The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Thanks DDP. That makes a great deal of sense!

 

Rob,
I ran into the same problem when I switched my boot drives. I left the OS alone because I wasn't sure how it was going to work out. Short of formatting or wiping the drive. The Seagate was drive C until I plugged the Hitachi back in. Then it suddenly became drive E. It's funny, I changed boot drives because I couldn't stand the noise of the DeathStar. Now with the boot on the Seagate, the Hitachi is quiet. Before that the noise was very annoying.

BTW, you have to be careful when changing the boot drive, at least with Win7, because it sees the old boot drive as C, and it will format both drives simultaneously if you are not careful. Now all I hook up is the drive I want to use, and then when finished unplug the opticals, plug in the HDDs one at a time and re-boot. I then plug in the opticals to get the Drive letters right. You can change the drive letters on all but bootable drives, but that's fraught with it's own problems changing the letters.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

WOW... i understand what your saying creaky. but it stil has my head shaking just thiinking of what you said.....lol or is that the budweisers that has my head shaking????;lol

i do have a bad hdd. my 250gb i took to work today and gave to our IT guy, he installed windows 2008 server on it. and had issues with it. like with my xp pro it looked like it booted in safe mode. all grey.... gonna deal with seagate in the morning about a rma... it is one of the drives with a 5 year wrty..... ive only had it a little over a year.

 

I think I understand what he saying robo if it's right he's got he hard drive Partition off into 3 different OS and he can boot from any one of he choice in a matter of time you set that up as c,d.e...I use to that back with 98,2000, and xp but i booted different out the bio's setup screen by changing paths of drives to get the system...i wanted use...i heard shielf life is 3 years for hard drives with a Os on it that as far as I go after that it's turned into back up storage drive...i can't remember which Cache you Ro but hopefully they can and get it replaced for you... have you been thinking about switching to Wd for your OS? i'm gonna try this new 160gb 16mb cache Wd drive to see how act with Vista 64bit or Windows 7 hopefully I don't get know error's in any software install and working right...I just gotta get a few more parts and paint the inside of the centurion and i'll be ready to build her back up again

can anybody explain what's the total different between 2 here other than the name (Series)Average Seek Time it a little better with the Wd and the write also...I rather have that than the name (Barracuda)
it's the proformance that gets the eye not the name...lol
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...mpareItemList=N82E16822136161,N82E16822148262

Enjoy Building

 

Bigwill68,
My seagate 160 has been in constant daily use since I first built the Pentium D-940, and that's more than 4 years. This is it's 4th platform! My original 120GB Maxtor is still in daily operation, and it's right about 6 years old now and is used in an office! I also don't ever turn off my hard drives! It's been my experience that setting the drives to never turn off, makes them last longer, since shutting down and restarting them is harder on the drives than just letting them run. It makes sense to me as every time you shut off a drive, the heads park, and when you start it up again, they have to un-park. Lots of mechanical wear there. It's also the drives peak power load! Even my 37GB 10,000 RPM SCSI that's almost 9 years old still runs cool and quiet, and it ran 24/7 for the first 2 years of it's life. I check them with Smart Drive every couple of months, and they are still well within Spec!

Right click on the Desktop, click Screen Saver, and then click Power and be sure the drives are set to Never turn off! I don't use a screen saver either. I set the monitor to turn off after 10 minutes and then select None for the screen saver. For LCD monitors, it really helps extend their life!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Well...I guess im gonna see just how long my LCD monitor can REALLY last then LOL! I leave it on 24/7. I thought that their technology was more efficient then a CRT (Lasts longer)? Guess im gonna have to read up on um some more.

 

AFAIK, older LCD monitors weren't very dependable and I've seen a lot of dead ones come into where I work. A few just have dead backlights and can be fixed, but most are burnt out or need a new LCD. Remember Russ has had to have his older 20.1" Sceptre re-built. Whereas my 2407WFP still functions and looks like new.

Most newer LCDs are infinitely better built. The technology has advanced quite a bit and the rock bottom image quality for LCDs has risen greatly. Even the cheapest ones are better than they were 3-4 years ago.

 

The Dell 2407FPW I bought in August 2006 is still working very well, bar a couple of dead pixels. No stuck ones though.

 

Well I got mine about January 07 I think. Like a week after I got my 8800GTX. So it's not quite as old but pretty close. No dead/stuck pixels whatsoever, and it's constantly being used as my main monitor. The very best screen I've personally seen and used but I might trade it in towards a 2408WFP. It's a better screen I'm told.

LOL I wasted/spent a lot of money in 07 though. $660 for the 2407WFP and $600 for my 8800GTX. Not to mention the $450 I paid for both my E6600 and the 680i board and the $240 I paid for my 2GB Mushkin XP DDR2-800 kit. This is probably half of what I bought. I remember I picked up 2 cases, 2 PSUs, and like 3 HDDs. I must have spent $2500 between 2 PCs. This all within about 2 weeks. I've never spent so much money at once since. But most of that stuff(or their successors) makes up my current PCs so I can't say it was completely wasted

 

600$ for the 8800GTX!!!!! WOW!!!!! Ok, im over my initial excitement LOL. Do you regret spending that much on a GPU? Cause I cant help but wonder, if spending close to that on the GTX 295, would have made me happier than a fly in Sh**. LOL!

 

LOL Not too much regret because I resold it for $350 on Ebay. I figured good enough because I managed to snag an 8800GTS 512MB for $206(which I still use BTW). From then on most of my PCs have been more heavily value-minded, even if I'm still a bit spendy. I've managed to cut my spending with some slight future-proofing through using Crossfire. Buy fast once and don't buy for a while seems to work best.

 

Let's be fair here! I only sleep 4-6 hours a day! My monitor is on 14-17 hours or more every day! Having more than 3 years of use when it started acting up, I consider that equal to 5 years or more of normal use!

Even the latest TN panels don't have as good a picture quality. They can't match the clarity or the color depth of the MPVA/SPVA screens. That's why the $100 total bill was well worth the money! The Pixel Pitch is 0.247mm and the resolution is 1680x1050. It gives a magnificent picture, far superior to any 1680x1050 22" TN panel monitor!

Russ

 

Creaky,
Starting and stopping is where the most wear occurs, even for the bearings. It's the torque load at spin up. Another point I need to make too is that I've never been fond of very large drives for the OS drive because it gets more use than the other drives. Smaller capacity single Platter drives are generally better balanced and quieter, because there's less mass to balance. Also, if the bearings start to wear out, you will hear it! So far, my Seagate 160 and my DeathStar 250 are virtually silent when they run. You can barely hear them with the side cover off and your ear right up close to them. Vibration is practically non-existent, even holding the bare drive in your hand. Since I have no real use for large drives, I limit myself to nothing over 250GB!

Modern Hard Drives use FDB, Fluid Dynamic Bearings of some sort or Brand name. Perfect, given the working environment, but they have almost no tolerance for torque loads. Vibration induces Torque Loads! Older 500GB drives were not the smoothest running drives and many were prone to vibration. Not a good thing for any high speed drive, or it's longevity! That's why there were so many HDD failures when 500GB drives first came out! Balancing methods have continued to improve, so today precision Static and Dynamic balancing is possible to a degree not viable just a few years ago. That technology is what made 1TB and larger drives possible. A few years back, Static balancing was abandoned, as the thinking was that Dynamic balance is better. It is, but if you balance the rotating mass by static balancing, and then apply Dynamic balancing to it, the vibration levels are much lower. Much like balancing car tires Today, Low rotation Static balance and high speed Dynamic balancing and the result is far superior to older methods.

Today, I check every HDD I install by holding it in my hand. Any vibration or whine at all, and it goes back! I don't want to feel it or hear it! I learned all of this through my work. I deal with ball bearings that have to survive running at 400,000-450,000 RPM, and not exceed 70 decibels doing it. Much smaller scale than a hard drive, but the principals still apply!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

To preserve the life of my drives, I keep the spin-ups to a minimum now, and keep the uptime to no more than about 2 weeks at a time. So far so good.

 

Russ you got me really interested in the proper use of a hard drive of how they should be installed and properly mounted in a case here's a few things that seagate bought to my attenetion to mention on the aspected of FDB

Fluid dynamic bearing motors utilize a viscous oil or air rather than metal ball bearings, and are superior to conventional ball-bearing motors in several distinct ways:

Lower Nonrepeatable Runout

Ball bearing motors typically use between 8 and 12 metal balls. Any imperfections in the balls' roundness or in the raceways in which the balls roll can cause higher nonrepeatable runout when the motor rotates. This severely limits the tracks per inch (TPI) on the disc and consequently reduces the disc drive capacity.

Shock Performance

In a fluid dynamic bearing motor, the working parts of the motor are separated by a film of oil, which acts like a shock absorber and prevents damage to the bearing surfaces. While typical ball bearing motors can withstand up to 150 Gs of shock, fluid dynamic bearing motors have been tested up to 1,200 Gs.

Acoustic Performance

As drive spindle speed continues to increase, noise from the contact of the ball bearings in the raceway increases. Fluid dynamic bearings produce very little noise because they have no metal-to-metal contact.

(Fatigue Life) most important part

Fatigue life is the calculated number of hours the motor can survive before metal fatigue, from the constant rolling of the balls over the raceway, causes the bearings to fail. With no metal-to-metal contact, fluid bearing motors have, theoretically, an infinite fatigue-life.

Vibration (Russ's hand Test)


A well-designed fluid bearing can quickly dampen any oscillation generated externally or internally. Dampening in bearings is important for a disc drive to correctly write to or retrieve the data from the disc


in question Russ is it or is it not very important how we install a OS on these hard drive in horizontal(level) or vertical (upright) position in my times with working computers..I found it to be more problems with systems that has vertical hard drives installed they they work harder in that way than bein flat and there's alot of needle jumping and more hard drive crashings..I don't know I just fill a hard drives should be flat mounted with all four screws and balanced out in a case and dampen...Now your gonna have me do vibration checks on every drive I get from now on good ideal...lol

 

In the old days of ball or roller bearings it did matter what direction it was mounted, but I've installed modern drives every which way, including upside down without problems. my feeling on having to dampen a drive is if you have to dampen it there's something wrong! I suspect that most people that dampen the drive, do so because of the head actuator noise. on certain drives, it's quite annoying, especially like my DeathStar as the OS drive. It's not like dealing with the screamers of old though. Ball bearings get quieter with use, because they develop a set between the bearings and the races over time as they run in. That's why Ball bearing fans get quieter after a month or more of use.

You mention needle jumping? There is no physical contact between the heads and the platter(s). The heads float on a cushion of air generated by the spinning platter(s). The heads float so close to the platter(s) that a single particle of cigarette smoke will physically damage the platters(s) beyond practical repair as it pretty much renders the drive unusable permanently!

As far as acoustic performance goes, I don't think you can adjust that on modern motherboards. All it ever really did was slow down the drive's seek times by slowing down the movement of the heads so they would run quieter, at the expense of speed!

Hard drives are probably the best environment for Fluid dynamic Bearings, as an absolutely clean environment is very important to longevity, and the drives are pretty well sealed. heat plays an important part in how long they last, because over time, from constant heating and cooling, the fluid itself eventually becomes thicker. The more open environment of their use in fans, is why they don't last very long where I live. The dust particles are so tiny, they quickly invade the seals and they fail rapidly. The ones with magnetic seals are even worse, as the dust particles quickly destroy the teflon surface of the seals. For fans, the Rifle bearings seem to be as good as single ball bearings, but not as good as dual ball bearing ones. I'm using a Rifle bearing Silverstone for my rear case fan, and so far it's the quietest fan in my computer, despite it's higher 53.6 cfm.

In hard drive applications, FDB's theoretically should last forever, as oil never actually wears out. That's why it's recycled. In a hard drive, almost all the wear occurs during startup. When idling, there's almost no wear at all. That's why vibration is important. The less the vibration, the lower the torsional loads and the longer the life of the drive. MTBF with hard drives has become a bit of a joke, but a drive should last a very long time. Even a conservative 1 million hour MTBF, in theory should last about 114 years. The electronics or actuators won't last that long though. I see no problem in a modern HDD lasting at least 10 years if kept reasonably cool. The chances of bearing failure in modern hard drives is almost 0, due mainly to it's inherent super clean environment inside the drive.

Russ