HDD Shock Protection

I see that my new Sony VGN-SZ780 comes with some sort of HDD shock protection.

How effective is that in protecting the HDD?

In the Control Panel for it, though, it seems there is an inverse relationship between protection and performance---the lower protection mode is called the "performance mode".

Therefore, I assume one would get the best performance,from turning the protection off entirely. (Although then, of course, one wouldn't have the shock protection.)

Why does the HDD shock protection lower the computer's performance?

Has anyone here actually tested that--run benchmark tests, for example, with that control set to all three settings, and turned off completely, to compare performance?

Although I just got the computer, and it came with an excellent 7200RPM 200GB HDD, I just found out that 7200RPM 320GB drives are now available for under $100, that are faster as well as larger. So I'm thinking, before doing the clean install of Vista (or XP, not decided yet), before installing all my apps, etc., I might as well buy and install the larger drive. (Would that hurt my warranty in any way, a HDD self-install?)

Three major HDD companies are now making these--Seagate, Hitachi,and Western Digital. The Seagate and the WD models are also available, for a little more, in versions with HDD shock protection (free fall sensor) built into the HDD itself.

I wonder, if I were to install a drive with built-in shock protection, how would that interact with the computer's HDD shock protection? Would having both shock protections in place, give additional protection? Or, if that enabled me to turn off the protection in the computer (since I would have protection in the HDD itself), would that give me a performance boost? Or--would the protection built into the HDD also negatively affect system performance?

 

i have always wondered the same thing, does the hard disk protection depend on which HDD i have?? like, i bought one drive at newegg.. does the hdd protection still work with it? or it depends on the hdd i buy?

 

I think th SZ's shock protection is located in the HDD anyway, thus when you buy a new HDD with shock protection you just replace the old one.

Now in my case the shock protection (on maximum protection sttiengs) has sprung into action when I was placing my laptop on the table.

In fact, I tap the left palm rest or tap stronger on the mousepad and it registers (but doesn't activate protection)

So I think its definitely useful (considering I had 2 HDD failures on a Medion laptop... one SMART and one mechanical...)

I haven't run benchmarks but consider:
The higher the protection, the more likel its going to spring into action - every time its activated you cannot read/write on the HDD
And the HDD has to be more alert.

 

I don't think so. The Sony protection is built into the notebook, and I don't think is dependent on protection built into the hard drive.

However, I would appreciate feedback into the questions I asked in the OP (not the same thing you asked), regarding whether there is a performance hit from using the Sony protection, how it compares with protection built into HDDs, and whether it would make any sense for me, in buying an upgraded HDD, to get one with that feature?

 

I think it is. But I am not sure.

To have the shockprotection you need a hard drive with build in shock protection.

But like I said, I don't know if it is true.

 

Well, it I tap the left palmrest (above the HDD) it registers it.

Thus if its builtinto the laptop its where the HDD is.

If its there already, why isn't it built into the HDD?

 

The different settings tunes the sensitivity of the sensor.
So if you put it to the more safe position, you might get more false alarms.

 

well.. i was looking on newegg for a 320 GB.. and they did not offer any HDD with shock protection, and i looked on amazon and couldnt find any either..

so do you think that i may lose the shock protection feature?

 

No, I don't think it is located in the hard drive (the protection built into the notebook). Probably near the hard drive though.

For instance, the hard drive that came with my notebook, installed by Sony in the factory, is the Hitachi 7200RPM 200GB HDD. That drive does not have an option to come with shock sensor. The HDDs in the Sony notebooks are not made by Sony, but by other manufacturers, and are not controlled by Sony software. I think the Sony driver controls Sony circuitry in the notebook, that has to be near the HD to control it somehow. Most drives do not have their own shock protection. (Look up what HDD you have, and look up its specs on the net, and you can easily find out whether it carries its own shock protection or not.)

I don't think that the shock protection built into some drives requires a software driver to control them, like the Sony protection does. These drives work on all systems, including Macs, not dependent on particular software, or the brand of notebook. In purchasing such drives, there is no statement (nor on the manufacturer's web site) that the shock protection will only work with notebooks that have that feature (most don't).

Therefore, I'm wondering if there might be an advantage in getting the drive with shock protection, in that I could then turn off the Sony protection, saving my memory, resources, and CPU, from yet another app and driver always running in the background. (Sony HDD protection driver and software.)
(Or, on the other hand, if one had the protection from both, it could perhaps give extra protection. On the other hand, they may conflict with each other.)

(Not that I would upgrade my HDD just to get the built-into-drive shock protection feature. But since I am planning to upgrade to a 320GB 7200RPM drive anyhow (faster as well as larger capacity than the 200 I have), I'm wondering if it would make sense to spend a few extra bucks to get the harder-to-find shock-protected model.)

So--if anyone here has some hard info on this stuff--Sony software driven HDD protection, vs. built-in protection on some drives, it would be good to get that info.

True what you write, that when the protection springs into action, it locks the drive, and of course that affects performance. But in normal usage, I would not suppose that the protection locks the drive frequently. Therefore, I wonder if the choice in the control panel between Protection and Performance might relate to something else--for instance, whether the overall performance of the drive, all the time, is negatively impacted by the shock protection? Again, if anyone has some hard info on that, I would appreciate hearing about it.

 

I wonder if this is just a rip-off of Hp's 3D Driveguard:
http://www.hp.com/sbso/solutions/pc_expertise/professional_innovations/hp-3d-drive-guard.pdf

It uses an acceleromter to sense motion in order to protect the HD. Unfortunately, the business laptop I swapped out for my new Sony FW had this.

 

You would not lose the Sony shock protection, as it is not dependent on a drive with that feature. Again, look up the specs of the drive currently in your notebook. My guess is, that drive, installed by Sony, does not have its own shock protection. The notebook provides it. (I think there has been some incorrect speculation here.)

I'm pretty sure of that. If you want to find out for sure, call Sony tech support and ask them, and let us know what they say.

Yet, I'm wondering, as I mentioned in the last post, whether it might be advantageous in some way to get a drive with its own built-in shock protection in any case. (I hope someone here has some real info about that.)

As you have found out, looking on major vendor sites, the drives with their own shock protection are much less common than those without, and harder to find. Yet they do exist.

For instance, as I think I explained in the first post, if you are looking for a 7200RPM 320GB drive as I am, there are three major vendors of them--Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital. Most of those drives do not have built-in shock protection. But Seagate and WD have versions of their drives that do have that feature. (Hitachi does not.) They are rarer, harder to find, less in stock, and cost more. For instance, the regular Seagate drive of that type is model # Seagate ST9320421AS. The one with shock protection (Seagate calls it "G-Force") has a G at the end, so Seagate ST9320421ASG. Look that up on the web, and you will find it. However, when I looked last night, although several vendors listed it, none had it in stock, while many had the one without shock protection.

I did find some vendors that had the Western Digital HDD of that type with shock protection. I think the model number for that (not sure) is WD3200BJKT. Costs a little more than the one without protection, but not too much more.

In any case, as said, I am pretty sure that you do NOT need a drive with its own shock protection, to use the shock protection built into the Sony notebook. However, I am wondering whether it might be advantageous to get such a drive anyhow, for reasons mentioned in my prior post. I hope someone here really knows about this stuff, and can explain it to us.

 

Well, I don't know if it could be considered a rip-off, as I don't know which manufacturer did it first!

But yes, it is the same thing, an accelerometer. Sony, HP, and probably other manufacturers, build them into some higher-end notebook models.

Now some HDD manufactures are actually building accelerometers directly into some of their drives, although not many at this time.

Are you sure your FW does not have that feature? My SZ does, and I think the FW is a newer model.

In any case, you could get a drive which has its own protection built-in, which may be better anyhow (not sure though).

 

I dunno about the FW. I'm only assuming that marketing for companies usually like to 'beat their drums' nice and loud when they have a new feature. I have not seen drive protection listed as a feature in anything I've read about the FW series. I hope I am wrong though. It would be a nice and overdue feature.

 

True doesn't say anything about shock protection in the laptop:
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/storage/hdd/mobile/mhy2250bh-sata.html

Whats the acceleration bit about though?

 

I think everyone is speculating here.

As far as I know the harddrives that Sony supplies with Z and SZ are with free fall sensor.

 

according to wiki, apple is the one who invented it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Motion_Sensor

 

Questions is:
Do you trust Wikipedia?

I don't...

 

yeah.. only because its info is provided by people like us, it doesnt mean that everything over there is false..

 

And from what source do you know that?

Again--quite easy to look up. Look up what kind of HDD you have, in Device Manager, and look up that drive on the manufacturer's web site.

I know that the drive on my SZ, installed by Sony in the factory, is not a drive that comes with its own shock protection. Yet, the Sony shock protection is turned on with it.

Therefore, I am pretty sure, that the Sony HDD protection involves an accelerometer built into the notebook, and does not need a HDD with its own accelerometer, which are still pretty rare.

However, it would be good if someone responds here who is really knowledgeable about this and doesn't need to speculate, not only to clarify this question (which I'm pretty clear about, although not 100% certain), but to answer the questions l asked in the OP.

 

From the SZ that I owned and from the Toshiba 320GB drive that I've seen used in the Z that I played with. Both had FFS in the hard drive.

Thanks for clarifying

Word.

 

Which HDD came as stock in the Sony __ Laptop ?

 

Hi Andy,

I don't know who you are addressing, and which Sony laptop you are referring to.

As I wrote, mine came with, installed in the factory by Sony, a Hitachi 7200RPM 200GB drive. I don't know if you'd call that "stock", it was an upgrade, in a CTO machine. But installed by Sony. And it is not a drive with its own shock protection feature, but does work with the notebook's protection.

I don't know what drives others have.

 

Ok, now just to begin with, the whole accelerometer and FFS thing has been rubbish to start with. Don't get me wrong, but it is. Now, just as Turbo-Lag in turbo-charged engines, in HDDs with FFS, there will be Head Park-Lag. Now, I am sure the HDD would have to go through a certain distance before the change in acceleration is noticed. So, it might work fine if you throw your notebook onto the bed, etc., but doesn't work well if you bump the HDD side of the notebook while walking swiftly, into a wall, or a table.

Anyway, the 7K200 doesn't have the FFS or Accelerometer in it, so it is evident that there should be only one accelerometer to protect the HDD with the Head-Park thing.

So, either go for a non-FFS HDD, or a 7K320, which has a much, much better G-Shock Resistance as compared to the other HDDs.

 

Do you mean the reference to "accelerometer"? That is the same thing as "free-fall sensor", "hard drive shock protection", or what Seagate calls "G-Force". It is a device that senses acceleration. In this case, if it sense a certain degree of it, as in your notebook falling towards the ground, it gives the hard drive a command to park its heads.

Apparently a few notebook manufacturers have been putting them in some or all of their notebooks for a few years. I read today that it was actually Apple who started it, with their Macbooks,and the feature is now present in all Macbooks. I think Lenovo has it in all or most Thinkpads. Someone wrote that it is present in some HPs, and apparently a couple of Sonys.

I think it is much more recent, that a very small amount of hard drives are made with an accelerometer built right into the hard drive casing, thereby working on a notebook that does not have that feature.

 

Did this thread get moved? I thought I started it in the Sony forum. I already had started a thread about 320GB 7200RPM drives in the hardware forum, that later went into the direction of discussing the free-fall sensor issue. I thought I started this one in the Sony forum, thinking that some there might be more familar with the built-in feature in the Sony SZ. Either I made a mistake and posted the OP of this thread to hardware as well, or a moderator moved it. Sorry to have two threads in the same forum, currently discussing the same issue.

Back to your post above, Andy. You are probably right that the FFS is mostly advertising hype, and doesn't help a lot. However, if it even helped protect the notebook once in its life, then it served its purpose, no? So, even if it is not so great as the manufacturers make it out to be, if it helps sometimes, a little, that is a plus, no?

Regarding your statement that "there should only be one accelerometer protecting the HDD", I think you are most likely absolutely right. It probably would be overkill to have two such devices working at once.

You concluded from that though--that it wouldn't make sense for me to buy a HDD with a FFS, since one was already present in my notebook. That makes sense. However, I am thinking that it could possibly be a good idea to buy the HDD with the sensor, since it only costs slightly more, and disable the Sony notebook one. I don't really know, but will explain why I think it MIGHT be better.

You mentioned head-park lag. I would think there would be less lag, if the command to park the head was coming directly from within the hard drive itself, rather than from the notebook.

Also, the Sony feature requires a driver and a software application running in the background all the time, taking up memory and resources. I don't know if the hard drives with their own FFS require a driver and app to control them. I would like to find that out. But I suspect not. I searched the web sites of Seagate and Western Digital, looked at software downloads, searched the knowledge base, etc., and could find no evidence of any software download and installation necessary. to get that feature built into the HDDs to work. Therefore, my guess is, that the feature built into the HDDs is completely hardware-based, not requiring software control. (If anyone here actually has one of the drives with built-in FFS, and could tell us for sure whether software control is necessary or not, I would appreciate hearing about it.)

If my supposition is true, and the drives with FFS do not need software control, I would definitely consider that to be a plus for them. If that were the case, when I do the clean install of Windows on my new hard drive, I will not install the software and driver for the Sony FFS, and just rely on the one in the drive. That would save me one more background app and driver taking up memory, and would be worth paying a few dollars more for.

If, however, the Seagate or WDC drives with FFS also require a driver and app to control it, then you are right, I might as well just use the Sony protection, and get a drive without its own FFS.

I didn't know that the Hitachi has better shock resistance than the others. In a comparison review of the three drives, at http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive,2006-17.html ,
the highest overall rating of the three is given to the Seagate drive, with the WDC running close behind, and Hitachi coming in third. He didn't mention that the Hitachi has better shock resistance. (Or if he did, I missed it.) I'm sure they are all great drives though.

 

My SZ originally shipped with a Toshiba hard drive. I installed a Seagate 7200rpm 320gb drive without built in shock protection, however, I believe Sony's shock protection is not built directly into the hard drive. My laptop still registers sudden movement and a message comes on the screen that my hard drive was "'parked".

 

The G-Shock HDDs have the feature programmed into their firmware, no driver/no software.
I think no one has actually tested a G-Shock HDD and the notebook feature enabled at the same time (by dropping their laptops), and see what was the outcome of it.

I guess Sony, or WDC/Seagate could provide a concrete explanation on this.

Tomshardware only tested the drives for performance and power consumption. The Shock Resistance details are given in each drive's datasheet. Even if the Seagate is 6MB/s faster than the Hitachi in HD Tune results when tested on the same platform, it really doesn't make it the best drive. I think K-Tron mentioned the thick casing of the 7K320 drive, so less noise, better shock resistance and users who have bought the 7K320, have also said the same, that the drive is exceptionally quiet.

You could look at the 250GB 7200.3 G-Shock, which is equally fast as the 320GB version.

And disabling the Sony feature, and using the in-built accelerometer of the HDD might be a good idea. But it doesn't really reduce your responsibility towards the 'safe-being' of your HDD.

 

Yes, if the HDDs with built-in FFS do not require a software program and driver running all the time in the background, as the feature built-into notebooks does, that definitely seems to be a better way to do it. It is always best to minimize the amount of programs, services, and drivers that are running in the background.

So, even if the feature would only help in very rare situations, such as dropping one's notebook to the ground, it's always better to have more protection than less, just in case. I wouldn't pay $100 more for the feature, but for $10 more, it could be worth it, no? (And worth it to turn off the feature in the notebook, not even install the software for it.) (Also, it's possible it could react faster in the event of a fall, if the command to park the heads is coming from within the drive casing itself, rather than from the CPU.)

Of course with the notebook-software version one could turn the feature off and on, while built-in HDD would be always on. But I don't know any reason one would want to turn it off.

I wonder though, if there are any negatives to buying the FFS version of the drives, other than costing a little more? So far, I haven't heard any. But one wonders---why do they even make two versions? Why not put the feature in all--since they are premium drives--if it adds protection, and has no negatives?

I don't think any of the tests we have seen of these drives have been with the FFS version, although I may have missed that. Is there any chance it could affect performance?