dBA and Bels

[J.Clarke]

Actually I think there is.

"ISO 7779 specifies operating and installation conditions in an
acoustical lab in order to have reproducible and repeatable values.
The two noise metrics in ISO 7779 are the A-weighted sound power level
and the A-weighted sound pressure level at specified locations.

ISO 9296 specifies the declaration of noise emissions from information
technology products. ISO 9296 specifies reporting statistical maximum
values of the A-weighted sound power levels based on measurements
taken according to ISO 7779"

Problem is, you have to pay dearly if you want to download the pdf
files.

I believe that you will find that these apply to assembled machines, not
to internal components such as fans and disk drives. In any case, are
those standards "generally accepted", i.e. do all or most manufacturers
adhere to them?

Not true. See http://www.silent.se/

Huh? I'm sorry, but I find nothing on that page which contradicts my
statement. But I do find that it contradicts your assertion that there
are generally accepted standards.

The reason is because it is a standard. They don't use B, they use
bel. It's supposed to be spelled out.

http://www.silent.se/labels.php

Would you be kind enough to provide a quotation from that page to
support your argument? It appears to me that all labels are to use "B"
rather than the word "Bel"--at least that is what appears on the samples
they provide. And what leads you to believe that that web site is
authoritative in any way?

"The computer industry have intelligently choosen to use the unit bel
to express sound power level values to avoid confusion between
decibels for sound power level and decibels for sound pressure level."

And who is required to comply with this standard?

Which may be why Papst for example doesn't feel any need to tell you
that their bel rating is for power and their dBA rating is for
pressure- it's the standard (for now).

Excuse me but Papst makes fans, they don't make "computer equipment", so
why should they be controlled by a standard that is intended to apply to
the computer industry and to which even most of the computer industry
does not appear to adhere? Or perhaps you are unaware that there are
many other kinds of device in which fans are used. In any case, the
Papst catalog explicitly states: "1. Noise Pressure Level-dB(A) Noise
Ratings of the fan in free air operation, i.e. at maximum flow rate. 2.
Sound Power Level - bels Extent of the overall sound radiation of the
fan. The sound power level is determined in the optimum operating
range." Furthermore the Papst catalog contains no reference to either
7770 nor 9296, leading one to suspect that they are in fact adhering to
neither standard.

Note by the way that this statement alone demonstrates one of the
pitfalls of sound level measurement. The noise level of a fan varies
depending on the backpressure--so at what level of backpressure do you
measure? And do your ISO standards specify this?

I've been following the same
standard. All my bels (not B) are power and all my decibels are
pressure. I'm not sure about the "avoiding confusion" part though,
sure hasn't helped you and Rod any.

Which standard have you been following and please quote the section
which forbids the use of "B" to denote the bel?

 

[J.Clarke]

I know the units. I'm going by the industry standard, bel for power,
dBA for pressure, which is even stated in the link you provided and
that was posted twice in this thread. There IS a difference between
bel and decibel (for the computer industry anyway).

Just to be pedantic, (a) the bel is not a metric unit, it is a Bell
Laboratories unit which has come into common use. (b) the bel is
different from the decibel in the same fashion that the meter is
different from the decimeter. Now it may be that by convention some
distances are measured in bels and others in decibels just as it is
convention that distances between cities are measured in kilometers not
meters, but that does not mean that the units are different in kind,
only in magnitude.

The A signifys a quite different application of the A law to the
sound being measured to allow for the ear's frequency response.

I know that.

At the extremes you get quite different effects when
the tip speeds are approaching the speed of sound too.

Which fan is that? For the most powerful 80mm Papst fan (3600 RPM),
the tip speed would be 2.9"*pi*3600*60/12/5280 = 31 MPH. If I remember
right, the speed of sound is 746 MPH at sea level.

I still think it's possible [to have a belA value]

You're wrong. It aint.

Oh yes it is. If I had remembered what I read in the
silentpcreview article (that I provided a link to) I could have told
you earlier that the two noise metrics used in the ISO 7779 standard
are belA (A-weighted sound power) and dBA (A-weighted power pressure).
ISO doesn't use the
bel word though, so when this standard starts to be used a drive might
be labeled as "xxdB ISO" which will be understood to mean sound power.
Of course there will still be people who'll say "dB can be used for
both power and pressure" and be confused all to hell.

Interesting. Did you not say earlier that "the standard" requires that
the word "bel" be spelled out?

Yes but that's pressure, not power. bel can have the A letter too.


I _know_.


Only for people "still not informed by those knowing better."

Check out this site: www.silent.se (It appears that a computer was
used to translate to English but it's still very readable)

Some excerpts and comments:

http://www.silent.se/iso-9296.php
"The users still asking for sound pressure level figures seems to be
the ones still not informed by those knowing better."

We're both uninformed. Knowing the power is better than knowing the
pressure because power "values don't depend on distance or user
position." (but I think we both knew that already)

"A-weighted sound power level (LWAd) in bels (B) is the measure best
suited for comparision of noise emissions"

Damn, somebody ripped off my idea. And you said it was impossible.
It seems that A-weighted power values are the ones used most too. I
wonder if bel values for hard drives are already A-weighted (they
*should* be) - no way of knowing for sure.

"When we describe IT acoustic noise emissions in bels is the use of
the A-weighted filter mostly also included, but we seldom state this
fact as BA or bels(A): this because, as said above, when using bel
values for information technology noise emissions are we talking on
sound power level values, and this is stated by putting an "LWAd"
before the values: The A in LWAd states that the A-weighted filter has
been used; making a second A after the B or bels unnecessary."

At one point he says "it not possible to convert between sound power
level and sound pressure level," and at another point he says "sound
power levels are useful...for calculating the sound pressure level
from a machine at a given distance."

http://www.silent.se/labels.php

"The computer industry have intelligently choosen to use the unit bel
for to express sound power level values to avoid confusion between
decibels for sound power level and decibels for sound pressure level."

Which is what I keep saying: bel is used for power, dBA for pressure.
But it looks like this may change soon.

"However, today the computer industry is the only product group that
uses sound power in bels, and if the idea of using dB ISO or dB IEC
will come true will they find themselves using decibel (dB) instead of
bel(B) values for sound power level as intended in their precious
standards. Thus an other maybe better option would be to choose to use
"bels ISO", "B ISO", "bels IEC" or "B IEC" for a simplified marking
standard"

So a '3.5 bel' sound power rating today might become '35 dB ISO' in
the future. Since both the noise metrics uses in ISO 7779 are
A-weighted, I guess '35 dB ISO' would mean A-weighted too, with
'A-weighted power' understood.

Here are the tidbits that you missed on your beloved page:

"Most ordinary people are not aware of that a certain dB figure has to
be accompanied with information on how it has been obtained and
declared, for to be able to use it as anything better than the relative
notions "quiet" and "almost silent"."

"Distance, background noise and room conditions are important factors
that will affect measured noise figures. Therefore is it of utmost
importance that one knows what standard has been used for measurement
when talking in exact noise figures. Telling just "noise emission:
20 dBA" without informing how this value has been obtained doesn't mean
anything, but since unaware customers will interpret it as information,
is it easy to understand that manufacturers or resellers using figures
this way will mislead them not understanding better."

"To conclude: IT manufacturers or resellers not stating what standard
they have used for noise declaration, and forgetting to declare when
they state sound power level or sound pressure level values, will be the
ones that mislead their customers."

"We are today not lacking standards for how to measure and declare
information technology noise emissions, but we are most often still
lacking the adoption of them:"

And then there is "The ISO 10302 standard, "Acoustics -- Method for the
measurement of noise emitted by small air-moving devices", is the
international accepted one used for noise measurement of fans." This
would in principle be the one that Papst uses. I wonder why their
catalog does not mention it?

Now, do any of the disk manufacturers claim to test in accordance with
the standards that "The Silent PC" thinks they should apply? "The
Silent PC" doesn't seem to think so so why should you, after using them
as your sole reference, disagree with them?

 

[J.Clarke]

Because I believe 3.5" drives are quieter than 5.25" drives if the
specs are in the same ballpark.

And why do you believe this?

1. A smaller motor for the spindle. Smaller usually means less noisy
if the quality level is the same.

Unless it doesn't. Resonances are strange things--massive objects tend
to have lower resonant frequencies than less massive ones for example.
If reducing the mass puts the resonant frequency into a range which
corresponds to the rotational velocity then you end up with more noise,
not less.

2. Lower spinning mass (which can never be 100.0000% perfectly
balanced) should mean less noise caused by vibration.

So, are 15,000 RPM drives quieter than 10,000 RPM drives? They have
smaller platters so by your reasoning they should be.

3. A shorter arm for the heads. I'd guess that the mass for an arm
increases by the cube of the length. So if the arm is 20% shorter it
may have only half the mass, meaning a _lot_ less energy needed for
seeks and therefore less noise.

Again, do 15,000 RPM drives exhibit the behavior you predict?

If you can't see any difference between 2.5" and 3.5", compare 3.5" to
12" or bigger. I think you'd readily agree that 3.5" drives are much
quieter (not to mention much faster). Why? Because they're smaller.

Uh, doesn't being about 20 generations newer and targetted at a
different market that is more sensitive to noise have anything to do
with it?

Of course this is just an end-user's opinion and I could be 100%
wrong.


A lighter arm is easier to accelerate and decelerate and the travel
distance would be shorter, meaning a faster access time should easily
be possible.

So how much faster is the access time (neglecting latency, which is not
affected by the arm mechanics) for 15,000 RPM drives with their reduced
platter size than for 10,000 RPM drives? And do current 2.5" drives
exhibit the shorter access times (again neglecting latency) that you
predict?

Higher performance for your system drive (assuming the 2.5" is
faster).

That's a big assumption.

It wouldn't need the same amount of storage. The WD 37.5GB 10000RPM
Raptor is very popular and yet cost 4X as much per GB.

How popular is it? Do you have any inforamation about quanties sold?
Does it sell well compared to other IDE drives, or just when compared to
SCSI drives in the enterprise market?

 

[shhhh]

I need a physics lesson. Assuming sea level, how do you convert between
sound power (bels) and sound pressure (dBA)? I think you'd have to assume
that the acoustic power is being emitted equally in all directions (which
may not be true for HDs).

WD tells you only the pressure (34 dBA for the 250 GB Caviar SE) while most
other manufacturers tell you only the power (2.5 bel for the DiamondMax Plus
9 and Barracuda V). How do you compare apples and oranges? Which is better
to know, bels or dBA?

I'm thinking that (for HDs anyway) 2.5 bels is less than 25dBA SPL, which
makes the WD very noisy by comparison. (I have a cooling fan that's 3.5
bels and 12dBA)

Sound level specs are notoriously non comparable mostly due to
marketing department baloney.

However, even if you wanted to produce and publish an honest
measurement, you'd have a hard time doing it. The problems aren't
physics lessons, it's the various official test methods and how people
interpret them

I've seen sound testing labs and all that goes into it and it's an art
form.

A lot of people out there are finger painters.

Your ears are your best guide, and remember, if you can't hear it,
it's not a problem.

 

[John H.]

The difficulty with all of this is that there is no established standard
for measuring the sound pressure or sound power levels of either drives
or fans. Therefore any differences in the reported measurements may be
the result of differences in the test procedures rather than in the
devices themselves.

Actually I think there is.

"ISO 7779 specifies operating and installation conditions in an
acoustical lab in order to have reproducible and repeatable values. The
two noise metrics in ISO 7779 are the A-weighted sound power level and
the A-weighted sound pressure level at specified locations.

ISO 9296 specifies the declaration of noise emissions from information
technology products. ISO 9296 specifies reporting statistical maximum
values of the A-weighted sound power levels based on measurements taken
according to ISO 7779"

Problem is, you have to pay dearly if you want to download the pdf
files.

That statement makes no sense. "dB" is the abbreviation for "decibel",
which is one tenth of a bel, just as "dm" is the abbreviation for
"decimeter", one tenth of a meter. "Bel" is "B" and "B" is "Bel" when
discussing acoustic measurements. B or Bel is used for acoustic
pressure and acoustic power and many other things. dB is used for
acoustic pressure and acoustic power and many other things. dB(A) is
normally used for acoustic pressure because that's the only area in
which weighting to provide a measurement comparable to the response
curve of the human ear has real relevance.

Not true. See http://www.silent.se/

For some reason some disk manufacturers have been using B for acoustic
power and dB for acoustic pressure but that is not anything that they
are required to do by any standard or convention.

The reason is because it is a standard. They don't use B, they use bel.
It's supposed to be spelled out.

http://www.silent.se/labels.php

"The computer industry have intelligently choosen to use the unit bel to
express sound power level values to avoid confusion between decibels for
sound power level and decibels for sound pressure level."


Which may be why Papst for example doesn't feel any need to tell you
that their bel rating is for power and their dBA rating is for pressure
- it's the standard (for now). I've been following the same standard.
All my bels (not B) are power and all my decibels are pressure. I'm not
sure about the "avoiding confusion" part though, sure hasn't helped you
and Rod any.

 

[John H.]

You're mangling the entire story utterly. The only difference
between bels and decibels, B and dB is the usual metric
scale factor. Just like between M and KM etc.

I know the units. I'm going by the industry standard, bel for power, dBA
for pressure, which is even stated in the link you provided and that was
posted twice in this thread. There IS a difference between bel and
decibel (for the computer industry anyway).

The A signifys a quite different application of the A law to the
sound being measured to allow for the ear's frequency response.

I know that.

At the extremes you get quite different effects when
the tip speeds are approaching the speed of sound too.

Which fan is that? For the most powerful 80mm Papst fan (3600 RPM), the
tip speed would be 2.9"*pi*3600*60/12/5280 = 31 MPH. If I remember
right, the speed of sound is 746 MPH at sea level.

I still think it's possible [to have a belA value]

You're wrong. It aint.

Oh yes it is. If I had remembered what I read in the silentpcreview
article (that I provided a link to) I could have told you earlier that
the two noise metrics used in the ISO 7779 standard are belA (A-weighted
sound power) and dBA (A-weighted power pressure). ISO doesn't use the
bel word though, so when this standard starts to be used a drive might
be labeled as "xxdB ISO" which will be understood to mean sound power.
Of course there will still be people who'll say "dB can be used for both
power and pressure" and be confused all to hell.

Thats the whole point of the A letter in dBA, it signifys that
THAT value has the A law filter applied.

Yes but that's pressure, not power. bel can have the A letter too.

B is just Bel. dB is decibel. dB aint the same as dBA.

I _know_.

Only for people "still not informed by those knowing better."

Check out this site: www.silent.se (It appears that a computer was
used to translate to English but it's still very readable)

Some excerpts and comments:

http://www.silent.se/iso-9296.php
"The users still asking for sound pressure level figures seems to be the
ones still not informed by those knowing better."

We're both uninformed. Knowing the power is better than knowing the
pressure because power "values don't depend on distance or user
position." (but I think we both knew that already)

"A-weighted sound power level (LWAd) in bels (B) is the measure best
suited for comparision of noise emissions"

Damn, somebody ripped off my idea. And you said it was impossible.
It seems that A-weighted power values are the ones used most too. I
wonder if bel values for hard drives are already A-weighted (they
*should* be) - no way of knowing for sure.

"When we describe IT acoustic noise emissions in bels is the use of the
A-weighted filter mostly also included, but we seldom state this fact as
BA or bels(A): this because, as said above, when using bel values for
information technology noise emissions are we talking on sound power
level values, and this is stated by putting an "LWAd" before the values:
The A in LWAd states that the A-weighted filter has been used; making a
second A after the B or bels unnecessary."

At one point he says "it not possible to convert between sound power
level and sound pressure level," and at another point he says "sound
power levels are useful...for calculating the sound pressure level from
a machine at a given distance."

http://www.silent.se/labels.php

"The computer industry have intelligently choosen to use the unit bel
for to express sound power level values to avoid confusion between
decibels for sound power level and decibels for sound pressure level."

Which is what I keep saying: bel is used for power, dBA for pressure.
But it looks like this may change soon.

"However, today the computer industry is the only product group that
uses sound power in bels, and if the idea of using dB ISO or dB IEC will
come true will they find themselves using decibel (dB) instead of bel
(B) values for sound power level as intended in their precious
standards. Thus an other maybe better option would be to choose to use
"bels ISO", "B ISO", "bels IEC" or "B IEC" for a simplified marking
standard"

So a '3.5 bel' sound power rating today might become '35 dB ISO' in the
future. Since both the noise metrics uses in ISO 7779 are A-weighted, I
guess '35 dB ISO' would mean A-weighted too, with 'A-weighted power'
understood.

 

[John H.]

Yes. But why do you feel that that is relevant?

Because I believe 3.5" drives are quieter than 5.25" drives if the specs
are in the same ballpark.

Why would this be? Why do you believe that reducing mass will reduce
noise?

1. A smaller motor for the spindle. Smaller usually means less noisy if
the quality level is the same.

2. Lower spinning mass (which can never be 100.0000% perfectly balanced)
should mean less noise caused by vibration.

3. A shorter arm for the heads. I'd guess that the mass for an arm
increases by the cube of the length. So if the arm is 20% shorter it may
have only half the mass, meaning a _lot_ less energy needed for seeks
and therefore less noise.

If you can't see any difference between 2.5" and 3.5", compare 3.5" to
12" or bigger. I think you'd readily agree that 3.5" drives are much
quieter (not to mention much faster). Why? Because they're smaller.

Of course this is just an end-user's opinion and I could be 100% wrong.

Why do you believe that reducing mass will allow higher performance?

A lighter arm is easier to accelerate and decelerate and the travel
distance would be shorter, meaning a faster access time should easily be
possible.

And what do you believe that I would gain by such a combination over two
3.5" drives?

Higher performance for your system drive (assuming the 2.5" is faster).

Even if it cost $20,000 each?
No.

If it's faster, quieter, consumes less
power, provides the same amount of storage, and costs the same, then it
has a market. Until then it would be a low-volume niche product that
wouldn't repay the development cost.

It wouldn't need the same amount of storage. The WD 37.5GB 10000RPM
Raptor is very popular and yet cost 4X as much per GB.

But you have yet to provide a convincing argument that it would be
faster, quieter, or consume less power.

I've leave the "convincing" part to others who know the real facts.

 

[Rod Speed]

I know the units. I'm going by the industry standard, bel for power,
dBA for pressure, which is even stated in the link you provided and
that was posted twice in this thread. There IS a difference between
bel and decibel (for the computer industry anyway).

You're still mangling the story completely. There is certainly
a difference between sound pressure values and sound power
levels, but its completely silly to mangle that into the completely
separate use of metric units with bels and decibels.

That silentpc site is clearly where you got that
from, but its still comprehensively mangled.

I know that.

Superficially you do, but if you had actually grasped the concept
you wouldnt be claiming that it is ever going to be possible to
have a single conversion factor between dBA and bels.

I still think it's possible [to have a belA value]

Thats dishonest. You were talking about a
fixed ratio between dBA and bels, NOT belA.

And you're still mangling the difference between sound
pressure levels and sound power levels into the units.

Oh yes it is.

Like hell it is.

If I had remembered what I read in the silentpcreview article
(that I provided a link to) I could have told you earlier that the two
noise metrics used in the ISO 7779 standard are belA (A-weighted
sound power) and dBA (A-weighted power pressure).

You originally asked for a conversion between the
two units HARD DRIVE MANUFACTURERS CITE.

Thats nothing like this other distinction between two
different values that have the A law applied to them,
sound pressure levels and sound power levels.

AND that article clearly says that there aint no simple
ratio between even these you are NOW discussing.

If there was, there wouldnt be any need to spend the
substantial amount of money to have the drive tested using
the protocol in the standard and everyone could just apply
the factor to the value the manufacturer chooses to cite.

That Silent PC article clearly states that that isnt possible.

ISO doesn't use the bel word though,

Yep, thats the mangling introduced by Silent PC.

so when this standard starts to be used a drive might be labeled
as "xxdB ISO" which will be understood to mean sound power.

Correct. And thats the correct way to do it, not play silly
buggers with dB and bels. Because there is a lot more
involved than just whether sound pressure levels or sound
power levels are being cited, or whether the A law has been
applied or not. The standard standardises MUCH more than
just that stuff to produce a purportedly standardised test situation.

BUT, whatever is done at that physical level,
IT STILL DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
ABOUT THE MIND'S PERCEPTION OF NOISE.

Which just happens to be a MUCH more important
factor with drives that are already very quiet.

Of course there will still be people who'll say "dB can be used
for both power and pressure" and be confused all to hell.

Its those who attempt to mangle sound pressure and sound
power into the unit used that are massively confused.

bels and decibels arent even unique to sound levels of either type.

Yes but that's pressure, not power. bel can have the A letter too.

Again, you're massively confusing sound
power and sound pressure and the UNIT used.

The standard does not do that.

Only for people "still not informed by those knowing better."

Utterly mangled all over again.

Check out this site: www.silent.se (It appears that a computer
was used to translate to English but it's still very readable)

Still comprehensively mangles the entirely separate question
of sound pressure and sound power into units used.

The standard doesnt do that.

Some excerpts and comments:

http://www.silent.se/iso-9296.php
"The users still asking for sound pressure level figures seems
to be the ones still not informed by those knowing better."

We're both uninformed.

You have always been. I never ever said anything about that.
I JUST rubbed YOUR nose in the FACT that there cant be
any simple conversion factor and that whatever is quoted is
useless when trying to decide which drive is quieter to a
human, particularly when comparing already quiet drives.

Knowing the power is better than knowing the pressure because
power "values don't depend on distance or user position."

Thats comprehensively mangled all over again, particularly
with user position at the same distance from the drive.

HARD DRIVES DO NOT RADIATE
NOISE UNIFORMLY IN ALL DIRECTIONS.

(but I think we both knew that already)

I'm not silly enough to buy that mangling.

"A-weighted sound power level (LWAd) in bels (B) is the
measure best suited for comparision of noise emissions"

And that mangles the unit story completely. Doesnt matter
a damn if its bels (B) or decibels (dB), what matters is that
its the sound power level, A weighted, thats being stated.

AND to be validly comparable between different drives,
you also need to state the standard protocol that was
used to measure it. And that cant be mangled into the
units used either, it has to be stated explicitly.

AND YOU STILL CANT HAVE A SIMPLE RATIO
BETWEEN THAT STATED MEASURE VALUE AND
THE OTHER ONES THAT APPEAR IN DATASHEETS.

Damn, somebody ripped off my idea.

Like hell they did.

And you said it was impossible.

I said it is impossible to HAVE A SIMPLE RATIO
BETWEEN bels and dBA cited in datasheets.

And that neither allow for the MIND'S PERCEPTION
OF SOUND WITH ALREADY QUIET HARD DRIVES.

It seems that A-weighted power values are the ones used most too.

No surprises there when it would be completely silly
to not allow for the frequency response of the ear.

I wonder if bel values for hard drives are already A-weighted
(they *should* be) - no way of knowing for sure.

Again, thats just plain wrong. Those who measured
it must know if that A weighting was applied.

"When we describe IT acoustic noise emissions in bels is the use of the
A-weighted filter mostly also included, but we seldom state this fact as
BA or bels(A): this because, as said above, when using bel values for
information technology noise emissions are we talking on sound power
level values, and this is stated by putting an "LWAd" before the values:
The A in LWAd states that the A-weighted filter has been used;
making a second A after the B or bels unnecessary."

Pity about the situation where just bel
is used. Utterly mangled all over again.

At one point he says "it not possible to convert
between sound power level and sound pressure level,"

That is correct.

and at another point he says "sound power levels
are useful... for calculating the sound pressure
level from a machine at a given distance."

There isnt any conflict between those.

http://www.silent.se/labels.php

"The computer industry have intelligently choosen to use the unit bel
for to express sound power level values to avoid confusion between
decibels for sound power level and decibels for sound pressure level."

Thats mindlessly silly.

Which is what I keep saying: bel is used for power, dBA for pressure.

Pity thats just plain wrong.

But it looks like this may change soon.

Its never been as true as they claim.

"However, today the computer industry is the only product
group that uses sound power in bels, and if the idea of using
dB ISO or dB IEC will come true will they find themselves
using decibel (dB) instead of bel (B) values for sound power
level as intended in their precious standards. Thus an other
maybe better option would be to choose to use "bels ISO",
"B ISO", "bels IEC" or "B IEC" for a simplified marking standard"

That last is the only approach that makes any sense at all.

So a '3.5 bel' sound power rating today might become '35 dB ISO' in the
future. Since both the noise metrics uses in ISO 7779 are A-weighted, I
guess '35 dB ISO' would mean A-weighted too, with 'A-weighted power'
understood.

Sure. AND THERE IS STILL NO SIMPLE FACTOR THAT CAN
BE APPLIED BETWEEN THE STATED VALUES IN DATASHEETS.

In spite of what you have claimed all along.

 

[Rod Speed]

Because I believe 3.5" drives are quieter than
5.25" drives if the specs are in the same ballpark.

You're wrong. Again.

There are plenty of examples of 2.5" drives that are NOISIER
than 3.5" drives that have much better performance.

that reducing mass will reduce noise?

1. A smaller motor for the spindle. Smaller usually
means less noisy if the quality level is the same.

Mindlessly superficial, particularly when the 3.5"
drive is already inaudible when just rotating.

Pointless paying more for the 2.5" drive in that situation.

2. Lower spinning mass (which can never be 100.0000%
perfectly balanced) should mean less noise caused by vibration.

Pity about the situation where the 3.5"
drive is already inaudible vibration wise.

Pointless paying more for the 2.5" drive in that situation.

3. A shorter arm for the heads. I'd guess that the mass
for an arm increases by the cube of the length. So if the
arm is 20% shorter it may have only half the mass, meaning
a _lot_ less energy needed for seeks and therefore less noise.

Pity about the situation where the 3.5" drive
is already inaudible head movement wise.

Pointless paying more for the 2.5" drive in that situation.

If you can't see any difference between 2.5" and 3.5", compare 3.5"
to 12" or bigger. I think you'd readily agree that 3.5" drives are much
quieter (not to mention much faster). Why? Because they're smaller.

Utterly mangled all over again.

When you have a 3.5" drive thats so quiet that you have to feel
the drive to check if its actually working, its pointless spending
more to have the 2.5" drive with the same performance if you
dont care about power use, as you dont with a desktop system.

Of course this is just an end-user's opinion and I could be 100% wrong.

Yep, yet again.

A lighter arm is easier to accelerate and decelerate
and the travel distance would be shorter, meaning a
faster access time should easily be possible.

There is more involved with access times than just that.

Have fun explaining why we dont use 2.5" drives exclusively.

There might just be a reason why we dont.

It wouldn't need the same amount of storage.
The WD 37.5GB 10000RPM Raptor is very popular

Only with fools that havent got a clue.

Its a niche market dud.

and yet cost 4X as much per GB.

Yep, and only fools buy it.

I've leave the "convincing" part to others who know the real facts.

Completely trivial to compare the currently available
2.5" and 3.5" drives on faster and price right now.

Three guesses which format wins ? And when there are 3.5"
drives that are already so quiet that it isnt easy to work out
if they have spun up or not, there's no point in spending more
for the same performance in 2.5" format unless you need the
smaller form factor for a tight packaging situation.

 

[J.Clarke]

Let's just wait and see what happens in the years ahead. You and Rod
obviously think that 3.5" is the lower size limit for high performance
hard drives.

In what post did I make such a statement? Asking someone to support
his arguments does not necessarily mean that I disagree with them.

You may be right, then again you may not. Time will
tell.

What I'd really like to see is the elimination of all rotating parts
in a computer, HDs, DVDs, fans, the works. This will happen too
someday(although I'm sure you guys would disagree ).

If you will review the thread you will find that I made such a
suggestion myself a few posts back.

 

[J.Clarke]

John and Rod,

Your comments on sound have been interesting and some even helpful,
but since we can't even agree on things that should be undisputable,
e.g. the computer industry using bel for power and dBA for pressure,
there's little hope for agreement on much else. So I'll take a pass
on any more detailed replies. Thanks--JH

Therein lies the problem--you are taking as "undisputable" things which
(a) don't really merit dispute and (b) are most assuredly "disputable".
You can use bels, decibels, centibels, millibels, exabels, petabels, B,
dB, cB, mB, or any other abbreviation for or multiple of the bel and you
still end up with the same value--it doesn't matter which you use from a
computational or engineering viewpoint except to the extent that picking
the right unit means that you have to write or key fewer zeros than with
the others. And as for it being "undisputable", I don't think that
anybody disputed that the bel was commonly used for sound power levels
and the A weighted decibel for sound pressure levels, it's your
insistence that the bel is different from its abbreviation B and that
the A weighted decibel is somehow different from its abbreviation
"dB(A)" or "dBA" that is being disputed. That is like saying that I am
somehow a different person if I call myself "JC" than if I call myself
"John Clarke".

 

[John H.]

Sound level specs are notoriously non comparable mostly due to
marketing department baloney.

There's a lot of that alright. When you buy over the Internet you have
to go by what the manufacturer claims which can turn out to be a
complete lie. I bought a ThermalTake Silent Boost A1889 CPU cooler
recently that's advertised as being 21dBA. But according to a post in a
Web forum by a guy who peeled the top label off, the fan on the cooler
is a PanaFlo FLA0812M rated by Panasonic at 28 dBA (RPMs match). And I
read somewhere that the extra noise from the fan blowing on the heatsink
can add ~12dBA more bringing it up to 40 (which the cooler *should* be
advertised as). Then add probably another 10dBA for the fan being so
out of balance and my "21 dBA" cooler turns out to be as high as 50 dBA.
That's no small difference. I'll be replacing the PanaFlo very soon.

However, even if you wanted to produce and publish an honest
measurement, you'd have a hard time doing it. The problems aren't
physics lessons, it's the various official test methods and how people
interpret them

I've seen sound testing labs and all that goes into it and it's an art
form.

A lot of people out there are finger painters.

Your ears are your best guide, and remember, if you can't hear it,
it's not a problem.

There's certainly NO problem hearing most computers, mind included
(which makes it a problem ). I wish I had access to a sound pressure
meter so I could see what the SPL is for my whole system.

 

[John H.]

Let's just wait and see what happens in the years ahead. You and Rod
obviously think that 3.5" is the lower size limit for high performance
hard drives. You may be right, then again you may not. Time will tell.

What I'd really like to see is the elimination of all rotating parts in
a computer, HDs, DVDs, fans, the works. This will happen too someday
(although I'm sure you guys would disagree ).

 

[John H.]

John and Rod,

Your comments on sound have been interesting and some even helpful, but
since we can't even agree on things that should be undisputable, e.g.
the computer industry using bel for power and dBA for pressure, there's
little hope for agreement on much else. So I'll take a pass on any more
detailed replies. Thanks--JH

 

[John H.]

There's certainly NO problem hearing most computers, mind included
(which makes it a problem ). I wish I had access to a sound pressure
meter so I could see what the SPL is for my whole system.

Pardon the spelling typo. Honest, I do know better (most of the time -
often right after I post).

 

[Arno Wagner]

[...]

dBA is actually deci Bel (A). So disregarding the (A) for the moment,
10 dB = 1 Bel. The (A) is a weighting curve that reflects the human
ear's sensitivity, so dB(A) is more honest than dB or Bel. The problem
is that the human ear's sensitivity is only loosely conectet to the human
mind's resulting anoument. For that you need a measurement in "Sone".
The german computer magazine c't regularly lists dB(A) and Sone in
its HDD tests and there are drives that have good dB(A) ratings but
only not so good Sone ratings. E.g. a high-pitched whine will cause
that.

If I read this article right, sones can directly be converted to phons, and
there's not much difference between phons and dBA for low to moderate sound
levels (which hopefully includes the HD).

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/dB.html

I still would not trust dB(A) too much.

Arno

 

[Mark M]

Aha, now I get it. You and CWatters are one and the same person,
It just takes you a day to switch from one to the other.

Heh heh! Good point. But incorrect as a glance at the IP numbers
would tell you.

I suspect most people can work out that I was reading the thread in
date order and hadn't seen all the later postings when I posted.

But, of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

BTW any more of this cavilling and you are in serious danger of being
dropped from my Christmas card list! You have been warned.

 

[Rod Speed]

John and Rod,

Your comments on sound have been interesting and
some even helpful, but since we can't even agree on
things that should be undisputable, e.g. the computer
industry using bel for power and dBA for pressure,

Thats nothing like indisputable. Its JUST a claim made by
that Silent PC site and those standards say nothing like that.

there's little hope for agreement on much else.

Bullshit. Your original question about a simple conversion
between bel and dBA, even if rephrased to make it clear that
you want a simple mathematical conversion between sound
power stated in bels and sound pressure stated in dBA is still
just plain impossible, as that site says quite unambiguously.

So I'll take a pass on any more detailed replies.

You're always welcome to bullshit your way out of your
predicament like that. Pity it fools absolutely no one.

 

[Rod Speed]

Let's just wait and see what happens in the years ahead.

No need. When its clearly possible to make 3.5" drives
that are so quiet that you have to check very carefully
to see if they are actually spinning up at all, it is clearly
completely pointless to be spending more money on
doing the same capacity and performance in a 2.5"
drive if you dont need the smaller form factor to fit into
a laptop/notebook, and the entire industry is focussed on
mass market commodity drives at the lowest prices possible.

Its certainly worth making drives with a smaller form factor
and power consumption for laptops and notebooks, and
a premium is charged for those differences and they dont
even attempt to achieve the same performance as is seen
with the mass market commodity 3.5" hard drives.

You and Rod obviously think that 3.5" is the
lower size limit for high performance hard drives.

Neither of us ever said anything like that.

YOU were the one who proclaimed that 2.5" drives will
ALWAYS be better than 3.5" drives and that is no more
than a CLAIM you made. We just keep asking you to
substantiate that claim that flys in the face of the evidence.

You may be right, then again you may not. Time will tell.

We already know you are wrong on price and performance alone.

It remains to be seen if that will change any time soon.

What I'd really like to see is the elimination of all rotating
parts in a computer, HDs, DVDs, fans, the works.

Sure. But currently the price of doing that with ram is vastly
out of whack with the price of doing that with rotating memory.
In spades with removable media like DVDs and CDs.

Its already possible to do without fans if you dont need
the ultimate in performance and has been done in the
past too, particularly with 486 and earlier systems.

This will happen too someday

We'll see with DVDs particularly. What might well
happen is that that continues to see increasing capacitys
with a manufacturing cost of the media for peanuts.

(although I'm sure you guys would disagree ).

Its easy to make wild claims that
anyone with any sense disagrees with.

I can predict with complete confidence that we will
never be able to fart our way to the moon or mars.

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

There's a lot of that alright. When you buy over
the Internet you have to go by what the manufacturer
claims which can turn out to be a complete lie.

Nope, you can also use reviews.

I bought a ThermalTake Silent Boost A1889 CPU cooler recently
that's advertised as being 21dBA. But according to a post in a
Web forum by a guy who peeled the top label off, the fan on the cooler
is a PanaFlo FLA0812M rated by Panasonic at 28 dBA (RPMs match).

And I read somewhere that the extra noise from the
fan blowing on the heatsink can add ~12dBA more

That number is just plucked out of someone's arse.

Its certainly correct that it does increase substantially tho.

bringing it up to 40 (which the cooler *should* be advertised as).
Then add probably another 10dBA for the fan being so out of balance

That number is just plucked out of the air too.

and my "21 dBA" cooler turns out to be as high as 50 dBA.

You cant necessarily just add them either.

That's no small difference. I'll be replacing the PanaFlo very soon.

And the environment its used in makes a hell of a difference too.

There's certainly NO problem hearing most computers, mind included
(which makes it a problem ). I wish I had access to a sound pressure
meter so I could see what the SPL is for my whole system.

If you did have one, you'd quickly discover the problem with measuring that.