[geeks] Seagate: changes afoot?

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Some observations releated to Seagate lately:

I've used Barracuda drives for years, and found them reliable and also
very quiet and with little vibration.

Lately though, I've noticed a change: vibration. I first saw this 2-3
years ago in someone else's 100GB Barracuda ATA drive, at the time quiet
expensve. A slight vibration that wasn't audible. The drive still works
last I heard, so it appears to not be harmful.

I noticed because my 40GB Barracudas barely vibrate at all.

In the last 6 months, I've picked up two 160GB Barracuda drives (ATA),
both made in China, and they also vibrate. Not bad, but more than my
other drives.

Is this just a factor of the ever increasing drive sizes?  Does it
really matter?

My IBM Ultrastar drives were all noisy and vibrated a lot, but ran
perfectly for 6 years without reliability issues.

The new Barracudas are not vibrating enough to make noise, and once
clamped into their mount they are whisper quiet.

It's just an observation that made me curious.

However, I am paranoid enough to worry that this could be quality drop
rather than just larger drive sizes. For example, all of the drives that
vibrate more are also made in China instead of Singapore. Of course, the
sample size so far is three... :)

Also, I recently saw a couple of Maxtor drives that have Seagate labels
on them. I admit that is what really triggered me to start thinking
about the recent increase in vibration level.

Are those two companies merging, or is that just some kind of business
deal they made?

The drives were both called "Maxtor Basics".

Just curious mostly, but it is always worthwhile to pay attention to
things like this over time.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["Tara is grass, and behold how Troy lieth
low--And even the English, perchance their hour will come!"]