Seagate 7200.10's are noisiest drives EVER!

martin9887 said:
I was going to get one of these for my new system, are they that noisy? as I sometimes leave my pc on at night for downloading or making disc's etc, I dont want to have whiny pc :/. Thanks.

What ones have OcUK got in stock? (noisy ones or quiet ones) Thanks.

I got mine from here 2 weeks ago and it is whisper quiet. (250 gig)
 
I have 2x320Gb 7200.10's which seem grand, and I have 2x500Gb's of the same model and in the same system and at least one of them sounds like a SCSI :eek: and that's being conservative. Although I will take the drives out of the enclosure and re-seat them to see if anything comes of that.
 
Chong Warrior said:
I think it only right to let people know that these drives have a problem, a big one.

"These drives" (by implication *all* of them) don't have a problem and is a generalisation that will get people with a different experience's backs up. Obviously though, *some of them* have a problem, based on your experience.

I have a 320Gb 7200.10. My case is open, and sits next to my screen on the desk. The drive is probably about 30-50cm from my head. I generally cant hear the drive and only barely when it's working/seeking. My Raptors are a lot louder. I certainly cannot hear it from another room. Make of this experience what you will. (It sounds to me like your drives have a problem, but it would certainly not be correct/fair to say "the" drive therefore has a problem.) As an aside: I probably have one of the first drives since I bought this one pretty much when it was released.

My £0.02 worth anyway.
 
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ByteJuggler said:
"These drives" (by implication *all* of them) don't have a problem and is a generalisation that will get people with a different experience's backs up. Obviously though, *some of them* have a problem, based on your experience.

I have a 320Gb 7200.10. My case is open, and sits next to my screen on the desk. The drive is probably about 30-50cm from my head. I generally cant hear the drive and only barely when it's working/seeking. My Raptors are a lot louder. I certainly cannot hear it from another room. Make of this experience what you will. (It sounds to me like your drives have a problem, but it would certainly not be correct/fair to say "the" drive therefore has a problem.) As an aside: I probably have one of the first drives since I bought this one pretty much when it was released.

My £0.02 worth anyway.

Why are you even bothering to argue about this?

It is entirely fair to say that the drives have a problem because it is simply not worth buying one of these drives, hoping that you'll get one which doesn't pierce your ear drums.
 
wjfcomputers said:
Why are you even bothering to argue about this?

It is entirely fair to say that the drives have a problem because it is simply not worth buying one of these drives, hoping that you'll get one which doesn't pierce your ear drums.
i have 4 seagate 7200.10 drives of various size and they are all quite and all have the "loud" motor, i have bought them from various online shops, it just seems ocuk have the noisy ones lol
 
wjfcomputers said:
Why are you even bothering to argue about this?

It is entirely fair to say that the drives have a problem because it is simply not worth buying one of these drives, hoping that you'll get one which doesn't pierce your ear drums.
Exactly, that's why I stopped posting in here, it's pointless argueing. The drives I bought were in my opinion defective. I'm not trying to do anything but let people know there's a risk if buying one of these drives as all everyone seems to do is praise them... I wish I'd known about it as I wouldn't have taken the risk and I'd have saved myself a lot of stress and hassle.

I had 3 drives in all, each one demanding a full install of Windows XP, etc!!! Ended up demanding my money back, which I got after a little of hassle. Luckily I could go into the store and argue my point. Had I bought online and tried to get a refund over the phone or via email I think I would have just got fobbed off.
Massive Attack said:
i have 4 seagate 7200.10 drives of various size and they are all quite and all have the "loud" motor, i have bought them from various online shops, it just seems ocuk have the noisy ones lol
I didn't buy from OcUK :p

and I doubt they would have refunded my money as techincally the drive works.
 
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i got a new 7200.10 350mb today (green glue /recessed motor type) and it is very quiet can just about hear it seeking.
Its much quieter & faster than my 2 year old sata maxtor so i'm very happy.

From reading this thread there has obviously been a batch of faulty noisy motors - my belief is that this has been fixed by seagate but some dealers may still have a few of the bad batch.

The drive is very good - if you can find a dealer with recent stock u should not have a problem.
 
Just to put the record straight on a 'few' of the inccorect posts and quotes in this thread......

The current disc drive industry standard for specifying acoustics is sound power, measured using multiple microphones (usually between 8 and 12) arranged in a sphere around the product to measure the sum of all noise from the drive.

All major OEMs require acoustic specifications using sound power rather than sound pressure, as it is more representative of end-user noise perception. Specs for HDs noise is measured in 'bels' - A decibel (dB), equal to 0.1 bel.

Seagate is by a long shot - the largest HD manufacturer and has two major assembly plants. Wuxi in Jiangsu (China) and Ang Mo Kio (AMK) in Singapore. Both use the same Seagate built motors and spindle assemblies.

Seek Noise will usually be 5bels louder than Idle. The Fly-height, HGA head type (Perpendicular in this case) - speed of operation, motor type and no. of discs all have massive effects on drive noise (as does the sound dampening properties of the drive case) - so faster /larger capacity drives are usually much louder.

Seagate is currently making the transistion from metal bearing Motors to fluid dynamic bearing motors (or FDBs) in its desktop lines (although they have been used in medalist drives for a few years now) - This is the reason there are two different type of Spindle motors on the drive pics.

Whether you have a pink, blue or spotted brown drive resin make absolutely no difference to its acoustic rating - Some Pink drives have fluid Motors - Some blue drives have metal bearing spindle motors. AMK and Wu assembly sites use both (and many different coulours of resin)

More importantly - most drive manufacturers give operating noise specs on their drives. Seagate do for all their drives.......and the 7200.10's operate at between 2.5 or 2.7bels - and if they don't - you can quite easily return it for a full refund. See the website (they also have pages of info on bearings/motors/acoustics etc etc)

Some high performance drives (15,000 RPM server types - Cheetah SCSIs for example) operate at much louder specs (around 3.5 - 4bels) - these really are noisy gits.

Oh - and by the way - I work in the the largest Hard Drive and Tape Drive recording head factory in the world ;) and it belongs to Seagate in fact - so if you really want the info feel free to ask. And please don't quote about things you aren't sure about -it gets annoying reading it.
 
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divosuk said:
Seagate is currently making the transistion from metal bearing Motors to fluid dynamic bearing motors (or FDBs) in its desktop lines (although they have been used in medalist drives for a few years now) - This is the reason there are two different type of Spindle motors on the drive pics.

Confused now? - Seagate advertise that the 7200.10 series as using exclusively FDB's but u are saying that some still have older metal bearing motors!?

The SoftSonic motor is a new feature of Seagate's sound barrier technology (SBT), and an engineering breakthrough that computer users of all kinds can appreciate. Using industry-standard tests, the Barracuda ATA IV one-disc model emits only 2.0 bels while spinning and 2.4 bels while seeking; the human ear can't hear sounds below 2.5 bels. By putting the SoftSonic motor in its fastest PC hard drive, Seagate blends silence with speed to let consumers more fully enjoy audio/video PC entertainment, and to help others work undisturbed by background noise. Seagate's SBT also reduces noise using specialized seek algorithms, SeaShield. and internal dampers, resonance reduction, spin commutation and other mechanical and materials design optimizations.
 
It says it puts them in - that doesn't necessarily mean all of them ;)

Same as any company - when it runs low on parts - it changes them. And to be fair, it doesn't say it exclusively uses Fluid bearings in all its Barracuda ATA-IV - it also doesn't state that every drive has exactly the same parts - because believe me - they don't.

When Hitachi or Samsung run low on their own Read/write heads due to production failures - who do you think they buy them from (at a very inflated price) - yes thats right - Seagate ;) and we make Hard Drive heads and Tape heads for about 15 well known manufacturers when they go through bad patches.
 
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divosuk said:
It also says at the very bottom

"Seagate reserves the right to change product offerings and specs"

;)

But no one usually reads that bit ;)

ah a let off lol - anyway its good of u to come on and let us know what is happening in the real world - many thks for the input :)

i take it that the lower picture with the recessed motor is the Softsonic, but no its the upper that is quietest - i dunno
 
its not a first time where a product has been revised to make an improvement! but at the same time there is nothing wrong with the noisey drives.

Its the bad luck of the draw that i would be upset about but i would not flame a whole generation of HDD! I had other gear where if had to sit with a sad face!

There is not much you can do about it and to be honest!
 
33L said:
its not a first time where a product has been revised to make an improvement! but at the same time there is nothing wrong with the noisey drives.

There is not much you can do about it and to be honest!

First of all i'm lucky to have the supposedly noisy recessed motor which runs quiet - which makes me think its only a batch problem that slipped throu the factories Q/A.

The 7200.10's were supposed to have the softtronic motors from the start but as the Seagate man said, sometimes they get supply problems and perhaps put in a metal bearing one. (this is not necessarily an improvement but a work-a-round to keep production flowing.)

There is something wrong if u get one you can hear it in the next room.

There is also someting u can do about it - send it back for a replacement!
 
gizmo1990 said:
Well this thread has managed to put me right off the 320gig version!

Think I'll be getting a 300 samsung, never been let down by them
Im pretty sure current shipped 320GB product is all good, but there may still be one or two on dealers shelves.
To be safe - do what i did and order from supplier that is out of stock or expecting them in 2-3 days.
 
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