hard disk Seagate ST9320421AS vs WD WD3200BEKT

Anyone using this 320GB? ST9320421AS vs WD3200BEKT? I am looking for the fastest and the quietest hard disk. My ear is sensitive. So which one is the best for me?

 

Why not go for the 5K320, is known to be the quietest of all 320GB.

 

I believe the WD3200BEKT is more noisy purely because I read more complaints about it.

According to Techreport.com there isn't much between them. But I believe they had a very early version of the 7200.3. Later versions seem to have improved in performance and noise.

 

the one annoying thing about the 7200.3 that I've found (even the 5400.5 had this, can't recall if my 7200.2 and 5400.4/3 had this or not) but they make a ticking noise constantly due to the hard drive APM. You can turn this off using software and it makes a big difference to me.

 

The clicking sound can happen to any brand, WD included.

________________

More noise reports on the WD: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=589214

 

What software do you use to turn off the ticking noise? I found this very annoying. Please let me know.

 

Search for hdparm

 

For this issue I've contact yesterday Seagate technical support, and they tell me:

"If the drive is making a clicking sound a new firmware will not do anything. There would be something mechanical wrong with the drive. Most likely this is just a sign of the drive failing."


They would replace the hard drive.
Monday, after the backup, I send it in RMA.

I hope this can be useful, bye.

 

hdparm has nothing to do with new firmware. It has to do with acoustic management.

Some clicking can mean there's something wrong, while some other clicking does not. It depends on what kind of clicking it is

 

so ST9320421AS is such a bad chooise ?

 

no, this one is the fastest as of now, with almost 90MB/s max and almost 40MB/s min read speeds

 

but what about G-Force engine ? how important is that ?

 

Id go with the Western Digital.

I had a seagate that failed on me before. Not saying WD is perfect, but I would get that instead.

 

Depends. If you think you might ever drop your laptop while it is on, it's worth the investment.

 

Here's my WD3200BEKT HD Tune result.

 

I thought Seagates were noisy and unbalanced until I got my first WD! WD3200BEKT spins about as smoothly as my washingmachine.. beware! The nickel and dime, no customer svc, crappy store I bought mine from (Canada Computers) are big time nazis and wouldnt let me return the drive one hour after I bought it, with no data transferred to it....I just installed it, powered on, heard the noise and removed it.... so now I'm stuck with a drive that I definately wouldnt want to install in my notebook..... just be careful is my advice!!

 

Seems that you're just unlucky, mine is quiet!


Could you please record the sound of it and put it up here?



And here's my latest HD tune result Last best result i got was 67.9MB/s average! I love the HDD!

 

can't argue with the performance! thats the reason i bought the drive

 

True that!
I find it very fast for a 2.5" HDD Too bad it didn't do just one more MB/s average! That'd be sweeet!

 

This may be of help too:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_hard_drive_clicking

 

Those numbers are pretty close to my seagate <see below>

Laptop: HP HDX16t
O/s: Vista 64bit
Ram: 4 GB
Hard Drive: Seagate 250gb 7200RPM 16mb cache

On the READ test (in case you can't see the screen)

Transfer Rate:
Min=45.0mb/sec
Max= 89.7mb/sec
avg= 70.4 mb/sec

Access time=16.9ms
burst rate= 78.4
CPU usage = 7.1

 

Sweet!

But your's still a lill faster on speed!
And mine is faster at access time!

 

please... tell us the HD Tune config options:

- Benchmark/Transfer rate: Block size (64KB... or other value)
- Top speed/accuracy setting
- chipset, UDMA type, ecc. (info screen)


Those are mine:

- Benchmark/Transfer rate: Block size 64KB
- Top speed/accuracy setting: MAX
- chipset i945PM - ICH7 (info screen)
- win XP SP3

 

I was using 512KB and the most accurate on the bar-alternative.
Also have the i945PM ICH7.


How did you get that burst speed with your HDD?! Do you have any special drivers for ICH7? I see that you have a FE21M and it's almost the same as my FE31M, been trying to installa ICH7 drivers, but i couldn't find any that'll work. Can you tell me what drivers you use?

 

Sorry, the screen was a test of my Seagate on Promise Fastrack controller of my desktop PC with Asus P4C800...


This is the screen of the Seagate in my Vaio FE21M




and this is driver version screen of my Vaio:




My Seagate HD is slowest of your... what kind of driver is installed on your Vaio?

 

Okey thanks

I'm using the latest for Mobile Intel® 945PM Express Chipset from the intel site.

You can find it here http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-022034.htm
download the Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility

 

Thanks, I've already this driver, but my Seagate is slowest then the other Seagate 7200.3 320GB in this thread???!

 

Try the Vista setting 'enhance hard drive performance' or something like that.

 

where is hidden in WinXP SP3 this setting?

 

It's Vista only. That may be the reason others are getting better scores.

 

where to find that in vista?

 

simonov, see here http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/59886-hard-drive-speed-boosts.html


This option can make a difference, not always, but the drive itself will be more sensitive if the computer shuts off randomly or such.
And it's not a "fake boost" option.

 

RETURN FROM RMA AND ALL PROBLEM SOLVED: CLICKING ISSUE + SPEED ISSUE!

Hi friends

I've just received another refurbished 7200.3 320GB unit from Seagate, after send mine for clicking issue, and a faulty refurbished unit previously....

Finally this second refurbished HD works! Is more speedy than (90mbs peak vs 83mbs) the first unit purchased, but the clicking sound I hear when the notebook doesn't work (idle status) is always present, I think that is a firmware issue; it happens to the other brand like Western Digital, solved with a simple firmware upgrade!

For moments I use HDparm utility to solve!

Note: the refurbished unit received is an ST9320421AS G instead the original ST9320421AS shipped in RMA.

I see a lot of bench and the Seagate ASG is more speedy of AS unit in HD Tune test!

Screen of mine unit:

Old AS unit




Refurbished ASG unit



WINDOWS XP SP3


Other ASG bench downloaded from forum





Bye

 

Please don't double post colex.

 

Hi friends,

after long time clicking noise solved on my Seagate ST9320421ASG...

Fixes and Enhancements
Firmware DE17 fixes clicking noise on Seagate 2.5" 7200RPM HDD's Model #'s:

80G - ST980411ASG DP/N N528F
120G - ST9120411ASG DP/N M412F
160G - ST9160411ASG DP/N G970F
200G - ST9200423ASG DP/N J587F
250G - ST9250421ASG DP/N K850F
320G - ST9320421ASG DP/N N530F


go here, and download the new firmware:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R211337&SystemID=PREC_M6300&servicetag=&os=WLH&osl=en&deviceid=18096&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=1&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=2&libid=41&fileid=297636


Thanks to DELL


Bye from Italy

 

Hi Colex
If you want you can download unclicker soft: http://rapidshare.com/files/14883744...ICKER.zip.html
I am using that on WD3200BEKT

 

Here's my benchmark on a Thinkpad T61 running Vista Ultimate 64-bit w/8GB RAM:




I notice my burst rate is kinda low. Any idea what could be causing that?

 

hi i wanted ask what kind of that seagate 250GB is ?? ST9250421AS 250GB ( model number )
because i've ordered this model 250GB : </see>ST9250410AS
here are wd and fj

 

Inaccuracy of HDTune. Try HDTach.

This thread is about the same topic: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=388371&page=1

 

Thanks, I will try HD Tach.

UPDATE: HD Tach will not work on Vista 64 :-(

 

His 421AS the is 7200.3, while 410AS is the 7200.4 HDD.

 

aah Yeah
I realised
thnx