Samsung Spinwrite noisy seek?

  • Thread starter Thread starter louise
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louise

After some kind of major crash, I replaced my 120gig Seagate SATA
drive with a Samsung 160gig SATA drive - Spinpoint P80.

The spinpoint seems to have a much louder seek noise than the
Seagate and I was under an impression the Samsungs were even
quieter. Is the seek noise of spinpoints generally louder than
Seagates?

So, since I hear the seek loud and clear, do I have reason for
concern about the health and longevity of the drive?

According to Everest, SMART is supported and Automatic Acoustic
Management is supported. The drive was OEM. Might these help me
if I knew how to implement them?

TIA

Louise
 
louise said:
After some kind of major crash, I replaced my 120gig Seagate
SATA drive with a Samsung 160gig SATA drive - Spinpoint P80.
Click to expand...
The spinpoint seems to have a much louder seek noise than the
Seagate and I was under an impression the Samsungs were even
quieter. Is the seek noise of spinpoints generally louder than Seagates?
Click to expand...

Nope, my Samsung 120G, 160G and 250G all seek completely silently
and thats in cases that I never bother to put the covers on, and have gone
to a lot of trouble to ensure have silent cpu and power supply fans too.
So, since I hear the seek loud and clear, do I have reason
for concern about the health and longevity of the drive?
Click to expand...
According to Everest, SMART is supported and Automatic
Acoustic Management is supported. The drive was OEM.
Might these help me if I knew how to implement them?
Click to expand...

SMART wont do a thing for the seek noise, its just stats.

Samsung's HUTIL can set the AAM
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/hutil.htm
 
Previously louise said:
After some kind of major crash, I replaced my 120gig Seagate SATA
drive with a Samsung 160gig SATA drive - Spinpoint P80.
Click to expand...
The spinpoint seems to have a much louder seek noise than the
Seagate and I was under an impression the Samsungs were even
quieter. Is the seek noise of spinpoints generally louder than
Seagates?
Click to expand...
So, since I hear the seek loud and clear, do I have reason for
concern about the health and longevity of the drive?
Click to expand...
According to Everest, SMART is supported and Automatic Acoustic
Management is supported. The drive was OEM. Might these help me
if I knew how to implement them?
Click to expand...

AFAIK Samsung actually pays royalties for the performance vs.
quite mode setting (stipid, stupid patent). Your drive
might be in performance mode, since my Samsungs are all
very quiet, which is the default AFAIK. The OEM that specified
your deive may have requested performance mode as default.
See whether Samsung has a utility for setting the acoustic
management parameters. It is also possible that the OEM did
not want to pay for the patent and has seek permanently set
to performance mode.

Arno
 
AFAIK Samsung actually pays royalties for the performance vs.
quite mode setting (stipid, stupid patent). Your drive
might be in performance mode, since my Samsungs are all
very quiet, which is the default AFAIK. The OEM that specified
your deive may have requested performance mode as default.
See whether Samsung has a utility for setting the acoustic
management parameters. It is also possible that the OEM did
not want to pay for the patent and has seek permanently set
to performance mode.
Click to expand...

Does it mean that user has to pay those royalties to anable a quiet mode?
 
Does it mean that user has to pay
those royalties to anable a quiet mode?
Click to expand...

Nope. At most Samsung has to.

I guess its possible that Samsung may have got monstered
by the patent holder and has chosen to not use AAM anymore,
like Seagate did, but my 250G is very recent and seeks
completely silently so thats not very likely unless its just
changed in the last couple of weeks etc.
 
Does it mean that user has to pay those royalties to anable a quiet mode?
Click to expand...

No. When the drive is in the user's hands, the fee has either been
paid and the feature is there or it is not. Nothing can be done
at this point.

Arno
 
Nope, my Samsung 120G, 160G and 250G all seek completely silently
and thats in cases that I never bother to put the covers on, and have gone
to a lot of trouble to ensure have silent cpu and power supply fans too.



SMART wont do a thing for the seek noise, its just stats.

Samsung's HUTIL can set the AAM
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/hutil.htm
Click to expand...
I downloaded hutil and I gather I'm supposed to copy it from my
hard drive to a dos diskette and run it from there? They don't
seem to offer very good instructions.

BUT - my greater concern is a large warning about the possibility
of the utility erasing all data. I think I'd rather hear seek
noises :-)

Has anyone used this utility?

TIA

Louise

Louise
 
mode?

No. When the drive is in the user's hands, the fee has either been
paid and the feature is there or it is not. Nothing can be done
at this point.
Click to expand...

So then, user won't be able to enable quiet mode.
Is that right?
 
I downloaded hutil and I gather I'm supposed to copy it
from my hard drive to a dos diskette and run it from there?
They don't seem to offer very good instructions.
Click to expand...

You wont get any better instructions than that web page.
BUT - my greater concern is a large warning
about the possibility of the utility erasing all data.
Click to expand...

You have got your data backed up havent you ?
I think I'd rather hear seek noises :-)
Click to expand...
Has anyone used this utility?
Click to expand...

You blonde ?
 
Nope. Either Samsung has paid the fee and it can be enabled,
or Samsung hasnt paid the fee and it cant, or Samsung hasnt
paid the fee and it can still be enabled anyway.
Click to expand...
First I did a complete image backup.

Then I followed the instructions on the web page and booted into
dos and then ran hutil.exe, Samsung's utility program for the
drive.

Under tools, there was an option which gave the choices of disable,
fast, medium and quiet. At the time "disable" was chosen.

I was able to choose any of the other settings. Not wanting to
give up too much performance, I chose medium thinking that I could
always change it again if I wished.

The drive is now practically silent, certainly quieter than the
seek noise on my previous Seagate SATA drive, which was ok with me.

I am perfectly happy with it now and thanks to everyone who gave me
the necessary information to adjust it.

Does anyone know what the performance differences actually are?

Thanks again.

Louise
 
Peter said:
So then, user won't be able to enable quiet mode.
Is that right?
Click to expand...

Nope. Either Samsung has paid the fee and it can be enabled,
or Samsung hasnt paid the fee and it cant, or Samsung hasnt
paid the fee and it can still be enabled anyway.
 
First I did a complete image backup.
Click to expand...
Then I followed the instructions on the web page and booted into
dos and then ran hutil.exe, Samsung's utility program for the drive.
Click to expand...
Under tools, there was an option which gave the choices of disable,
fast, medium and quiet. At the time "disable" was chosen.
Click to expand...
I was able to choose any of the other settings. Not wanting to give up too
much performance, I chose medium thinking that I could always change it again
if I wished.
Click to expand...
The drive is now practically silent, certainly quieter than the seek noise on
my previous Seagate SATA drive, which was ok with me.
Click to expand...

Just checked my latest Samsung, the 250G drive, and
its completely silent and AAM is listed as disabled.

Its an ATA drive tho, not SATA. Cant see why that would matter tho.
I am perfectly happy with it now and thanks to everyone who gave me the
necessary information to adjust it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback on how it turned out.
Does anyone know what the performance differences actually are?
Click to expand...

I doubt you'd be able to pick it in a proper double blind trial without
being allowed to use a benchmark, even between disabled and silent.
 
Rod said:
Nope. Either Samsung has paid the fee and it can be enabled,
or Samsung hasnt paid the fee and it cant, or Samsung hasnt
paid the fee and it can still be enabled anyway.
Click to expand...

You've just effectively said "No, it is or it isn't, or it might be" !

Has anyone actually seen a recent samsung drive where it's
turned off and can't be enabled?
 
So then, user won't be able to enable quiet mode.
Is that right?
Click to expand...

No. If the drive has acoustic management, then it can be brought into
quiet mode. It is a drive setting in that case. The manufactirer
default can be "performance" or "quiet". See previous postings.

Arno
 
You've just effectively said "No, it is or it isn't, or it might be" !
Click to expand...
Has anyone actually seen a recent samsung drive where it's
turned off and can't be enabled?
Click to expand...

Not me. I have wo different recent ones. However the OP said
"OEM", which I take not to mean "blank drive", but "drive
marked OEM". If it was indeed "blank drive", then there is
every reason to believe that it can be brought into quiet mode.

Arno
 
Previously louise said:
First I did a complete image backup.
Click to expand...
Then I followed the instructions on the web page and booted into
dos and then ran hutil.exe, Samsung's utility program for the
drive.
Click to expand...
Under tools, there was an option which gave the choices of disable,
fast, medium and quiet. At the time "disable" was chosen.
Click to expand...
I was able to choose any of the other settings. Not wanting to
give up too much performance, I chose medium thinking that I could
always change it again if I wished.
Click to expand...
The drive is now practically silent, certainly quieter than the
seek noise on my previous Seagate SATA drive, which was ok with me.
Congratulations!

I am perfectly happy with it now and thanks to everyone who gave me
the necessary information to adjust it.
Click to expand...
Does anyone know what the performance differences actually are?
Click to expand...

Not too bad. I have seen < 20% slowdown.

Arno
 
Does it mean that user has to pay those royalties to anable a quiet
No. If the drive has acoustic management, then it can be brought into
quiet mode. It is a drive setting in that case. The manufactirer
default can be "performance" or "quiet". See previous postings.
Click to expand...

But you have said:
"When the drive is in the user's hands, the fee has either been paid and the
feature is there or it is not."

So assume interesting situation, when manufacturer elects not to pay
royalties (you brought up that idea). It would not provide that "quiet"
feature, right? Then drive does not have "quiet" feature and user cannot
enable "quiet" feature.
 
Mike Redrobe said:
You've just effectively said "No, it is or it isn't, or it might be" !

Has anyone actually seen a recent samsung drive where it's
turned off and can't be enabled?
Click to expand...

I think you can interpret that answer to be "I don't really know."
 
I think you can interpret that answer to be "I don't really know."
Click to expand...

Not a shred of evidence that you are actually capable of rational thought.

I wasnt even attempting to say which of those 3 actual possibilitys
is the true situation with Samsung. I was JUST pointing out that
Samsung can choose to make an obscene gesture in the general
direction of whoever claims to have patented AAM and refuse to
pay royaltys and have AAM available on their drives anyway.
 
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