End is near for Barracuda ATA IV & V, replaced by 7200.7

[CougTek]

Seagate's recent ATA hard drives have been so uninspiring that I didn't even fell about posting this announcement on the front page when I saw it first yesterday (or the day before yesterday). I know, I know, others love them... just not me.

Here's a copy/paste from the article posted at X-bit Laboratories :

Seagate yesterday sent its distributors a notification that soon it would discontinue to manufacture and sell the Barracuda ATA IV and ATA V hard disk drives. The last product order date is 14 February.

The newer Barracuda 7200.7 Plus, Barracuda 7200.7 and Barracuda 5400.1 that were announced in early December and appeared for sale very recently will substitute the predecessors on the market

You won't see a tear on my face for the ATA IV and ATA V for sure. Will the new 7200.7 Plus finally be up there with the best of the IDE drives as far as performance goes? I'll keep dreaming in vain. Anyway, won't it have only a single year warranty anyway? Much less interesting no matter how fast it will be.

 

[Mercutio]

Note that they're keeping the profit-cen.... I mean U-series alive. All I can ask is, "WHY?" If I wasn't already an atheist I'd probably take this opportunity to question the existence of a higher power.

Barracuda is a storied imprint for Seagate, much like Cheetah. Many of its best drives carried that name. The Barracuda ATAs have been a stain to that name. From the first 7200rpm IDE drive -a drive to be proud of, it progressed to the far-too-hot joke of the II and III (I've never actually seen a III) to the tepid-performing IV and V.

I'm happy to see Seagate put the label almost out of its misery (IIRC there's still a SCSI barracuda, yes?).

 

[Tea]

U-seriez drives are proof positive of the existence of a higher power. Or some kind of a power anyway. Thiz iz why they alwayz smell of sulpher.

 

[GIANT]

...I'm happy to see Seagate put the label almost out of its misery (IIRC there's still a SCSI barracuda, yes?).

There is the all NEW 5400 RPM Barracuda! Available (soon) in Classic ATA (CATA) and Serial ATA (SATA).

Actually, I'm very interested in using a 40 GB Barracuda 5400.1 for audio recording applications. You just know that little son-of-a-&%#$ will be quiet as a butterfly!


[Folks, I've just coined the acronym "CATA" here in this message, so mark that down on your calendars: 08/Feb/2003, GIANT coins the acronym CATA, which stands for Classic ATA ].


http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,574,00.html

 

[Groltz]

Note that they're keeping the profit-cen.... I mean U-series alive. All I can ask is, "WHY?"

I seem to remember reading that the MS X-Box has a Seagate U-Series for its hard drive.

 

[Mercutio]

I personally think a better term for a 5400rpm Barracuda with a parallel ATA interface would be "CACA", but maybe I'm just bitter.

 

[CougTek]

[Folks, I've just coined the acronym "CATA" here in this message, so mark that down on your calendars: 08/Feb/2003, GIANT coins the acronym CATA, which stands for Classic ATA ].

Here we see our Gary at his best. So CATA it will be then. Where do you get all those informations is a mystery (you go at the same pub than all the CEO of the biggest IT companies?) but you're rarely wrong when you're calling the shots in advance.

Thanks for sharing the knowledge of the higher powers of this world.

 

[GIANT]

...So CATA it will be then. Where do you get all those informations is a mystery (you go at the same pub than all the CEO of the biggest IT companies?) but you're rarely wrong when you're calling the shots in advance. Thanks for sharing the knowledge of the higher powers of this world.

Well, first of all, being the God Of All Trux is simply an amazing existence! My high-intensity fog lamps seem to cut through all the acronymic BS (BS= ...well, I won't go there) that exists in the computer industry today (PCMCIA = People Can't Memorise Computer Industry Acronyms) and get straight to the heart of what the essence of something is.

But, being the God Of All Trux, I have decided to change my mind about CATA. I am now decreeing that CATA and PATA can be used interchangeably if one wishes. Now, if I could only figure out what KITI means, I think CATA could have more meaning for all of humanity.


PS: CATA should not be confused with the ancient mainframe CAD software -- Catia.

 

[blakerwry]

Is the new acronym pronounced ca-ta (like Merc's CACA), or see-A-T-A (my prefered version)?

invariably we'll ger into a gif/jif or BI-OSS/BI-OSE senerio if we leave it ambiguous.

 

[Ralf Hutter]

/Ralf cautiously sticks his head out of his hole and attempts to defend the Barracuda IVs.

I'm a "Quiet Computing" nut and Barracuda IVs are a Godsend to me. They're heads and tails better (quieter) than any other 7200rpm drive and have 95+% of the performance. No other 7200rpm drive comes close to them for low noise. I say that having used all the top performing 7200rpm drives made during the last year and a half.

I also build systems (that are basically "white box" Dells) and I use 80GB Barracudas in them. The average guy that I build a box for isn't going to notice the difference between a WD BB and a cuda IV, performance-wise but he certainly will notice the whine. My typical system built during the last year consists of a P4 Northwood with retail HSF, Barracuda IV, Antec TruePower PSU with one or two case fans plugged into the Antec "fan-only" connectors. These systems are 90% as quiet as a Dell and that's important to my clients. Without the cuda IVs I'd be in trouble. Any other 7200rpm HDD would become the loudest thing in the box.

/Ralf quickly sticks his head back into the burrow before it gets taken off.

 

[Explorer]

...I'm a "Quiet Computing" nut and Barracuda IVs are a Godsend to me...

I also had a dire need for q u i e t hard disc drives. In this case, I currently use a Barracuda IV 40 GB in an Alesis HD24. It's operating system and file system are so efficient doesn't need a 7200 RPM hard drive to edit and overdub even the most re-editted and re-recorded 24-track / 24-bit / 96 MHz audio production. So, I'm more interested in buying 20 GB or 40 GB Barracuda 5400.1 drives for this device.

 

[blakerwry]

I must be really lucky... my 1200BB is quieter than my 40GB ATA IV... unfortunately my 800JB is now my loudest new unit... it's probably quieter than my 2x 75gxp raid 0 that it replaced... but not by much.

 

[Explorer]

I must be really lucky... my 1200BB is quieter than my 40GB ATA IV... unfortunately my 800JB is now my loudest new unit... it's probably quieter than my 2x 75gxp raid 0 that it replaced... but not by much.

You could try re-situating the Barracuda IV. Is AAM enabled or disabled on the Barr IV?

 

[blakerwry]

I purposely have AAM set to the fastest speed(not disabled).

But it has a slight idle spinning noise and even with AAM set to quietest operation you can still hear it make slight sounds when it does more than track to track seeks..

my 1200BB is just awesomely quiet, both idle and seeks are quieter than the AAM quieted ATA IV.

my 120GXP is also pretty quiet.. somewhere inbetween the ATA IV with AAM on and off.

my 800JB has a idle noise that is hard to hear in its new home.. (which is nice) but its seeks are quiet yet audible when doing anything more than track to track.

unfortunatly I recently purchased a 4gb U series drive (used) and it is pretty loud in both seeks and idle... maybe I can replace it with a 75gxp(which is only louder when spinning up). (can ghost work with ext3?)

 

[blakerwry]

hmm.. i forgot if i have AAM enabled or disabled in my WD drives... i think it's set on quiet operation on both actually.

 

[Platform]

...But it has a slight idle spinning noise and even with AAM set to quietest operation you can still hear it make slight sounds when it does more than track to track seeks...

If that's a curious little sound coming from the 'cuda IV at an idle, then there's a software fix for that.

It seemed that various batches of Barracuda IV hard drives somehow escaped the factory a while back, where a "test routine for manufacturing purposes" was mistakenly left enabled. This was a widespread problem. The software fix disables this onboard routine so that you essentially hear silence (i.e. -- normal Barracuda IV operation) when there isn't any head actuation.

I don't have said utility, but I'm sure someone else here has a link to that small simple DOS-based utility.

 

[Mercutio]

ghost works with anything, if you use "raw" mode, blake.

 

[blakerwry]

...But it has a slight idle spinning noise and even with AAM set to quietest operation you can still hear it make slight sounds when it does more than track to track seeks...

If that's a curious little sound coming from the 'cuda IV at an idle, then there's a software fix for that.

It seemed that various batches of Barracuda IV hard drives somehow escaped the factory a while back, where a "test routine for manufacturing purposes" was mistakenly left enabled. This was a widespread problem. The software fix disables this onboard routine so that you essentially hear silence (i.e. -- normal Barracuda IV operation) when there isn't any head actuation.

I don't have said utility, but I'm sure someone else here has a link to that small simple DOS-based utility.

I dont think you've got the right idea.... it's not actuator movement, it's just the sound of the drive spinning... It's not noticeable if you are not close to the drive... and you have to have a quiet room, of course.

 

[NRG = mc²]

blakewry, Platform is referring to the idle noise - an occasional whirring that comes and goes, very annoying but that app will fix it.

 

[NRG = mc²]

http://zdzich.wsh-kielce.edu.pl/~zbylu/sprzet/smscan.exe

Here it is

 

[blakerwry]

the noise is constant from spinup to spin down... i ran the utility but i can't tell any difference... and probably wont be able to unless i take it out of its current computer

..that case has a large inward blowing 120mm PSU fan that is overbearing compared to the rest of the case which is almost completely silent (passive pIII650, ATA IV, g400)

 

[CityK]

My Cuda IV's, for all intense purposes, are silent. However, if I concentrate hard enough I can discern the spinning noise they produce. But the key thing is that it requires the concentration of effort, otherwise, I find that it is not precieved - I suspect for following reasons:

(1) its filtered out along with other background noise that our auditory senses choose to ignore because:
(2) the frequency(s) it produces is one that our hearing is less sensitive too and, directly related:
(3) there is likely less occilation of frequecy (ie. the noise is more of a pure tone as opposed to the highly sinsoidial nature of many other HDDs noise emmissions). Pure tones noise, as opposed to ones that are constantly varying, are not as disturbing to our senses, sometimes even if they have a much greater SPL then the noise of varying frequency. However, in the Cuda's case, we already know that it has a lower SPL to begin with.

I would love to see SR include some spectral noise analysis in their review of drives too.

Blake, its too bad that your Cuda is audible to you, cause as most people would agree, they truly are pleasent to listen to...er, or is that not listen too. Also strange that your BB is so silent. Hope for your sake it stays that way.

CK

 

[blakerwry]

yes, I attribute part of my cuda's noise to its age.. over 1 year now... my BB is only a few months old and my JB is just a baby with under 2 months of use.

I'm sensitive to the type of noise it makes as well... that and speaker hiss really stand out to me in my left ear.. i dunno why cause my hearing in general is much better in my right ear.