 2nd replacement drive from Rexo, I'm now pretty certain that the low(er) vibration drive is the exception as this new one is pretty similar to the previous two.

Be nice if Samsung could do something on the vibration front as it somewhat spoils an otherwise excellent unit. Perhaps the F1s will be an improvement.

typ0
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Apr 21, 2007 2:26 pm

Post by typ0 » Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:42 am

I have this Samsung HD501LJ 500Gb hard drive, and i noticed a clicking sound, right after i power the computer on and then I don't hear them anymore. The last HD501LJ drive I had was RMA'ed, because it died on me on its second day of usage while using Linux and started making 2 or 3 of these 'clicking' sounds when powering on. I have the hard drive suspended in an Antec Solo case so the click sound is pretty clear, and makes me a little unconfortable. Do your drives have these sounds too or should I be worried about my current Samsung HD501LJ aswell? Two bad drives in a row would be pretty bad luck.

Cheers

samuelmorris
Posts: 168
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2007 1:00 pm
Location: York, UK

Post by samuelmorris » Thu Jun 21, 2007 11:43 am

Does anybody know how these perform with Nexus Drive-a-way enclosures? I have two of these, one with a 36GB Raptor in (yuck), and another with 250GB 7200.9 Barracuda, for which the vibrations are minimal, almost non existent. if the 501LJ performs like that, i'd be more than satisfied

wiak
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:49 am

Post by wiak » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:47 am

if you guys are thinking of T166 500GB you be better of with seagate
i have received two T166 500GB with bad sectors!, the first had many bad sectors and clicking noise when i got it, the second has over 90% bad sectors after 2-3 weeks!

now am pissed and will demand my money back
WARNING DO NOT GET THIS DRIVE

most of my pictures has gotten corrupt after i started using the T166 and thats BAD, but thankfuly i got that picture folder on another drive

a friend of me had his T166 crash on him after some months to, so DOA/EOA must be over 50%!

DOA = Dead on arrival, EOA = error on arival

Kaleid
Posts: 254
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2004 9:43 am
Location: Sweden

Post by Kaleid » Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:09 am

Well, it's unfortunate that you and your friend had trouble with the Samsungs, but two people is hardly enough to claim "OA/EOA must be over 50%! "

nutball
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1304
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 7:16 am
Location: en.gb.uk

Post by nutball » Wed Oct 10, 2007 4:04 am

wiak wrote:now am pissed and will demand my money back
WARNING DO NOT GET THIS DRIVE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_small_numbers

_MarcoM_
Posts: 294
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 11:58 am

Post by _MarcoM_ » Sun Jun 01, 2008 1:27 am

Hello, i can buy an HD501LJ for a very very good price. Yes i know, it is a bit "old" disk now, but the price is terrific.
Actually i'm using a Caviar RE2 400GB, 100GB/platter, 45dB according to StorageReview.

In your opinion is a good purchase? There are issues, or is a good drive?

fjf
Posts: 192
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:44 am
Location: Europe

Post by fjf » Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:34 am

I have one suspended in an Antec solo. Great drive.

timbalcombe
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:28 am
Location: london

Re: Sample variance?

Post by timbalcombe » Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:37 am

pbecker wrote:I've bought two Samsung drives recently for a new quiet system - a HD321LJ and a HD501LJ. The 320GB drive is nice and quiet, but it seems that the 500GB drive produces a much more noticable humming sound due to vibration (even though I have it mounted on silicone grommets in the bottom of an Antec NSK3400 case). The 320GB drive is mounted in the top part of the case using the same silicone grommets.

I might have been unfortunate and gotten an unusually noisy HD501LJ - has anyone experienced that the HD501LJ's (or Samsung's drives in general) vary significantly in vibration noise?
God yeah, this thing vibrates big time.
I bought a smart drive 2002c and even that wouldn't shut it up (in an antec p182)
I also have a 160JJ which is even worse.
They start off fine, then the hum begins!

I have read so many things about this drive and everyone praises it for its quietness, but hell, as soon as its attatched to anything it rumbles like a mother.
It seems that there are only a few "of us" who think or experienced this vibration.
As I have 2 drives it can't be a fluke, surely??

Post Reply