7200 rpm 60GB Drive too loud?

Message

Lemmsjid · #1 Post by **Lemmsjid** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 10:14 am

Hi!

I've been lurking on these forums for a while, getting lots of good advice.

Now I have some advice to give!

I've noticed that some people claim their 7500 rpm 60 GB drives are too loud. Some people say they're whisper quiet.

Well, as a developer I was getting tired of waiting for large projects to compile, so I bought myself one of those drives (i.e. the Hitachi Travelstar 60 gb) and installed it in my Thinkpad. The thing sounded like a buzzsaw! In fact, I ended up using that drive as a backup and reinstalling my Fujutsu 40 gb. (musician, sensitive ears I guess

).

In another topic on this forum, someone mentioned ATITool (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=725) as a way to underclock your graphics card. I tried out that tool, and noticed that in its "Settings" area there is also an area for "HDD Acoustic Management".
When it read my hard drive's settings, they were set for "Max Performance". I used the tool to set the drive to "Min Noise".

Lo and behold, my drive's noise went from a buzzsaw to barely noticable! Yes, there's still a somewhat louder (that Fujitsu 40 gb was QUIET!) spin sound (the acoustic settings reduces seek noise, not spin noise), and no real noticable performance loss.

So now I'm a happy 7200 rpm user!

Chris

Leon · #2 Post by **Leon** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 10:32 am

Hi Chris!

This has been mentioned a couple of times in the past, but it is nonetheless useful to bring it to the forefront as many debate the speed vs storage space vs noise level of these drives.

Please update your profile with your location and other relevant information. Welcome as a member of our Forum!

Lemmsjid · #3 Post by **Lemmsjid** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:25 am

Thanks for the welcome Leon,

I'm now a self-identified denizen of the post-apocalyptic city of Los Angeles

.

Ah, figures that it's been mentioned before. I'd read a bunch of stuff about this particular hard drive here before purchasing it, but I must not have gone far enough back in forum history.

BTW: About the ATITool in general, I DON'T use its underclocking mechanism. It works fine when you turn it on, but I've noticed that if I go into Hibernation while it's underclocked my screen turns into a mess when I come out of hibernation. Also, didn't notice much of a temperature difference, really, while it was on. YMMV

PS: The Thinkpad in question is the 2378FVU. And as you all might expect, it's the best laptop I've ever had from a quality standpoint, and I've gone through quite a few.

IR0NMAN · #4 Post by **IR0NMAN** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:45 pm

My 60GB 7200 is whisper quiet. I have the one that comes pre-installed with some T42p. Maybe it is a different brand than the Hitachi you have bought? Or maybe you installed it wrong and the drive is touching some metal part that makes noise when there's vibrations (Just guessing)?

none · #5 Post by **none** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:03 pm

I find my 60GB 7200 very quiet as well... The 5400RPM Toshiba in my old T30 was about double as audiable (never had any problems with it though).

robscomputer · #6 Post by **robscomputer** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 8:08 pm

I recently upgraded to the 60GB and have been very happy. As for sound it does seem quieter than my 40GB. The problem with the 40Gb was the constant clicking and slower performance. With the 60Gb the T42 is running much faster and the extra space is great for storing my pictures.

Rob

rocketman · #7 Post by **rocketman** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 9:28 pm

My 60gb 7200rpm hard drive is so quiet I barely hear it even when it's writing. I've never "not heard" a hard drive before. My 15" Powerbook has an 80gb 4200rpm hard drive and it is "much" louder than the 60gb drive in my T42. I had a Thinkpad A20p and I remember its hard drive made an annoying clicking sound and eventually it became a continuous whining sound. I was very naive about computers at the time and didn't realize how simple it would have been to replace the drive, you gotta love the easy upgradeability of the Thinkpads!

ehd · #8 Post by **ehd** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 2:15 am

would this hard drive suck up more battery..? or does battery mode reduce the hdd speed?

Moroner · #9 Post by **Moroner** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 8:33 am

According to the datasheets (5K80, 7K60 and E7K60), the 7K60 is 11% to 19% faster, consumes, apart from startup, nothing more than the 5K80, and is 0.1 to 0.4 bels noisier (or up to 2.5 times as noisy).
The sound level of a 5K80 is less than that of the slow running fan of a T42p, so unless you have quite sensitive ears, it boils down to a decision speed vs capacity that only you can make.

Champ · #10 Post by **Champ** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 8:37 am

I cna hear my 7200 RPM and when I record sound I can here it.. but im' not too concern.

I might adjust the speed down through in lectures

Zip · #11 Post by **Zip** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 9:08 am

I am also considering the upgrade on my 2373K1U (40G 5400 RPM) and am torn between the 7K60 & 5K100 (100GB), comparing the media transfer rates they seem quite close, (518 Mbits/sec for the 7K60 vs. 493 MB/sec for the 5K100), however the 5K100 uses less power (.85W vs. 1.3 W active idle) and is quieter.

Noise is important, as I plan to run Dragon Naturally Speaking 8, quiet components are a must. The 7K60 is rated at 3.3 Sones, vs. 2.7 for the 5K100.

Has anyone benchmarked the two in real world applications? I would love the speed of the 7K60, but if I can get 90% of the performance & notably quieter operation (not to mention more space) I might opt for the 5K100. Also, does anyone have specs for the drive that came with my K1U? (40G/5400)

Specs:

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/7k60/7k60.htm

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/5k100/5k100.htm

Trying to find price & availability on the 100GB 5K100 & not having much luck, is this drive out yet?

(btw, I am used to thinking in dB, "Sones", although perhaps a better measure, doesn't have the same intuitive meaning to me)

Articles on sones & dB:

http://broadcastengineering.com/ar/broa ... _elements/

http://www.mastersonic.com/documents/mm ... %20faq.htm

#12 Post by **carbon_unit** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 6:15 pm

I just got a 7k60 from Zipzoomfly this week and just got all my operating systems installed and ready to use. It replaced a new stock 30 gig 4200 RPM drive in my T23.
After a couple hours of use I determined that the 7k60 was way quieter than the 4k30 it replaced so I got the ftool to crank up the speed at the sacrifice of increased noise. To my surprise the acoustic management was off and the speed was maxed out. (UDMA5)
So it seems that either there is some quality variances or some people are very sensitive to HD noise.
I can't even hear the access nioses from the 7k60 that is 2 feet from my head but I can hear the access noise from the 4k30 that is being restored with the rescue Cd's in another T23 6 feet from my head.

Torque · #13 Post by **Torque** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:38 am

I have the 60GB 7200rpm drive that came with the 2374-GGG.

It's very, very quiet. At times when running on battery, I notice the spin of the drive - but in general, the cpu fan makes more noise than the hdd, when running on AC. No clicking or anything like that. Quite disturbing that people have these different experiences with the same drives

noonfun · #14 Post by **noonfun** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 8:01 pm

carbon_unit wrote:I just got a 7k60 from Zipzoomfly this week and just got all my operating systems installed and ready to use. It replaced a new stock 30 gig 4200 RPM drive in my T23.
After a couple hours of use I determined that the 7k60 was way quieter than the 4k30 it replaced so I got the ftool to crank up the speed at the sacrifice of increased noise. To my surprise the acoustic management was off and the speed was maxed out. (UDMA5)
So it seems that either there is some quality variances or some people are very sensitive to HD noise.
I can't even hear the access nioses from the 7k60 that is 2 feet from my head but I can hear the access noise from the 4k30 that is being restored with the rescue Cd's in another T23 6 feet from my head.

I bet there exist some quality variances: my 7k60 (came with the laptop) is noisy when the AAM is off, you can hear the seeking sound frequently. When I turn it on, you can barely hear it.