New Seagate drives - and clicking sounds!

[valdore]

Last week I spotted a hard-to-resist deal from Microcenter on Seagate's 1 terabyte ST310005N1A1AS drives, so I got two of them. I put them in the two empty bays inside my Mac Pro (8-core first generation Clovertown 3.0 Ghz) and set up a software striped RAID 0. I then used Carbon Copy Cloner to duplicate what I already had on my existing Seagate drives in the other two bays.

Now, I'm using the two new drives for booting and all other uses, and every hour or so I'll hear a peculiar and fairly loud and noticeable "click-click" sound, that I never noticed with my older Seagate drives.

Again, the specs on these new drives are 1TB, ST310005N1A1AS, 32mb cache, 7200 RPM.

Any ideas?

[nanofrog]

Are the drives being used constantly, or are they spinning down to conserve power?

[J the Ninja]

Some newer Seagates just make that noise. There was a scare about this awhile back, but it was concluded it's a normal operating noise of some kind, I forget what it is.

[nanofrog]

Some newer Seagates just make that noise. There was a scare about this awhile back, but it was concluded it's a normal operating noise of some kind, I forget what it is.
A noise like that would keep me in a state of panic, especially as I have a RAID setup. :p

No thanks. ;)

[Sun Baked]

Some newer Seagates just make that noise. There was a scare about this awhile back, but it was concluded it's a normal operating noise of some kind, I forget what it is.

Thermal calibrations and head parking ... both make the drives click.

If the drive starts out noisy, I wouldn't worry about it as much as a quiet drive that starts making noise.

However, if you get the enterprise version of the drive ... the seek routines aren't calibrated to quiet the drives down so the seeks will be noisy compared to the same drive selling with a desktop part number. (I think :confused:)

[Tesselator]

I'd be surprised if it was thermal re-calibration. Newer drives (post 2001 or so) use embedded servo technology and dedicated steps to re-calibrate servo data and user data alignment are no longer taken.

[nanofrog]

I'd be surprised if it was thermal re-calibration. Newer drives (post 2001 or so) use embedded servo technology and dedicated steps to re-calibrate servo data and user data alignment are no longer taken.
Park/unpark still makes noise though. :p WD's still go "Clunk", but it's not too loud. ;)

[Tesselator]

Park/unpark still makes noise though. :p WD's still go "Clunk", but it's not too loud. ;)

Yup. My Samsungs click 3 times on power up. WhooOOO-Click-click ... ... click, wizzzz, whhhhhhOOooo..., silence. :D

[chrono1081]

Normal. Annoying but normal.

[bartelby]

I've got a Seagate in my PowerBook and it's very noisy. It's been like that from day one...

[fabriciom]

I bouth the 1.5TB also very noise only lasted a month. I'm waiting on the delivery of 2 Hitachi Deskstar

[Tesselator]

I liked the IBM drives when they were IBM. But when they sold the design to Hitachi I was very bummed out. Hitachi participates HEAVILY in industrial espionage, corporate theft, and other illegal and immoral practices against US corporations. I can't get on with that so here I am voting with my wallet again not really caring how good or bad their drives are. Luckily as soon as they started making changes the quality of those IBM designed HDDs started dropping and they're not very good as it is today. They spec pretty poorly and use the most power last I looked.




.

[valdore]

From the responses it sounds like it is a simple powering/powering down thing. Sometimes I hear one click and sometimes I hear two clicks and then everything's back to normal.

I'd just never had hard drives make this kind of noise before so I found it kind of odd.

[nanofrog]

I liked the IBM drives when they were IBM. But when they sold the design to Hitachi I was very bummed out. Hitachi participates HEAVILY in industrial espionage, corporate theft, and other illegal and immoral practices against US corporations. I can't get on with that so here I am voting with my wallet again not really caring how good or bad their drives are. Luckily as soon as they started making changes the quality of those IBM designed HDDs started dropping and they're not very good as it is today. They spec pretty poorly and use the most power last I looked.

I won't ;use Hitachi either. JUNK, and they don't support their products at all. they always pass you off to the system vendor. Cheap b@!#$%^ds.
From the responses it sounds like it is a simple powering/powering down thing. Sometimes I hear one click and sometimes I hear two clicks and then everything's back to normal.

I'd just never had hard drives make this kind of noise before so I found it kind of odd.
That does sound like park/unpark.

Changing the power settings might lower the frequency (time delay for spin down), if you don't mind paying for the additional electricity it would use.

[fabriciom]

I liked the IBM drives when they were IBM. But when they sold the design to Hitachi I was very bummed out. Hitachi participates HEAVILY in industrial espionage, corporate theft, and other illegal and immoral practices against US corporations. I can't get on with that so here I am voting with my wallet again not really caring how good or bad their drives are. Luckily as soon as they started making changes the quality of those IBM designed HDDs started dropping and they're not very good as it is today. They spec pretty poorly and use the most power last I looked.




.

Deskstar drives where famous for being junk while IBM owned them. If you check out any resent review on enterprise hard drives you will find the deskstars E7K1000 are on top. I just to be a Seagate only person. But I have had about 3 drives on me die recently. An older 80gbs, 120gbs and the 1.5tb. For me Seagate no more.

[valdore]

Changing the power settings might lower the frequency (time delay for spin down), if you don't mind paying for the additional electricity it would use.

Nah, I'm not worried about this if it's a park/unpark sound. I was just concerned if one of the drives were defective. Sounds like that's not the case so I won't be worrying. :)

[Tesselator]

Deskstar drives where famous for being junk while IBM owned them. If you check out any resent review on enterprise hard drives you will find the deskstars E7K1000 are on top. I just to be a Seagate only person. But I have had about 3 drives on me die recently. An older 80gbs, 120gbs and the 1.5tb. For me Seagate no more.

Like I say; they're crooks so I don't care but taking you up on your suggestion they don't appear on the top of the charts for either enterprise or workstation:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/enterprise-hard-drive-charts/Fileserver-I-O-Benchmark-Pattern,706.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/PCMark-Vantage,1017.html

LOL Samsung's EcoGreen beats Hitachi's fastest DeskStar. :p

Also their enterprise parts are called UltraStar, not DeskStar.

[fabriciom]

Like I say; they're crooks so I don't care but taking you up on your suggestion they don't appear on the top of the charts for either enterprise or workstation:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/enterprise-hard-drive-charts/Fileserver-I-O-Benchmark-Pattern,706.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/PCMark-Vantage,1017.html

LOL Samsung's EcoGreen beats Hitachi's fastest DeskStar. :p

Also their enterprise parts are called UltraStar, not DeskStar.

Dude Im not trying to convince you on buying the drive. I'm not buying stocks Im buying a product. If the company is a a piece of **** and their product is good thats good for me. Samsung drives where junk also, but since I also have another hitachi drive and have not had any problems I rather go with hitachi than samsung. I had a samsung a while back and I had problems.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16130 <- compares 1TB enterprise drives and gives it to hitachi.

[Tesselator]

Dude Im not trying to convince you on buying the drive. I'm not buying stocks Im buying a product. If the company is a a piece of **** and their product is good thats good for me. Samsung drives where junk also, but since I also have another hitachi drive and have not had any problems I rather go with hitachi than samsung. I had a samsung a while back and I had problems.

That's fine for you I guess. It's not me. If there's a mass murderer or a war criminal selling extracted dental gold I don't buy it. It doesn't matter that it's really 24K high-grade gold and a "good product". You may be different, that's up to you.

EDIT: The link you provided scored the drive you're talking about near the bottom of almost every test.

[fabriciom]

That's fine for you I guess. It's not me. If there's a mass murderer or a war criminal selling extracted dental gold I don't buy it. It doesn't matter that it's really 24K high-grade gold and a "good product". You may be different, that's up to you.

EDIT: The link you provided scored the drive you're talking about near the bottom of almost every test.

Read the conclusion it gives it to the hitachi. It is not the best I/O but over all power consumption and noise levels are good. Its only setback according to the website was its price.

P.S. It is clear by your extremest comments that you hate hitachi. So dont waste your time commenting on them any more. I know what your response will be to what ever proof I show you. Also I consider my self very technological updated and I have yet to hear any news accusing Hitachi of corporate espionage.

[Sehnsucht]

The Western Digital MyBook goes "Bzzzzzt!" when it spins up/down.

My Seagate FreeAgent is nearly silent, all I ever hear out of it is a faint "click-click."

My solid-state drives are all noisy as hell. I can barely sleep through that racket. :eek: :D

[Tesselator]

Read the conclusion it gives it to the hitachi. It is not the best I/O but over all power consumption and noise levels are good. Its only setback according to the website was its price.

Then they're biased by definition.

P.S. It is clear by your extremest comments that you hate hitachi.

I don't hate them. I just don't want to support criminals and crooks.


So dont waste your time commenting on them any more.

Umm, no. I'll comment as I like. As long as it's topical and factual it shouldn't be a problem.

I know what your response will be to what ever proof I show you.

My response would be to show you the documents I guess.

Also I consider my self very technological updated and I have yet to hear any news accusing Hitachi of corporate espionage.

The most famous attempt of Hitachi to steal trade secrets was from IBM and mirrored that of an old Soviet spy operation or something. In 1980, an IBM employee working secretly for Hitachi "under-cover" stole some of the Adirondack Workbooks, a series of valuable books containing computer specifications and strategic planning, and sold them to Hitachi. Not content with a partial set of the workbooks, Hitachi sought the remaining workbooks as well as other confidential materials from yet other sources. Over the next 2 years, the FBI, in conjunction with IBM, set up an elaborate sting operation. In the end, Hitachi’s efforts were thwarted, the conspirators were arrested, the Japanese government’s involvement was revealed, and Hitachi paid IBM a considerable out-of-court settlement. Still, the conspirators did not receive any jail time, and Hitachi greatly benefited from the workbooks. This is a very famous case and I'm sure there are MANY references to it on-line if you would just look instead of guessing wrongly and sticking up for criminals. And there have been several other cases involving and/or implicating Hitachi since then too. They're crooks. Period.

http://www.japanlaw.info/lawletter/dec82/xh.htm

[fabriciom]

Then they're biased by definition.



I don't hate them. I just don't want to support criminals and crooks.




Umm, no. I'll comment as I like. As long as it's topical and factual it shouldn't be a problem.



My response would be to show you the documents I guess.



The most famous attempt of Hitachi to steal trade secrets was from IBM and mirrored that of an old Soviet spy operation or something. In 1980, an IBM employee working secretly for Hitachi "under-cover" stole some of the Adirondack Workbooks, a series of valuable books containing computer specifications and strategic planning, and sold them to Hitachi. Not content with a partial set of the workbooks, Hitachi sought the remaining workbooks as well as other confidential materials from yet other sources. Over the next 2 years, the FBI, in conjunction with IBM, set up an elaborate sting operation. In the end, Hitachi’s efforts were thwarted, the conspirators were arrested, the Japanese government’s involvement was revealed, and Hitachi paid IBM a considerable out-of-court settlement. Still, the conspirators did not receive any jail time, and Hitachi greatly benefited from the workbooks. This is a very famous case and I'm sure there are MANY references to it on-line if you would just look instead of guessing wrongly and sticking up for criminals. And there have been several other cases involving and/or implicating Hitachi since then too. They're crooks. Period.

http://www.japanlaw.info/lawletter/dec82/xh.htm

1980 OMG. Yep, your right bro. The commies are coming to get you! and now that you have a socialist president you are definitely screwed.

[J&JPolangin]

...and now back to your reg schedule OP's question:D

[Tesselator]

1980 OMG. Yep, your right bro. The commies are coming to get you! and now that you have a socialist president you are definitely screwed.


Sarcasm aside, 1983 was just the first time they were caught. The most recent one is still on-going and began in 2008. Once a crook, always a crook I guess. I'm not sure what the president has to do with this tho? Are you OK?

[fabriciom]

Sarcasm aside, 1983 was just the first time they were caught. The most recent one is still on-going and began in 2008. Once a crook, always a crook I guess. I'm not sure what the president has to do with this tho? Are you OK?

I'm definitely alright. You are the one comparing a hard drive company to mass murders and war criminals. I like how your "stories" of espionage don't show up in any real news agency.

[Tesselator]

That would be up to the news agency wouldn't it. I don't control them. The court cases and documents exist, what can I say. Why is this such an issue for you? It's just how I am. It doesn't mean you have to be like me ya know.

[fabriciom]

That would be up to the news agency wouldn't it. I don't control them. The court cases and documents exist, what can I say. Why is this such an issue for you? It's just how I am. It doesn't mean you have to be like me ya know.

You're the douche that has turned the discussion about hard drives into your personal hatetrid of hitachi.