Seagate 7200.10 - different motors for same product? (7200.10 owners plz read)

I've been very dissatisfied with this Seagate 7200.10 320GB SATAII about the noise level which seems to remind me of some old 10-20GB drives far from usual Seagate noise level standards. Operation noise is about par with Maxtor DiamondMax 9 but of course it doesn't support AAM either so you can't do anything about the noise. However I searched around the net and found this thread pretty interesting as many others seems to agree with the drives being very noisy while others think they are very silent. In pretty much middle of the thread you'll find a post by a 4x320GB 7200.10 owner that compared his drives if there would be a difference among them, one of them turned out to be a lot more noisy, had a faint high pitch whine during idle and operation noise was also remarkably louder, aprox ~60% by his subjective opinion. Now he also took a pic of the drive motors:

silent motor

non-silent motor

I've got the "non-silent motor" myself and I think it's very loud, I'm thinking of returning or selling it (depends how nice the online store where I bought it from is). Simply cuz I don't like a very loud HDD that also produces audible "clicking" operation noise from simple tasks such as downloading or uploading files from it and sometimes also at idle. What's gotten into Seagate these days, hiding a factory somewhere in Singapore producing budget 7200.10 not following the exact specs for this product, I wouldn't be suprised. I also sent a complain to Seagate support about it, will be interesting to hear what they've got to say.

If you have got a Seagate 7200.10 I'd be happy if you could give some feedback about it and perhaps fill in info about it like this for example:

Product code: ST3320620AS
Manufactured in: Singapore
Firmware: 3.AAE
Date Code: (sorry I forgot to check this) should be a 4-digit code
Motor: Non-silent

And here's even more pictures, appearently there's at least 3 different versions of same product:

http://hardwarelogic.com/articles/re...HDD_bottom.jpg - This is the best one that is actually very silent.

http://img.ferra.ru/pubimages/90521.jpg - this is the version I have which is very loud

http://www.garbage.at/7200.10_pcb.jpg - here's one with smaller PCB!

WTF, for me this is something very intolerable. Shame on you Seagate, all 7200.10 should be produced as the only good version out of these 3. :nono:

If this continues I'll never pick a Seagate drive again, I so don't wish they bought my fav manufacturer Maxtor tho. Ordered a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATAII and hopefully it still follows the old standard Maxtor design and AAM should be still possible to change right? I mean they can't just drop the AAM support for a product line that at least has had this feature from start, can they?

I've heard so many good things about Seagate through the years but are all Seagate supporters finding this OK or what? Plz share some opinions. You shouldn't need to hunt the only good version there is of the product, you should know what you get BEFORE you make the purchase which you don't in this case and only 1 version of a product should with same product code should be allowed. It's one thing if they offer a 8MB and 16MB version for example, but having different parts in the drives is so wrong. As it seems right now I lost 30€ thanks to Seagate, it's not much but still something but I'm more pissed about the useless time spent with it.

That's interesting. This is probably unlikely but it's possible the wd re2 drives are similar. My 500gb wd re2 is more noisy than any drive I've purchased in the past 4 years by far. Yet, most reviews said the drive was very quiet. Still, I guess drive noise wasn't a concern when they designed the re2 since it's intended target wasn't our homes.

Seems like bad luck. I have noticed this on all brands and all drives. Some people get very quiet drives some get very loud. Manufacturing defects probably. Just return it and get another one until you get a quiet one.

Already sold it as I can't return a used product. :slapass: (sold it for 95,30€ incl shipping cost, paid 114€ incl shipping cost so didn't lost that much money altho I really need a new drive right now and I don't wanna move stuff over and over all the time.

Picked up a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATAII 300GB, I really got to know I should stick what has worked for me. Only reason I would try another brand is the overall bad comments about Maxtor but for me they seem to work best. :confused:

Now I'm just a bit worried I get the same Seagate crap in the Maxtor as Seagate owns Maxtor but I don't think it has done anything to DM10 series yet but DM11 and 20 and 21 and 17 or whatever lol is all pure Seagate budget stuff now so this is prolly the last HDD I'll buy from Maxtor. I think it's somewhat obvious tho for me as the first WD drive I bought started having extra high pitched noise audible during idle and it wasn't a constant whine but it was a variation in the noise so that was disturbing altho it was very faint but still audible so I did sell it and the new owner hasn't mind it. Then I decided to try this new Seagate...

I've got 5 Maxtor drives (actually 6 cuz I sold one Maxtor DM9 200GB once) and all of them have worked perfectly fine, no extra noise has appeared on any of them, no bad sectors, decent performance, dead silent on idle, superb AAM adjustment, no crashes, cool operating temp, no probs at all. Even my DiamondMax 9 160GB from beginning of 2002 still works perfectly fine (used that drive as gaming HDD for a while ago) and no probs with SMART values either. Power on hours count has perhaps the worst value as it's getting somewhat old, as I usually run the comp for almost 24/7, I rarely shut down. So for me Maxtor has shown good durable and relaiability signs or am I just lucky but I think it's REALLY bad luck if all 6 Maxtor drives have worked great and the 1st drives I try from the 2 biggest manufacturers are borked. I may add the SMART values weren't that great on both the WD and Seagate drive either, especially the Seagate drive in the beginning had one of the "unknown" attributes down with like 30 in the beginning for example but went upwards after some hours of idle. Also had like -10 on something else. The WD drive hadn't that bad SMART values but it wasn't that great either. My Maxtors haven't had any serious SMART value variations tho, it's usually one step down at a time and then it may often go up again after a little while and sometimes it stays at the lower value of course.

This is exactly the opposite I usually hear of Maxtor drives so to me it's really weird.

Im blind and cant see the difference between the first two...

My four are not loud, but I dont understand why your trying to buy fast drives and have them be silent?

I have one of these and I can't hear it over my case fans

It was the best capacity/price combo and I wanted to try a Seagate as they are supposed to be silent which they are if you get the correct version but I didn't know there was different versions of the 7200.10 drives depending where it was manufacturered until afterwards I started doing some more search. I really couldn't expect same product to have different parts in it. Noise may vary from sample to sample somewhat in all drives but NOT this much as it can be between these Seagate ones with different motors.

The operation noise was as loud as Maxtor DiamondMax 9 with AAM disabled which can make your desk or floor shake in worst case :p but the noise is more high pitched and I thought the tone was worse. Other than that it had audible clicking noise sometimes at idle and always when uploading or downloading of the drive which is a common task for me and I don't like to try sleep like 2m away from the comp with it clicking, clicking, clicking like every 2-3 secs and neither when I browse internet like forums and stuff, then the drives has to be dead silent as I get distracted by such noise. I can get used to constant noise like the noise of fans (I already have 9x case fans :p) but not clicking or noises that isn't constant. Maxtors are known for the relatively silent idle spindle motors and it's not too uncommon for other brands to have audible "clicking" noise during idle but I'm used to Maxtor which are dead silent as long as you don't move files from a drive to another, copy or install stuff, load maps in games etc or unless you don't adjust the AAM, if you do they can become silent all the time whit not that much loss in performance but the tone is good so I don't adjust it, only if I used an old DM9 as gaming or OS drive but DM10 is more silent and I don't think it needs to be adjusted.

I have two of these seagates, both have differnt motors and PCB's, as well as controllers, and both are loud, but quieter than a 7200.7...although not by much!

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Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD

Already sold it as I can't return a used product. :slapass: (sold it for 95,30€ incl shipping cost, paid 114€ incl shipping cost so didn't lost that much money altho I really need a new drive right now and I don't wanna move stuff over and over all the time.

Picked up a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATAII 300GB, I really got to know I should stick what has worked for me. Only reason I would try another brand is the overall bad comments about Maxtor but for me they seem to work best. :confused:

Now I'm just a bit worried I get the same Seagate crap in the Maxtor as Seagate owns Maxtor but I don't think it has done anything to DM10 series yet but DM11 and 20 and 21 and 17 or whatever lol is all pure Seagate budget stuff now so this is prolly the last HDD I'll buy from Maxtor. I think it's somewhat obvious tho for me as the first WD drive I bought started having extra high pitched noise audible during idle and it wasn't a constant whine but it was a variation in the noise so that was disturbing altho it was very faint but still audible so I did sell it and the new owner hasn't mind it. Then I decided to try this new Seagate...

I've got 5 Maxtor drives (actually 6 cuz I sold one Maxtor DM9 200GB once) and all of them have worked perfectly fine, no extra noise has appeared on any of them, no bad sectors, decent performance, dead silent on idle, superb AAM adjustment, no crashes, cool operating temp, no probs at all. Even my DiamondMax 9 160GB from beginning of 2002 still works perfectly fine (used that drive as gaming HDD for a while ago) and no probs with SMART values either. Power on hours count has perhaps the worst value as it's getting somewhat old, as I usually run the comp for almost 24/7, I rarely shut down. So for me Maxtor has shown good durable and relaiability signs or am I just lucky but I think it's REALLY bad luck if all 6 Maxtor drives have worked great and the 1st drives I try from the 2 biggest manufacturers are borked. I may add the SMART values weren't that great on both the WD and Seagate drive either, especially the Seagate drive in the beginning had one of the "unknown" attributes down with like 30 in the beginning for example but went upwards after some hours of idle. Also had like -10 on something else. The WD drive hadn't that bad SMART values but it wasn't that great either. My Maxtors haven't had any serious SMART value variations tho, it's usually one step down at a time and then it may often go up again after a little while and sometimes it stays at the lower value of course.

This is exactly the opposite I usually hear of Maxtor drives so to me it's really weird.

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Sure you can return used products, how would you know if its working until you try and use it. Unless you buy from a very strange place they should take it back.

As for maxtors I will put a big pole up my rear end before I use maxtor garbage again...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148140 The AS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148139 The A

From reports it seems that the A is the silent type and the AS is the non silent
I think there is a Third type with a T involved. I forget.

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Originally Posted by Teratism

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148140 The AS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148139 The A

From reports it seems that the A is the silent type and the AS is the non silent
I think there is a Third type with a T involved. I forget.

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A and AS are obviously referring to ATA or SATA respectively. Are you saying that the SATA drives are loud and the ATA drives are not?

From a lot of reviews on newegg and others it looks to be that way. Maybe bringing up the question to seagate reps may give you a clearer answer.

Already posted email to Seagate a while ago and of course as expected I would get no comment on what I actually wanted to know.

Should reply and ask again same question again and post links to the different pictures. :p: I think this is pretty serious issue, they are fooling people (even a lawsuit could be possible cuz of this issue I think). So far I don't know of any other brand that I can for sure find similiar pics or proof that shows they use different parts for the same products. All products of the same model should have same parts, simple as that otherwise it's not the same product! People shouldn't need to pay same price for a drive that is remarkably louder than their friends'. Worst case scenario would be in case these "louder" parts (who knows maybe even less durable too) are much cheaper to produce, which would give Seagate a small profit bonus on the expense of fooling some people instead. It's not really great marketing which I hope Seagate doesn't get away with. :nono:

epion2985> The problem is that all the drives with the non-silent spindle motor are loud, it's not a defect drive but Seagate using worse parts in some of them and these are the loud ones.

The problem is that Seagate, due to patents, cannot use AAM (they could pay the royalties, but seems that they are not interested).

But this does not mean that they do not have the ability to control the seek noise. They just can't sell drives with the ability to change it.

Basically what they do is to set different setting in the factory. Indeed it seems that ATA drives are generally quieter than their SATA counterparts. Obviously, there are exceptions.

Why don't they ship all drives with the quiet setting? It makes the seek slower (that's why I always set AAM for performance).

But the heterogeneity of Seagate products do not end here. Some 320GB drives are 400 or 500GB (can't remember, but probably both) with the inner part of the platter area disabled. Since the 400 or 500 (can't remember) drives have higher platter density the 320 based have faster sequential read/write. Moreover, since the slowest part of the platter is disabled, this increases seek times, since the heads have to cover less area.

My advice: make sure you feel lucky when you buy a Seagate :p:

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Originally Posted by epion2985

Sure you can return used products, how would you know if its working until you try and use it. Unless you buy from a very strange place they should take it back.

As for maxtors I will put a big pole up my rear end before I use maxtor garbage again...

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If he's in Germany his return offers are quite a bit different from what we here can RMA to newegg for 15% off.

Agreed on Maxtor.

My Seagate 320GB 7200.10 SATA has a very loud and annoying motor. It's not the noise you hear when the drive is seeking, it's just a loud, constant humming noise from the motor. If I flip the drive upside down the noise goes down a bit but it still drives me crazy.

I've also got two 160GB Seagate 7200.7 SATA drives and they are completely silent, even my 150GB Raptor is quieter than the 7200.10. I contacted Seagate and they said they'll take it back.

Here is the product info:

Product code: ST3320620AS
Manufactured in: Singapore
Firmware: 3.AAE
Date Code: 07142
Motor: Xtremely Non-Silent

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Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD

epion2985> The problem is that all the drives with the non-silent spindle motor are loud, it's not a defect drive but Seagate using worse parts in some of them and these are the loud ones.

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Thant's no news. Dell has been putting good panels in their monitors for good reviews then swapping for worser once later on to save money. They do this crap all the time. And they have the lawyers and engineers that find loop holes to make it hard to fight.

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Originally Posted by uOpt

If he's in Germany his return offers are quite a bit different from what we here can RMA to newegg for 15% off.

Agreed on Maxtor.

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15% ? I RMA for free, if the item is defective they used to RMA for free. Is this new or something?

I guess Germany sucks. Glad my family didn't settle down there while we lived there back in my youth.

the 15% would be a restocking fee if you return a hard drive that would likely pass a full read test of seatools or something. RMA is always free, unless the company is shady as hell.
I have two of the Seagate 320gb SATA II HDD's in question in my server, both are excellent drives and barely audible, but they are the "good" version that you've posted pictures of.
I work for a smaller retailer here in Canada as a technician and all of the 320gb Seagate drives that I've seen pass through here (a couple hundred in the last couple months, all OEM drives) have all been the same version that I have purchased. I think I've gone through about 4 or five of them now, but my hardware turnover is pretty high. I've never had trouble with any that I've purchased, and of the maybe 500 or so we've sold, I've RMA'd probably 10-15 drives. (which to me seems pretty low, because I would guess that some of those were user error)

IMHO, Seagate is still my favorite HDD manufacturer, but in my main box I do use WD Raptors, just for the 10k RPM goodness

I honestly wouldn't have picked up on the noise issue if you didn't mention it. I have a few of the "noisy" drives with large PCB, and a few of the "quiet" ones with smaller PCB, all 7200.10 500GB. The noisy ones are all made in china and were purchased at newegg this week and last week. The quiet ones are made in singapore and were all purchased in the past week from zipzoomfly. They'll all be in a fileserver tucked away, so I shouldn't hear a thing.

Hopefully this helps out some US residents who want some of these drives.

so thats good, its not just me... I can hear this thing accessing the HDD from accross the room when it accesses the drive for saving torrents or virus scanning, something like that that it does when im not using it. It is scary that it is clearly louder than my fans, which arent super load, but it is a steady whirr sound thats pretty audible.

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Originally Posted by epion2985

15% ? I RMA for free, if the item is defective they used to RMA for free. Is this new or something?

I guess Germany sucks. Glad my family didn't settle down there while we lived there back in my youth.

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If you want to return it because of a too loud motor you'll have to pay 15% to Newegg, unless you want to spend quite a bit of time on the phone. It's not a defect.

Germany generally doesn't give you any return right at any restocking fee after you opened the shrinkwrap, unless it is defective.

Germany doesn't suck, though, just for starters they have much better warranty laws. So Germany is better if you get broken stuff, U.S. is better if you just don't like what you got.

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Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD

And here's even more pictures, appearently there's at least 3 different versions of same product:

http://hardwarelogic.com/articles/re...HDD_bottom.jpg - This is the best one that is actually very silent.

http://img.ferra.ru/pubimages/90521.jpg - this is the version I have which is very loud

http://www.garbage.at/7200.10_pcb.jpg - here's one with smaller PCB!

WTF, for me this is something very intolerable. Shame on you Seagate, all 7200.10 should be produced as the only good version out of these 3. :nono:

If this continues I'll never pick a Seagate drive again, I so don't wish they bought my fav manufacturer Maxtor tho. Ordered a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATAII and hopefully it still follows the old standard Maxtor design and AAM should be still possible to change right? I mean they can't just drop the AAM support for a product line that at least has had this feature from start, can they?

I've heard so many good things about Seagate through the years but are all Seagate supporters finding this OK or what? Plz share some opinions. You shouldn't need to hunt the only good version there is of the product, you should know what you get BEFORE you make the purchase which you don't in this case and only 1 version of a product should with same product code should be allowed. It's one thing if they offer a 8MB and 16MB version for example, but having different parts in the drives is so wrong. As it seems right now I lost 30€ thanks to Seagate, it's not much but still something but I'm more pissed about the useless time spent with it.

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i got the first version and mine is loud too ...:slapass:

Seems like Seagate might have dropped the production of DiamondMax 10 as I've waited for a week now for my Maxtor DiamondMax 10 and they haven't got any in stock yet (according to the site they were in stock when I ordered but later on it was changed, damn site) so I sent an email where I explained I want to switch it for a WD3200KS, ie SE 320GB SATAII 16MB which are supposed to be VERY silent (slightly more silent than the silent 7200.10 version) and unlike Seagate WD doesn't use different parts in their drives so every drive pretty much should have almost same noise level.

I looked at this one before too, what was stopping me from buying it as I used to have SATA-150 320GB 8MB cache WD SE part which got a noisy spindle motor after about a half year's usage (a constant various high pitched noise whine). However after some search it seems the WD3200JB and WD3200KS aren't exactly same and the WD3200KS appears to be even more silent and I already thought WD3200JB was quite silent as long as it didn't have the extra noise. I just hope I have better luck this time. Today the HDD market looks rather bad for silent-HDD enthusiasts, looks like WD3200KS might be the only somewhat reliable choise right now. Samsung is good too but should improve access time somewhat still before I'd really consider one.

so where are you guys getting these "loud" hdds from? and where can i get the quieter one? or is it just a luck type of thing from newegg?
any1 get it from tigerdirect? 80$ there

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Originally Posted by uOpt

If you want to return it because of a too loud motor you'll have to pay 15% to Newegg, unless you want to spend quite a bit of time on the phone. It's not a defect.

Germany generally doesn't give you any return right at any restocking fee after you opened the shrinkwrap, unless it is defective.

Germany doesn't suck, though, just for starters they have much better warranty laws. So Germany is better if you get broken stuff, U.S. is better if you just don't like what you got.

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In belgium we have a law that says you can return any product within 7 days, regardless of whether its been used or not(if its consumergoods this don't apply ofcourse). But for stuff like CPU's, GPU's, harddrives, other hardware this all holds up. You just open the package, test the product and if its not to your liking the store has to take it back and give you a full refund no questions asked. You don't even have to come up with some lame excuse, failure to do so will have the law on their heads and you will win that every time. Even stores that don't advertise the 7-day money back guarentee are lying to you because in Belgium this is a universal law. Sometimes its even fun to mock stores like that by rubbing their noses in this and return the product 1 day before the 7day period ends heheheh

As for the Seagates, I currently have 2 of these running in RAID0 in my comp and they are so silent its as if both drives are dead, even under heavy file copying I do not get a sound from them.

Modelnumbers of mine are ST3250620AS, one uses the 3.AAE and other uses the 3.AAD firmware, haven't checked what the motors look like though. Will check later today as my third perp drive will then come in;):) Lets hope third time is indeed a charm, else I will have to claim my rights as a consumer hehehe.

EDIT : Just checked bottoms of my seagates and both of them sport this type of motor,

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/2...tomloudvb3.jpg

this is considered to be the loud motor, but like I said its deadly silent;) So your theory doesn't hold up, even laying my ear to these drives while moving files and I cannot hear them, no ticks, no buzzing, no nothing.

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Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD

and unlike Seagate WD doesn't use different parts in their drives

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Thats a very bold statement to make, can you back it up? Fact is most companies are always tinkering and modifying the production process and do swap parts more then you would think.

I have 3 of these drives (2 in RAID 0 configuration)......very silent......don't even know they are there.

:) :)

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Originally Posted by epion2985

Thats a very bold statement to make, can you back it up? Fact is most companies are always tinkering and modifying the production process and do swap parts more then you would think.

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They may swap as long as it isn't noticable, was just a bold statement indeed of no bigger importance. :slapass: Stop defending Seagate just cuz you use them and like them, I don't care who does this or not, it's still not a good thing. :p:

The drive I had was louder than a Raptor, I know noise level is a subjective matter but most people don't consider Raptors being silent. I'm not trying to lie about Seagate here, only warn people cuz who knows, you might be one of the unlucky people to get one of these crap samples like me and some others did.

Same rule doesn't apply to Finland as in Belgium, if you've taken the product in use you cannot get the money back, only if there's something wrong with it of course which in this case "it wasn't". Anyways that would sux having to return it, I'd rather sell it anyways so I can buy a new drive the same day I decide to put it up for sale and get a new drive it in matter of a day or two instead of 1 - 2 weeks which this 18,70 eur loss compensates altho I shouldn't have to be in this position in first place.

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Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD

They may swap as long as it isn't noticable, was just a bold statement indeed of no bigger importance. :slapass: Stop defending Seagate just cuz you use them and like them, I don't care who does this or not, it's still not a good thing. :p:

The drive I had was louder than a Raptor, I know noise level is a subjective matter but most people don't consider Raptors being silent. I'm not trying to lie about Seagate here, only warn people cuz who knows, you might be one of the unlucky people to get one of these crap samples like me and some others did.

Same rule doesn't apply to Finland as in Belgium, if you've taken the product in use you cannot get the money back, only if there's something wrong with it of course which in this case "it wasn't". Anyways that would sux having to return it, I'd rather sell it anyways so I can buy a new drive the same day I decide to put it up for sale and get a new drive it in matter of a day or two instead of 1 - 2 weeks which this 18,70 eur loss compensates altho I shouldn't have to be in this position in first place.

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Saying things that you don't know are true is no better then lying. I am not defending anyone, I am correcting your fallacy. Fact is you said WD don't swap parts, another fact is that you don't know that yet you said it. End of story.

I am not defending seagate. I use their drives as much as I use western digital drives and don't think either is unconditionally better. I agree some of these seagates are loud and some are quiet and it seems to be a matter of being lucky. However I have seen that with western digital as well as with other brands. Weather this is an issue with the WD drive you want to get instead now is another matter. If its not then by all means I agree, get the wd. But to mislead people by talking like you know something when you don't is not very nice.

Anyway lets not dwell on this :)

PS:

Maybe... if the loud drive is functional and hence not returnable... one can give it a little help... with ceasing to function... :bsod:... :D

maybe it is just certain drives regardless of motor used ?

i have 8x 320GB 7200.10 SATAII none have clicking motor noise all bought at same time in June 2006

ST3320620AS
FIRMWARE: 3.AAC
P/N: 9BJ14G-300
DATE CODE: 06471
SITE CODE: AMK

then i bought 5x500GB 7200.10 SATAII in Oct 2006

ST3500630AS
FIRMWARE: 3.AAE
P/N: 9BJ14G-305
DATE CODE: 07155
SITE CODE: WU

now tested 3 of the 500GB 7200.10 and so far 1 has clicking sound you guys mentioned while other 2 are quiet and all as far as i can tell use same motor design.

anyone know what SITE CODE meaks ? WU vs AMK ?

Just got my Maxtor DM10 SATAII 300GB today and finally I got a drive I'm very pleased with. Checked the PCB first and yes it had the exactly same PCB and spindle motor as my SATA-150 DM10 300GB drives. But I was suprised to find it it's even noticable more silent than my SATA-150 300GB counterparts and it's at least twice as silent as the Seagate was and the annoying clicking noise on idle or upload/download is gone. As for performance, it was better than expected, it performs slighty better again as my SATA-150 parts despite running this drive also in that mode:

http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/5476/hddtestot3.th.jpg

I say that's a very good result for a DM10 drive running in SATA-150 mode. :) I had expected like 55-56MB/s avg read. This is whit default MS ide drivers.

i have both versions with the "loud" motor but they are very quiet, there also seems to be absolutely no difference between the large and the small PCB (both drives i have use the same firmware AND give the absolutely same performance. in addition they make use of the same chips

/OT

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Originally Posted by uOpt

Germany generally doesn't give you any return right at any restocking fee after you opened the shrinkwrap, unless it is defective.

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software only, i used to buy things in munich when i lived in tyrol (only 1 hour away) and they always take opened things back and don´t want to have any oney for it (you have 7 days to do this), same here in austria.

quote of ww.alternate.eu (german store):

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Notice of right of withdrawal

Consumers within the meaning of §13 of the German Civil Code (BGB) may, in cases where the agreement was concluded by means of distance selling, withdraw from the agreement within two weeks without having to give reasons. Such withdrawal can be effected in writing or through return of the goods. The time pe

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Consequences of withdrawal:

In case of an effective withdrawal the benefits received or by either side (including through usage of the goods) must be returned or compensated for. Where the consumer can only return the benefit only partially or in a deteriorated state he must insofar provide compensation as the case may be. This does not apply where the deterioration of the goods was solely caused by testing of the goods, as it would have been possible in the shop. The consumer can avoid any compensation obligation by not putting the goods into use, by having the installation of components carried out only by qualified and authorised tec

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as far as i know this is common eu-law OT\

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Originally Posted by eva2000

maybe it is just certain drives regardless of motor used ?

i have 8x 320GB 7200.10 SATAII none have clicking motor noise all bought at same time in June 2006

ST3320620AS
FIRMWARE: 3.AAC
P/N: 9BJ14G-300
DATE CODE: 06471
SITE CODE: AMK

then i bought 5x500GB 7200.10 SATAII in Oct 2006

ST3500630AS
FIRMWARE: 3.AAE
P/N: 9BJ14G-305
DATE CODE: 07155
SITE CODE: WU

now tested 3 of the 500GB 7200.10 and so far 1 has clicking sound you guys mentioned while other 2 are quiet and all as far as i can tell use same motor design.

anyone know what SITE CODE meaks ? WU vs AMK ?

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hi, i'm from singapore, "amk" shld mean ang mo kio, jus a place in singapore
iirc, singapore has a seagate factory at woodlands (maybe it came to "WU")
and a maxtor factory at yishun, (jus a 5 mins walk from my home)

check out the transit lines @ http://www.smrt.com.sg/trains/routemap/routemap.pdf

seagate's made in singapore hdd are usually in demand over here, followed by made in thailand then lastly made in china

personally i'm using hitachi drives only

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cadaveca

I have two of these seagates, both have differnt motors and PCB's, as well as controllers, and both are loud, but quieter than a 7200.7...although not by much!

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Same here. I only have 1 320GB though....

I got my 320GB 7200.10 today, and it seems to be quiet idle, but seems to make quite a loud HDD grind while in use. It's a 3AAE.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB
ST3320620AS
P/N 9BJ14G-305
Date Code 07082
Site Code AMK

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/1643/pic0061wr8.jpg

Mine also makes the great clicking noise all the time,

Just average use for a few hours is putting the SMART "Hardware ECC recovered" value through the roof, at least according to HDDstatus.com and Speedfan, however I am yet to try scanning it with Seagate's tools.

EDIT: I have a feeling this may be a dud drive. I did a full surface + filesystem test with Seagate's SeaTools. The surface test passed 100% but the filesystem test was 100% errors, and upon rebooting afterwards Windows gave me a prompt about one of the registry files being corrupted and recovered. Now performance and fitness on HDDstatus.com has dropped to 90% from 99.

I have 8 of these drives, 2 from Singapore, 6 from China (I think Singapore ones start with Serial 3QF while China starts from 5QF). They're all the same ST3320620AS model, but four are 3.AAC firmware, one is 3.AAD, and three are 3.AAE. This is because I bought them all at different stores at different times throughout the year.

Having compared some of them I can tell you that a few are very different. Some have different motors, some have missing/different ICs/caps/resistors, etc.

I don't know which ones are the quiet ones or the loud ones as all 8 are in a raidz array and work at the same time.

I wonder if there are performance differences between them? I'd rather have them all be the same performance, otherwise it's bad for the raid array :confused: .

Lmao, now seek error rate is getting bad too. RMA time :x

EDIT: Again, HArdware ECC Recovered and "Unknown Attribute 190" seem to be raising rapidly too.

well ive had mine for almost a week now, and the sound is fine on it. no annoying noises or anything.

my is pretty loud clicking when read/writing (like an old 10gig maxtor)

firmware: 3.AAE
datecode: 07165

singapore

the motor does have a sticker on it like the
http://www.engit.com.au/Silent.jpg one


or maybe it seems loud because its outside of my case on an empty cardboard box :rolleyes:

I've owned both the DM10 300GB 3Gbps and 4x320GB 7200.10's. haven't noticed any improper noises on the seagates. i've RMA'd the DM10 once already but no problems since. haven't tested the 320's thoroughly enough but during brief testing, had no problems. time will tell i suppose.

but in any event, no noise issues.

and epion is absolutely right about brand names and quality. there is no such thing as a quality brand anymore... which is why we read threads like this. if you aren't educated about a product you're essentially a victim of the industry.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KoHaN69

my is pretty loud clicking when read/writing (like an old 10gig maxtor)

firmware: 3.AAE
datecode: 07165

singapore

the motor does have a sticker on it like the
http://www.engit.com.au/Silent.jpg one


or maybe it seems loud because its outside of my case on an empty cardboard box :rolleyes:

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no way its as bad as a 10yr old maxtor. my dad still uses his 8gig ~8yr old maxtor and i can hear that thing 2 rooms away(seriously not joking)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ripken204

no way its as bad as a 10yr old maxtor. my dad still uses his 8gig ~8yr old maxtor and i can hear that thing 2 rooms away(seriously not joking)

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Obviously you haven't heard the loud versions of Seagate's 7200.10 series then. :p:

I picked up two 7200.10s for my build and I can't hear them at all, except during reboot but that may be a fan and not them, a kind of scraping noise can be heard.

I have one, and the first time I booted with it, I had to turn off my fans to make sure it was on as well as having it in my hand. It is the quietest HD I have ever had. COOL as well.

Thought I drop my :2cents:

I just got 2 of these drives, both are dead silent and work fine.

pictures:

http://www.vulomedia.com/images/12128SEAGATE1.jpg

http://www.vulomedia.com/images/30806SEAGATE2.jpghttp://www.vulomedia.com/images/58599SEAGATE3.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by epion2985

Thought I drop my :2cents:

I just got 2 of these drives, both are dead silent and work fine.

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where did you purchase from? i got four good ones from newegg.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by moonlightcheese

where did you purchase from? i got four good ones from newegg.

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newegg

I got mine from NEWEGG as well.

I got 2x ST3320620AS and i cant hear them.. i guess u had a bad one :)
Its even set on performance mode...

they have modes?

Just received my 7200.10 320gig from newegg on monday, and I've definately got the Loud, Clicking model. VERY noticable during seek operations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Prelector

Just received my 7200.10 320gig from newegg on monday, and I've definately got the Loud, Clicking model. VERY noticable during seek operations.

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That sucks, sorry man. :(

But do you think it is worth buying these drives if you might have to send them back for maybe a better one? :confused:

same as prelector - it's quiet at idle, but clciks LOUD when working

Doing some reading over at storagereview.com, and the general thinking over there is this:

There's 2 different motors. This difference might contribute to a higher pitched whine at high rpms, sustained transfers.

There's 2 different MODE settings on drives being shipped out from Seagate. Seagate sets OEM drives to Performance Mode (bit faster, loud clicking on seek). Quiet Mode is set for Retail distribution (bit slower, no clicking on seek). This makes sense to me, and might go a long way to explaining the differences. BTW, OEM and Retail don't seem to necessarily reflect the packaging, but instead refer to who Seagate manufactured a particular production run for primarily.

Here's the rub: Seagate hasn't seen fit to enable AAM on the 7200.10 drives, so there's NO WAY to change modes on these. Basically, you either take performance or silence.

Also, reports are starting to trickle in that the clicking "MIGHT" be alleviated over time/use. Either the bearings are "settling", or people are just getting used to the noise :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Knight

That sucks, sorry man. :(

But do you think it is worth buying these drives if you might have to send them back for maybe a better one? :confused:

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Based on my previous post, and the thoughts some people are leaning towards, not sure there really is a "better" one. This 7200.10 seems to be the performance KING among the non-raptor drives, so might just be something you have to live with. I'll be keeping my current drive, and hoping that I see that reduction in clicking noise over time that some have reported...

If I were to do it again today, knowing what I do now... I'd probably take a chance, and try to find myself a retail packaging drive, hoping it was more likely to be the "Quiet Mode" (despite what I said above :P)

What's AAM ??

What's the performance difference between the 2 modes?

PS: is there a serial on the retail box of a drive?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KoHaN69

What's AAM ??

What's the performance difference between the 2 modes?

PS: is there a serial on the retail box of a drive?

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AAM = Automatic Acoustic Management. It's the API interface to allow firmware function change on the drive. Without this, you can't change the base way the drive operates.

Basically, from what I understand (I'm by no means an expert on this stuff), the Performance mode says "Operate at 100% of possible", running the motor and seek heads to maximum, to allow the reading of data at it's fastest possible rate. This causes increased noise though, as these parts are moving faster (Like reving your engine). Quiet mode says "Operate at 85% of possible", giving almost as good performance, but giving up that last little bit to reduce system noise.

There might be a serial, I'm not sure. I purchased an OEM version of the drive.

Ok, what about the pins for the Sata1/sata3 switch? does that make a difference in noise?

the sata1/sata3 switch is on 2 pins, there are 4 pins, what if a jumper is put on those? :?

SmartFan declared

Warning: Hardware ECC Recovered :confused:

The better one is the one manufactured in china.

This may be a little off topic but I bought 2 of these drives and so far so good, my friend also bought one and everything was fine until yesterday he mysteriously started loosing massive amounts of space a gig every minute. He virus scans and is up to date, same with malware and such. He checked to see if something was using up that space but found nothing, be it huge files or tons of tiny ones. From what we can tell it decided to start giving itself multiple partitions. I am not sure if this is the drive at fault but I did think it may be a good thing to warn others about.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teratism

This may be a little off topic but I bought 2 of these drives and so far so good, my friend also bought one and everything was fine until yesterday he mysteriously started loosing massive amounts of space a gig every minute. He virus scans and is up to date, same with malware and such. He checked to see if something was using up that space but found nothing, be it huge files or tons of tiny ones. From what we can tell it decided to start giving itself multiple partitions. I am not sure if this is the drive at fault but I did think it may be a good thing to warn others about.

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twll him to run seatools

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Prelector

Based on my previous post, and the thoughts some people are leaning towards, not sure there really is a "better" one. This 7200.10 seems to be the performance KING among the non-raptor drives, so might just be something you have to live with. I'll be keeping my current drive, and hoping that I see that reduction in clicking noise over time that some have reported...

If I were to do it again today, knowing what I do now... I'd probably take a chance, and try to find myself a retail packaging drive, hoping it was more likely to be the "Quiet Mode" (despite what I said above :P)

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it definitely seems to be the performance king under raptors, and i love my four drives, but i'm not ok with the possibility that my drives are operating at 85% of what they could be. i should not have to sacrifice silence for performance and i'm not sure if this is particular to seagate drives, or all manufacturers or maybe just the 7200.10's

i've owned a DiamondMax10 for 2 years now and i haven't seen a thread like this regarding those drives. they seem to offer everything you'd expect from a decent hard drive; great performance, good average read and burst speeds, low noise levels and reliability. one thing i will say on reliability, the DM10 did die once when migrating to a new case and i had to RMA it. but as a testament to Maxtor, they shipped the replacement drive to me BEFORE they received my RMA for a charge of $1 for insurance, and this refurbished replacement has been going strong for over a year now (300GB, sata2 model). i'm very impressed with Maxtor's service and reliability and as long as they continue this kind of support and quality, i'd be glad to purchase another Maxtor drive.

considering Maxtor was purchased by Seagate, i'm hoping that the quality does not decline, although i'm surprised at this sort of poor quality from Seagate as they are known for quality products in the past.

if anyone knows of a similar issue on other hard drives from Seagate, or from any manufacturer, please link the threads here so we can see if this "performance throttling" is real, and if it is common among manufacturers; also if anyone knows of any common threads involving the inconsistency in parts quality between drives manufactured in multiple locations, that information would be greatly helpful also.

it would be nice to know who to blame for bad quality or if just all manufacturers do this occassionally... and what is the actual issue, perf throttling or bad motors?

well moonlightcheese, Maxtors are generally pieces of shiet and Seagate is imrpoving the quality.

I think that any current problems are due in part to this migration, not Seagate's original quality

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KoHaN69

well moonlightcheese, Maxtors are generally pieces of shiet and Seagate is imrpoving the quality.

I think that any current problems are due in part to this migration, not Seagate's original quality

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my experiences say the exact opposite, regardless of what's posted all over this forum. i've owned plenty of hard drives and haven't had many issues with Maxtor. i thought i'd give seagate a try, but then i see this thread. i've got a 7200.9 160GB sata1 and these four sata2 320GB 7200.10's and no complaints, so i'd do seagate again. and i can't complain, i love these drives, but the idea of sacrificing 15% of my performance for silence (if that is the case) is not acceptable. never heard anything of the kind from maxtor, and maxtor's service, rma and reliability have been top-notch for me. maybe i'm lucky but maybe you're wrong. who knows. but based on past experiences, i will continue to buy maxtor drives in the future.

Well, all future Maxtors WILL be seagates :)

IN fact, some people who bought the 300gb maxtor were lucky enoguh to open the box and find a seagate 320gb (even with seagate sticker)


I don't think this thread specifies there is a problem, and I don't believe that the 15% performance claim is official at all.
In fact, I think I'll call SeaGate tomorrow and discuss this :)

Regarding good Maxtor experience: at least the Diamondmax9 were very sensitive to power fluctuations. If you always had stable power it's no wonder you didn't have problems yet. Oh and don't get me started on their inane RMA process.

I have to admit I'm not happy with Seagate's performance but since I think Maxtors are junk, WD always screws up the firmware, my Hitachi is loud and lame then what do I do? With Seagate at least I get to keep my data and a silent office (except for occasional shouts "hurry up you *&#^*#&*#!" :)).

Newer batches of 7200.10 should sport new motor (can be identified with a pink gum sticked on the hub)

I ordered 2 and got both newer ones :D, minimal vibrations and quiet even when seeking/reading.

I think ot's all luck of the draw really. I had and still have 2 7200.7 Seagate NCQ 160gb drives, 1 was as silent as a church mouse the other would emit random what I can only describe as 'cheeping' or 'chirping' noises. Sent an email to Seagate, their response this is normal, my response was how can it be I have 2 exactly the same and only 1 of them does this. They advised to RMA it but I couldn't be bothered. Anyway 6 months down the road the 'chirping' drive died on me so maybe no the same problem as others but an early indication that things weren't right. The replacement drive Seagate sent through didn't even work but the second replacement worked fine and is silent. :)

Not to wake the dead on this topic. But I have ST3250620AS model with 2 chips blown on the PCB. I am looking for someone/anyone to post a very high quality image of the PCB showing the values on the chips. The images posted in this thread are apparently an older version of the PCB layout....as mine is a bit different.