Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

[trodas]

Drive(s) in question - Seagate PATA 200G ST3200822A ones.
Number of them - There.
Description of problem - in folding machines, they are mostly idle. Yet each about 45sec or something a self check (or something like this INTO the drive, no IDE activity shown) is started. This generate click noise and such sounds like HDD activity and it is extremely annoying. I did not want to hear these clicks. Otherwise I'm happy with the drives, but I just want this to STOP. Either stop, or return the drive any get another brand that won't click when idle. VERY annoying. Is there a way to make this STOP forever, or one just should not buy any Seagate drivers?
Anyone?
Affected machines - Any. It simply did not matter on what machine they run, it is always the same. Noise, clicks, noise, clicks...

Thanks for letting me know. I just got there these ST3200822A drives, so I either found a solution or return them - Maxtor's did not do such noise, maybe I should just not went to Seagate... Or is there a new firmware or utility available to STOP THIS...?

[tiresias]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

Interesting you should mention that - in this computer I just received for servicing I found the main problem to be a relatively new Seagate ST3200021A SATA drive that occasionally starts "whirring" loudly and gradually accumulates bad/unreadable sectors near the beginning of the drive.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

The noise comes from the drive repositioning it's drive head once in a while so it will not heat up one area of the platters when flying over it constantly, so, what you hear is the drive making sure it will not fail, i.e. it is a normal noise...

However I also found it very annoying, for my drive, a Hitachi 40GB IDE drive there was a firmware posted at the storagereview forums which made the drive move it's head slower, thus making the noise almost totally inaudiable (could only hear it if I put my ear to the drive in a silent room)

Now this does of course not help you much but you could send Seagate a mail and ask them if they have a firmware update for this issue...

[tiresias]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

The noise comes from the drive repositioning it's drive head once in a while so it will not heat up one area of the platters when flying over it constantly, so, what you hear is the drive making sure it will not fail, i.e. it is a normal noise...

Oh I see, you mean that kind of noise trodas. Some of my Western Digital drives do that too if they've been idle for a long time. It sounds like a soft click-click sound that repeats every 5 seconds or so, which stops immediately once you access the drive in some way.

[cods69]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

The noise comes from the drive repositioning it's drive head once in a while so it will not heat up one area of the platters when flying over it constantly

This could also be a head re-alignment after a bad cluster/sector read.
I've had 4 Seagates die/RMA (2 with the nasty clunk sound to start with) and failing Seatools diagnostics.

a Hitachi 40GB IDE drive there was a firmware posted at the storagereview forums which made the drive move it's head slower, thus making the noise almost totally inaudiable

There is an acoustic management tool (Hitachi Feature Tool) which works on most drives except Seagate.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm
I use it for my HDD PVR (Topfield TF5000PVRt with a WD250GB)

[arneson]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

I'm hoping the next drive I need will be solid state.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

There is an acoustic management tool (Hitachi Feature Tool) which works on most drives except Seagate.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm
I use it for my HDD PVR (Topfield TF5000PVRt with a WD250GB)

My post was poorly worded; it only makes the drive move the heads slower when repositioning it during idle times, it does not affect other reads/writes...

So what I mean to say is that performance is unaffected (unlike if you reduce noise with the acoustic management tools...)

[trodas]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

I over heard it is called self check and the drive does it when iddle to "prevent diagnostic to prevent future failures". IMHO this is BS to say it politely. From my experience - what moves - fail. Sooner or later. So, moving more means increased chance of failure. For the very same reasons the drivers used as winblows swap ones fail much more often that these who aren't used that way.
In my folding machine I got a 1G of ram and therefore (also extremly optimized XP, cut down to 575MB of size and less that 50MB o ram usage) I disabled the swap file on all my folding machines. 9 of them, so to say. This probably only increased my problems, however there is nothing to swap, acctually, so, enabling swapping will not work as solution for sure. Other users with the very same problem already use swap files and still have problems...
I contacted Seagate, asking them about new / different firmware, so we see what they come up with. I hoped that there could be a utility like the one for setting up the AAM that could disable this "feature", but ... who knows.
Other than that - if we managed to get more users unhappy with the situation, we might be able to push them up for a firmware update that include the possibility to DISABLE THIS.
Science Fiction?
I would say it is just about the number of people who contact them.

PS. I already get suggested to use SysTool http://www.techpowerup.com/systool/ to disable the AAM Of course, the drives have NO AAM to set or disable.
Well, at least ppl's is trying to help.




Better explaination I get from other forum:

Its called STIR (Seek To Improve Reliability) where the drive does random seeking to avoid the head sitting on the same place on the disk, which they reckon could heat up that particular track on the platter.

Now just HOW TO DISABLE IT. (better KILL IT WITH FIRE, tough...)

Another user says this:

Have two 7200.8s, and they click. Have a 7200.9, doesn't click.

So I checked and indeed, mine are 7200.7 ...
Now if the change between 7200.8 and 7200.9 is in firmware only and I belive it is, then just using the firmware from 7200.9 into my 7200.7 ones will help!

Anyone have 200G 7200.9 Seagate drive? And who know, how to download and then flash the firmware on drive?
That could be a quick and easy solution!

...

Anyway, I was wrong.

Pictures of 200G Seagate drivers, from left my7200.7 and then 7200.8 type (this one won't click/generate noise in iddle):


(click to see full size)

It is obvious that I was wrong and 7200.7 to 7200.8 is not only a firmware difference, but the PCB id different as well. Probably the number of disks inside are same, but that hardly matters now.
So, there is no way to flash no-clicking firmware to 7200.7 from 7200.8

But there is good news as well. I just find out, that Seagate sometimes send no-clicking firmware, as is written on this forum:
http://forums.storagereview.net
...so, attack Seagate now and f*cking demand the damn firmware now!

[arneson]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

Hey. No swearing on your B-day!

[gonzo0815]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

IMHO just this kind of operation was introduced from IBM /Hitachi after their catastrophic ICL35XX series. The problem, staTED FROM ibm- was waering out of the surface or some lubricant has benn vanished, if the hdd was in operation without acces.
Those drives rarely failed in seriouse (server) operation, where some bigh companies are used to use ide in their mass storage systems (for shure in a redundant raid array).
I have sen several of thjose bastard drives failing in some 24/7home systems.
As stated earlier in this thread, if the firmware will slow down acces speed, the clicking noise will greatly reduced, but never the less i doubt, that any modern drive don`t nedd that kind of operation.

[willawake]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

trodas, ask on http://hddguru.com/ forum they can probably help you.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

Trodas; the difference between the 7200.8 .8 and .9 is very significant

If you could I would swap my drives for the latter, they are significantly faster...

The 7200.10 is even better, the smaller brother of the 750GB Seagate at 320GB is currently the most affordable drive/GB with performance also counted in...

I think it is the fastest current desktop 7200RPM drive...

And as I said above, Seagate should be able to fix this in a firmware, they only need to move the heads slower during this very specific move (which only happenes after X seconds of drive inactivity)

EDIT; this was the firmware I was talking about in my original post... Only for that specific Hitachi drive of course...
http://forums.storagereview.net/inde...howtopic=16075

[trodas]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

arneson - you will swear all day when you taste the Seagate STIR on there drives in your room - believe me.


gonzo0815 - Seagate is trying to convince me, that this IS necessary:

We do not have any firmware updates available for any PATA hard drives, and we do not support using 3rd party applications to change the way the hard drive works. The STIR and offline-scan features are designed to extend the life of the hard drive and maintain data integrity. They cannot be disabled.

Mike H.
Seagate Technical Support

So, looks like I have to push hardem on them.


willawake - whoa whoa whoa, Russian hackers Damn, they are looking more that good, thanks. I already find a firmware package for my drive, a bit higher firmware that I have, however not yet know how to install it or anything - damn, it looks scary!

Interface task reset
4096k x 16 buffer detected
APLUS - 1_Disk S.07 08-16-04 10:34

Buzz - Head Mask FFFF - Switch to full int.
Spin Ready
3.01 08-16-04 10:35
(P)PATA Reset
Slave(( VALID Cert Disk Code Detected - Revision # .046

T>
:50000018E3000003 AX`4LJ054A0' "000000000000"0FF80-0FFFF
SRAM Ovly = Diag
(
T>
/2

2>
x

Zone 00: 00018 - 02734 1232 (04D0) 749.176
Zone 01: 02735 - 04C22 1232 (04D0) 749.176
Zone 02: 04C23 - 065F1 1188 (04A4) 722.824
Zone 03: 065F2 - 07DFA 1144 (0478) 697.919
Zone 04: 07DFB - 0A0C7 1100 (044C) 662.588
Zone 05: 0A0C8 - 0B305 1056 (0420) 645.792
Zone 06: 0B306 - 0C87D 1026 (0402) 625.520
Zone 07: 0C87E - 0E299 990 (03DE) 602.353
Zone 08: 0E29A - 0F49E 953 (03B9) 581.818
Zone 09: 0F49F - 10142 924 (039C) 566.920
Zone 0A: 10143 - 11D40 880 (0370) 531.488
Zone 0B: 11D41 - 13236 825 (0339) 504.913
Zone 0C: 13237 - 140E6 792 (0318) 486.275
Zone 0D: 140E7 - 15624 748 (02EC) 459.294
Zone 0E: 15625 - 16A56 704 (02C0) 433.838
Zone 0F: 16A57 - 17C5C 660 (0294) 399.776
Sys= 0FF80-0FFFF 035C SPTK on sys trks
Total LBAs = 174B3EB4
2>(
2>(( VALID Cert Disk Code Detected - Revision # .046

Or does ^THIS UP^ look scary only to me?


Per Hansson - I learned that already, check my last post there, that even difference between 7200.7 and 7200.8 is very significiant in same capacity models...
Anyway, no reply on my thread on storare review forum and your faith for the Seagate is next to nonexistant in my case, I actually feel very very angry at them, very very flustrated and it is growing up with each noise that comming from the drives and it - damn - keep comming.
That is hardly bearable. And there is not one single mention of STIR in their pdf manual or even printed manual for these drives! So, I want the drives just work w/o STIR. Damn.
About the speed - 150G WD Raptor crushed the 750G Seagate one unbeliably, so, carefull with the words "fastest". It is only biggest. And won't feature (IIRC, but no guarantees!) STIR.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

About the speed - 150G WD Raptor crushed the 750G Seagate one unbeliably, so, carefull with the words "fastest". It is only biggest. And won't feature (IIRC, but no guarantees!) STIR.

Hehe, read my post carefully, I said fastest 7200RPM drive, for sure the 10000RPM Raptor beats it ("I think it is the fastest current desktop 7200RPM drive...")

But anyway, take a look at that post at storagereview I posted above, perhaps you could point Seagate in that direction and tell them to implement something similar to what Hitachi did...

I.e. it does not disable the periodic recalibration or what you would like to call it, just makes it move slower or something (I'm unclear on how the fix actually works but when I listened to my drive after the firmware update it sounded like it took a longer time to do the same seek as it did before...)

Oh, and that firmware update you found, be caruful with those, you should really never update a firmware in a drive, it can mess up the drives individual calibration and list of bad sectors... (i.e. do not update unless the new firmware has a new feature/fix you really need...)

[trodas]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

Well, a WD5000YS is a 7200RPM drive and is faster that the Seagate still ba large margin Got you!

Anyway, sure thing - Hitachi just slowed the seeks down, therefore killing the noise. But I still firmly believe that the more component move, the sooner it fail. Therefore - stop the movement forever!

And yep, what I find scare me to death. It can change S/N of the drive as well, as there is obviously list of bad sectors and stuff like that...
Before I ask these crazy guys for instruction how to preserve my list of bad sectors (obviously first downloading it from the drive, then mixing it into the firmware and then flash...) and stuff I must know if this firmware does STIR or not. In fact, given the contents of the zip, I don't even know where to start.

I already updated firmware on SCSI drive, but that was flawless and small firmware, everything went done sooner that I moved the mouse... Oh, well, that was on Amiga OS and UW SCSI Cheetah drive... PC's are mostly way complicated...

[gg1978]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

For the love of $DEITY$ do NOT flash the firmware of your drive with that of the firmware of a different genearation drive.. You WILL kill it.... Think about how the firmware has to deal with the different platter density, zoning pattern, DSP, etc.. IIRC, 7200.9's are 160GB per platter, whie the .8's are 133 per platter, and .7's topped out at 100 or 110G per platter..


As for the noise,as Seagate says, it's to increase reliabilty, both by keeping the heads from sitting on one track, and also by verifying the data sections of the sectors match the ECC information that is used for error correction.. This isn't exactly a new feature.. The first generation X15 Cheetahs had STIR, as it was not an auditory event to be missed.. Some people said it sounded like martians.. I know the Barracuda IV's also did this.. .7's and .8's also do STIR, though it seems they're a bit quieter at it..


Hell, even some people bitched about the WD 1.6G caviars that had the wear leveling, but not actually a full offline scan procedure..

Since fly heights are getting lower and platter densities keep increasing, the offline scan is a good idea to catch possible problems before they get bad enough they can't be corrected. It's also a good indicator of the relative health of the drive.. I'd certainly prefer it to catch a bad sector before it gets bad enough that it doesn't work anymore..

Seagate knows what they're doing, when it comes to hard drives anyway..

I'd just leave them alone, or sell them and buy a new pair from another manufacturer.. On a side note, why do you ahve 200G drives in a folding machine?? You can get a 20GB U series X drive that runs quieter, cooler, and has adequate capacity to hold your OS and folding stuff....

[Shocker]

Re: Seagate 200G drive ugly clicking when idle!

Therefore - stop the movement forever!

But how would it work then???