[mythtv-users] 120GB drives down to $86

[Jeff Williams]

It's been verified time and again that the 7200.7 *doesn't* support acoustic management, including on this list (I was part of one of the discussions about it a while back).  Being quiet doesn't imply the drive actually has acoustic management available.  Acoustic management by definition means the drive's acoustics can be managed - there's no user-accessible way to do this on the 7200.7 (unless Seagate has released a utility to do it in the past week or so - that's about as new as my info is).  There is acoustic management available on all ATA WD, IBM/Hitachi and Maxtor drives that I know of, as well as on most Seagate drives - but not the 7200.7.  Seagate's AM utility does not work with the 7200.7.

My 80GB Barracuda V by default has quite audible seeks (I have not fiddled with the AM on it, and as it's now in my soon-to-be-sold TiVo I doubt I ever will), and if the 7200.7 is even 1/2 db louder than that, it would be unacceptible to me in a Myth box.  Especially when considering my two Maxtor drives are dead silent even when defragging with their acoustic management set to "quiet".

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Petersen [mailto:lists at forevermore.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 12:24 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] 120GB drives down to $86
> 
> 
> > I wonder if Seagate's readying up yet another new Barracuda 
> to replace
> > the 7200.7 (which just came out only recently).  There have been
> > complaints not just here but elsewhere about the lack of acoustic
> > management on these drives and that's really the main reason why
> > people buy Barracudas these days (their performance is a bit off the
> > pace set by WD and Maxtor... not that that matters for Myth).
> 
> Seagate is making the move to SATA drives.
> 
> And the 7200.7 drives DO have acoustic management (they're only 1db
> louder than the barracuda 4 series) - they just don't have that plate
> covering the bottom of the drive (it was causing heat issues).  As for
> quality, drives all seem to be about the same these days 
> (unless you're
> talking SCSI, which all seem to be pretty unreliable, especially when
> you get into hte u320 stuff - we get more of these back than 
> ATA drives,
> and we sell a LOT more ATA systems), though most of our customers seem
> to prefer seagate (keep in mind that this is the high-end 
> server market,
> and our customers are places like MIT and real.com).  With the WD
> special edition drives, and maxtor extending their warranty to 5 years
> on some of their drives, we're slowly starting to sell fewer seagates
> and more WD (we haven't had time to heavily test the maxtor line yet)
> drives, though.
> 
> -Chris
> 
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