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...?

[CWR03]

I've had several Seagate drives, and none of them have been noisy, even when writing. Can you pinpoint the noise to one particular drive, or is it all of them? In what configuration are you using them?

[check]

Clicking in hard drives is always bad. If I were you, I'd backup anything important straight away and return them to get replaced. I've never owned Seagate drives (at least in the past 5 years), but they're a reputable brand, you likely just got a bad batch or something.

[dani82]

i had a maxtor 120gb that started clicking for months, returned it, not cause it was possibly failing, but cause it was really annoying

[SeeMoreDigital]

That's weird...

Only last week two of my neighbours phoned me up about their clicking PC's!

Both we're tracked down to faulty HDD's... both were less than two years old, both were Seagate :eek:


Cheers

[trodas]

Well, guys, bad news. The good news that both 3 of these are fine. But it is also the bad news, so no RMA to get rid of them.
I over heard that these counds are in fact 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 :lol: Of course, the drives have NO AAM to set or disable :p
Well, at least ppl's is trying to help.

http://www.slibe.com/fullimage/fd4d44dd-systool_fail_to_.gif (http://www.slibe.com)

[Sharktooth]

Disabling the swapfile is just the most stupid thing you can do coz it will "cripple" the OS and its performance.
You can have even 80GB of RAM but the swap should be always ON.

[Gehenna]

As already noted,sounds (no pun intended) like a dodgy drive.
Personally i swear by seagate, and swear at western digital.

I currently have 4 x ST3250824A in my NAS,and they barely make a noise when accessing,and near silent when idling.

Get yourself a freeware SMART diagnostic program.

[trodas]

Sharktooth - tough this is a little bit off topic, my aim is maximal performance (folding wise) and therefore I do ask you - can you show any reliably repeatable benchmark that will be run with and without swap file (eg. 0 size, and 200MB swap) to show the difference and it does not benefit from the swap only because it is very much memory hungry?

I seriously DUBT that disabling swap could reduce performance. On my main machine I had to get it on, because othervise PS6 won't start... :stupid:

Gehenna - sorry, wrong again. Seatools did not show any problem and what is the odds that THERE drives are failing at ONCE? None, I would say. But reply from Seagate make it clear:

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, it is:

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.

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

http://www.slibe.com/imagestumb/2c2bb12b-72007PATA_jpg.jpg (http://www.slibe.com/image/2c2bb12b-72007PATA_jpg/) http://www.slibe.com/imagestumb/0f1e651a-72008PATA_jpg.jpg (http://www.slibe.com/image/0f1e651a-72008PATA_jpg/)
(click to see full size)



It is obvious that they do differ, but still, I heard that for the STIR, there is a firmware update possible with cure it ;) Anyone already got it?

[ukb008]

Can Gehenna give a link or the name of a freeware SMART diagnostic program that he mentioned in his post?

Going through the thread, and reading the posts of trodas, SeeMoreDigital ("That's weird...Only last week two of my neighbours phoned me up about their clicking PC's! Both we're tracked down to faulty HDD's... both were less than two years old, both were Seagate.) I had an eerie feeling like I had while watching BBC's The Day of the Triffids. Reports were coming from various places of the clicking Triffids, and one scientist says, "I'd give anything to learn what ther're chattering about". We all know what followed.

Regards.

[neuron2]

This little fan speed monitor program has a SMART monitoring tab.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

You can try this also:

http://www.worldstart.com/weekly-download/archives/active-smart-monitor-1.11.htm

[Sharktooth]

Sharktooth - tough this is a little bit off topic, my aim is maximal performance (folding wise) and therefore I do ask you - can you show any reliably repeatable benchmark that will be run with and without swap file (eg. 0 size, and 200MB swap) to show the difference and it does not benefit from the swap only because it is very much memory hungry?

I seriously DUBT that disabling swap could reduce performance. On my main machine I had to get it on, because othervise PS6 won't start... :stupid:
Just use google and you'll see everyone suggests to optimize the swap file size instead of turning it off...
It's how the windows memory manager works... it will also save you from crashes due to memory leaks :)

[chipzoller]

Firstly, I would also agree (as would most of the well-informed technical community) that disabling a swap file alltogether is a bad idea. You do need to have one of these active, but you can optimize for it by either creating a separate partition on your physical drive specifically for the swap file, or if you have multiple drives, use one of them.

As for your clicking hard drive...Have you tried Seagate's diagnostic tools (I think called SeaTools or the like)? In my experience with hard drives, this is one of the better tools available for all hard drives (assuming they have S.M.A.R.T. capabilities) and if an extended and thorough test comes back negative, it is very likely there is nothing mechanically wrong with the drive.

[trodas]

Sharktooth - just because "everyone" do it, it does not mean a jack ;) Unless you hit me with link to actuall benchmark (related to CPU power) that show me repeatedly measurable increase in speed of CPU (read, folding), you are on the wrong side, mate.
SuperPI or HexusPI fast did not go any faster with swap, as they do without it. And I think that 1G is plenty of ram for just folding machine. End of story.

BTW, how this is related to Seagate ughly clicking drives in any way, shape or form???

chipzoller - first, read above. Second, Seagate diagnostic tools find these drives (DRIVES, not only one) in perfect condition. Yet if you read abole, you realize that this is what Seagate actually calling a FEATURE:

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.

So, the drive is DESIGNED to click on iddle, no matter how crazy it sounds, it does and it does bother me very much :( So far, the only solution is to sell these clicking crap drivers, however I bet the first buyer come back soon complaining about these clicks and want the money back, because he fear that the drive is dying.
But actually this is a feature - according to Seagate. They also to this point refuse to give me firmware that disable STIR, so I think I have to post that information on every freaking forum on the net, witch hopefully let them change their poing of view.

I mean - who want pay for CLICKING drive...??? :angry:

[foxyshadis]

Too bad it's not a notebook drive. With the newer ones, whenever they're idle they do into standby mode (platters slow down, head pulled back to rest), which isn't quite as soft as sleep, but definitely beats random clicking on idle. Then again, laptop drives are designed to use as little power and noise as possible, whereas that's just an occasional fringe benefit on desktop ones.

I guess you just have to buy some extra noise dampening and/or drive vibration dampening to minimize the noise, if you haven't returned them.

[CruNcher]

I have Seagate drives myself since the IBM failures and 24/7 thing ;) and i have to say they are maybe not the fastest but damn robust.

PATA ST380020A Runtime 3 years 7 Month 32 days 16 Hours
PATA ST380021A Runtime 2 years 6 Month 24 days 20 Hours
SATA ST333062 Runtime 4 Month

and they never clicked whatsoever @ idle but ok they never do that and i dunno wich windows ever idles anyway ?

just debug with File Monitor how many IO accesses take place, it could be that you maybe have some online defragment or other programm running (other kind of service) that constantly accesses your Hard Drive and Online Defragmenter do exactly that @ idle ;) this could cause a louder clicking then STIR does most probably.

[Sx66gns]

it's failing...plain & simple.

[CWR03]

it's failing...plain & simple.
You clearly haven't read any of the well-informed posts above.

[trodas]

foxyshadis - just an occasional fringe benefit on desktop ones

I have to disagree there. I want QUIET hardrive and ughly surprisingly loud clicks of STIR aren't nowhere near quiet. The drive noise is therefore very high and I can't recommend that to anyone. Seagate clearly make me very unsatisfacted.

..buy some extra noise dampening and/or drive vibration dampening to minimize the noise, if you haven't returned them.

That don't helped much. You see, these click happen only in the absolutely QUIET moments of the machine(s). On iddle, you know. When you enjoy the silence of HDD not doing anything, then...
And since this is not defect, it is hard to return then. I would say that this IS a defect, but they just call it "feature". I could disagree as strongly as I want, but they don't listen and in a point they are right - there is NOTHING WRONG with the drive. It behave as Seagate make it behave.

CruNcher - sounds good, we see how long mine ones last. They feel to be surprisingly light, so I won't expect much robust lifetime from them, but again - I could be wrong. And one my Maxtor 120G PATA just recently died with all my data on it, so... :(
And since the machines just fold and only ocassionaly the server/user acces some files (eMule sharing) on them, they are mostly iddle. 1G ram helping as well. And online defragmenter would mainly cause slower folding, so this is a NO-NO.
The right solution is of course only good new firmware.... witch Seagate ATM don't want to come up with.

Sx66gns - I do agree with your words "plain & simple", yet not towards the drive or your explaination, but towards another thing... You can pretty much quess witch one, right? ;)

CWR03 - thanks :thanks: