News Seagate quietly makes drives quieter

[Da Dego]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/08...rives_quieter/

[Henk]

It's a real shame that they dont mark them any different... something like 7200.9.2 would have been perfect.

[bloodcar]

The drives are already in shipment, though there is no word as to how you can distinguish a new one from an old one, since they bear no special marking or fanfare.

Seagate is also flipping the control/connection PCB on the bottom of the drive.

Wouldn't that be the answer if you bought retail since most HDDs now come in those fricken bubble packs? Can't remember if Seagate's hdds come in them or the boxes though as I rarely visit an actual store and instead opt to buy OEM online. I'd say though that once all of the stock of the current drives run out, these will be all that you'll see.

[cpemma]

Barracuda 7200.9 may remain the same, but I bet the model number, ST3160212A or whatever, changes or their spec sheets are going to be nonsense. And most proper stores show model numbers.

Physical: (Current ST3160212A, ST3160212AS)
                    Height (inches/mm):   1.028/26.1
                    Width  (inches/mm):    4.00/101.6
                    Depth  (inches/mm):    5.78/146.99
                    Weight      (lb/g):    1.28/580

580g "slightly more than 500 grams"? You Yanks need to get a grasp of metric.

[dragontail]

Originally Posted by cpemma

Barracuda 7200.9 may remain the same, but I bet the model number, ST3160212A or whatever, changes or their spec sheets are going to be nonsense. And most proper stores show model numbers.

Physical: (Current ST3160212A, ST3160212AS)
                    Height (inches/mm):   1.028/26.1
                    Width  (inches/mm):    4.00/101.6
                    Depth  (inches/mm):    5.78/146.99
                    Weight      (lb/g):    1.28/580

580g "slightly more than 500 grams"? You Yanks need to get a grasp of metric.

I dont get that.
Umm, I could be a complete retard here, but isn't 580g just "slightly more" (80g more) than 500 grams (500g)?

[Paradigm Shifter]

80g is 16% - not really 'slight', but I'll concede the point.

As great as this sounds, I still think I'll steer clear. Maybe I've been unlucky with Seagate, but three out of three of their drives have died on me within six months. OK, they were replaced, but that isn't the point. And they weren't all the same drives in the same location, either - two desktop drives, one PATA, one SATA and one laptop drive...

[devenfore]

Originally Posted by cpemma

580g "slightly more than 500 grams"? You Yanks need to get a grasp of metric.

Ouch man.

[hitman012]

It's closer to 600 grams than 500, so it should have been "slightly less than 600 grams". Just pedantry

And it's nice to see them making the drives quieter, but I wish they'd make them faster as well (or make the improvements to to the better 7200.10s). Then again, in a quiet office system or similar, performance isn't a huge issue.

[specofdust]

To be honest, anything below 250 is pretty much useless for price concious RAID users. 250's and 300's are at the best £/GB mark last time I checked, depending on the individual drives. Still, good news, but Seagate needed to lower the size of their drives, I bought one and had to stick it in a floppy bay because the internal 3.5's were all too short for the drive to actually fit in, which was pretty poor I thought.

[Da Dego]

Originally Posted by cpemma

Barracuda 7200.9 may remain the same, but I bet the model number, ST3160212A or whatever, changes or their spec sheets are going to be nonsense. And most proper stores show model numbers.

580g "slightly more than 500 grams"? You Yanks need to get a grasp of metric.

Fixed for the pedantic git.

As for your second point, Seagate has not passed on any new model number for the change, though I see what you mean and think they probably would have some difference.

[cpemma]

Originally Posted by Da Dego

Seagate has not passed on any new model number for the change, though I see what you mean and think they probably would have some difference.

I've been searching seagate.com and can find no mention of the change. I suspect a drunken Seagate tek has been letting a drunken tek journalist buy him beer in return for stories. Tailor of Panama stuff. I mean, 6mm off 26mm, that's a major redesign, not just tinkering with an existing product line.

[Da Dego]

Originally Posted by cpemma

I've been searching seagate.com and can find no mention of the change. I suspect a drunken Seagate tek has been letting a drunken tek journalist buy him beer in return for stories. Tailor of Panama stuff. I mean, 6mm off 26mm, that's a major redesign, not just tinkering with an existing product line.

I have a couple reps at seagate I can contact...will do some of my own research on the matter, assuming they can comment.

[Bindibadgi]

Originally Posted by hitman012

It's closer to 600 grams than 500, so it should have been "slightly less than 600 grams". Just pedantry

And it's nice to see them making the drives quieter, but I wish they'd make them faster as well (or make the improvements to to the better 7200.10s). Then again, in a quiet office system or similar, performance isn't a huge issue.

But 500 is a round number. If you're gonna be like that you might as well say "A little less than 590g" or "in between 587g and 589g". Or shall we ask them to measure to 3dp? How thick is the paint? Are those labels uniformly stuck?

/votes Cpemma for QC department at Seagate.

[Tyinsar]

Originally Posted by Da Dego

Fixed for the pedantic git.

lol (though I do agree with the "pedantic git")

Originally Posted by cpemma

... I mean, 6mm off 26mm, that's a major redesign, not just tinkering with an existing product line.

Actually the casing was probably a stock one with extra height for more platters than the smaller HDs use. I suspect they just took out the dead space: make cast for the case a little shallower - remove the spacers, slap the same top on, voila - thinner drive.

[Muunsyr]

I have one of each here (both 80GB models SATA). Yes, the model series numbers have not changed - they are both 7200.9 series drives, however the specific model numbers per drive have changed. In the case of these two 80GB models, the bigger, older model is: ST3808110AS, the slimmer, newer model is ST380811AS. There is quite a big difference between the two, and if you are buying one in a b&m store, then it is very obvious which is which. If you are buying online you will need to check exact model numbers. Note, the '0' has been dropped for the newer models, not added (at least on the 80GB version. The newer versions have actually been in production, and in retail stores, for a month or so now.

I admire Seagate for their lack of marketing hoopla. They differentiate with numbers, and us enthusiasts can pick and choose as we please. Congrats S/G.

[DXR_13KE]

arent disk sizes standardized? the height on these ones is smaller.....

nice and quiet disks, just what the doctor ordered.

[specofdust]

Originally Posted by Da Dego

I have a couple reps at seagate I can contact...will do some of my own research on the matter, assuming they can comment.

People can always comment Da Dego, you just need to increase the "tip" sufficiently

As for disks being a standard size, that's what I always thouht, untill I got the seagate that wouldn't fit in my 3.5" drive bays. I had 5 other drives in other bays at the time, and they all fitted, so to find a disk that didn't fit was extremely odd.