Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pasteur!agate!garnet.berkeley.edu!bmug
From: bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: LaCie disks -- "Well, how are they?"
Keywords: disk drive, Macintosh, SCS
Message-ID: <21787@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 17 Mar 89 20:50:38 GMT
References: <1702@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu> <16825@cisunx.UUCP> <19934@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <19934@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu () writes:
>In article <16825@cisunx.UUCP> vangelde@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Timothy J Van) writes:
>>I have a LaCie 20mb disk, just over a year old. Very reliable, SilverServer
>>is great, comes with a cable etc - seems like a generally good buy.
>>
>>BUT
>>
>>The damn thing is so noisy, at those high frequencies that really get under
>>your skin, that I find it virtually impossible to work with the thing on -
>[..]
>>problem, by the way, is not the fan, its the drive mechanism. Also, all these
>>high-pitched noises drift on and off (sometimes coming on and off like
>>morse code)
>
>I bought a 40mb drive from them last year.  The drive was moderataly quiet
>until oct. of last year when it started exhibiting the noises you mentioned.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Mark Interrante   		Software Engineering Research Center
>mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu		CIS Department, University of Florida 32611
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


The problem both of these people are having with noisy drives (the high-
pitched squeal, anyhow) is probably due to a loose static brush on the
drive mechanism.  There is some question as to whether the static brush
is a necessary or useful item on drives 5 1/4" or smaller, or whether
they are sometimes bothersome vestiges of what was a necessary component
of larger (mini- and mainframe) hard disk units, somewhat like an
appendix in a human, which just sits around until it causes trouble.

Fortunately in most cases the squeal can be squelched by bending the
static brush slightly; it's probably best to have someone do it who
knows what s/he's doing.  Unfortunately the problem can reoccur.
By the way, most mfgrs of 5 1/4" hard drives still include static
brushes (I don't know if this is true for 3 1/2 inchers), so the
noise problem is not confined only to LaCie drives.  Perhaps a hard
disk jock out there can shed some light on the question as to whether
small micro drives need to have a static brush or not.

John Heckendorn
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