How bad is the noise related to the new "Off-Line Seek" (OLS) procedure on the newer Seagate HDD'S?
I found the following info about OLS on another web site. This was a reply from Seagate tech support:
-------------------------------------------------
The noise you are referring to is what we call off-line seek.
Here is an explanation of what the off-line seek feature does.
Q: Is this feature permanent? I have heard that the feature performs
Off-line the first 6-8 hours of it's life, but customers are complaining
that there hard drives have been running in excess of 175 running hours
and yet the seeks are still happening.
A: The feature will run non stop as long as you are in idle and do not
receive ATA commands.
Q: Can this feature be turned off?
A: No. Only by factory congen. Meaning certain hard drives may have this
feature disabled due to factory code written to the firmware, which may
have been requested by a Seagate proprietary OEM.
Q: Does this problem justify a warranty-claim?
A: The off-line scan feature is not a flaw, it is a useful tool.
Here's the OLS algorithm:
The following algorithm never stops while the drive is in idle.
T=idle detected
T+ 40 seconds:
READ Activity Follows (~1 minute 10 seconds)
Read 1st 438MB at OD (This special area always gets read repeatedly
each loop pass. OS and other important information here)
Update System sectors (read Reserve Track, Read Temp, Update Health
Log, Update SMART Attributes)
Read 2.3GB starting at last read location (This read picks up where the
last loop pass left off, we keep incrementing by 2.3 GB)
Benefits that we could feature from read activity:
Checking for grown defects. Reallocating defective sectors.
(Performance and reliability benefits)
Monitoring temperature of drive (Reliability benefit)
Update health log and SMART attributes (Reliability benefit)
SEEK Activity Follows- This activity is to randomly reposition the head
over different parts of the media to limit wear issues. (~6 minutes)
Benefits that we could feature from seek activity:
Reliability benefit
Continually loop above activity as long as we are in idle
So as you can see, the off-line scan is a newly implemented feature
that will provide performance and reliability benefits.
-----------------------------------------
So, how noisy/aggravating is this?
Is there the same king of algorithm implemented on Western Digital HDD's?
Overall, how noisy are the later Seagate HDD's (7200.8 and 7200.9) compared to other brands? I understand they had to remove an acoustic management feature because of copyright issues.
I found the following info about OLS on another web site. This was a reply from Seagate tech support:
-------------------------------------------------
The noise you are referring to is what we call off-line seek.
Here is an explanation of what the off-line seek feature does.
Q: Is this feature permanent? I have heard that the feature performs
Off-line the first 6-8 hours of it's life, but customers are complaining
that there hard drives have been running in excess of 175 running hours
and yet the seeks are still happening.
A: The feature will run non stop as long as you are in idle and do not
receive ATA commands.
Q: Can this feature be turned off?
A: No. Only by factory congen. Meaning certain hard drives may have this
feature disabled due to factory code written to the firmware, which may
have been requested by a Seagate proprietary OEM.
Q: Does this problem justify a warranty-claim?
A: The off-line scan feature is not a flaw, it is a useful tool.
Here's the OLS algorithm:
The following algorithm never stops while the drive is in idle.
T=idle detected
T+ 40 seconds:
READ Activity Follows (~1 minute 10 seconds)
Read 1st 438MB at OD (This special area always gets read repeatedly
each loop pass. OS and other important information here)
Update System sectors (read Reserve Track, Read Temp, Update Health
Log, Update SMART Attributes)
Read 2.3GB starting at last read location (This read picks up where the
last loop pass left off, we keep incrementing by 2.3 GB)
Benefits that we could feature from read activity:
Checking for grown defects. Reallocating defective sectors.
(Performance and reliability benefits)
Monitoring temperature of drive (Reliability benefit)
Update health log and SMART attributes (Reliability benefit)
SEEK Activity Follows- This activity is to randomly reposition the head
over different parts of the media to limit wear issues. (~6 minutes)
Benefits that we could feature from seek activity:
Reliability benefit
Continually loop above activity as long as we are in idle
So as you can see, the off-line scan is a newly implemented feature
that will provide performance and reliability benefits.
-----------------------------------------
So, how noisy/aggravating is this?
Is there the same king of algorithm implemented on Western Digital HDD's?
Overall, how noisy are the later Seagate HDD's (7200.8 and 7200.9) compared to other brands? I understand they had to remove an acoustic management feature because of copyright issues.
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