Hitachi Deskstar drive "meows"

Found on The Inquirer on Sunday, 22 February 2004
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Envy News has picked up on a meowing sound that is a characteristic feature of the Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 hard drive.

According to Hitachi, the meowing sound is the result of a relatively new feature which verifies the performance and reliability of the drive. But up to this time, the drive manufacturer has not been able to suppress the noise.

There is a thread on this issue, and one drive owner has provided a sound link of the meowing. The noise apparently repeats itself about once every ten minutes, or six times every hour. One drive owner finds the sound "totally horrible", and has asked for a fix from Hitachi to remove it. Others are clearly intolerant of it.

"All of our 7K250 drives, as well as any future product releases will have this feature. At this time, there is no way to disable it. Anti-vibration materials will not eliminate the noise, but it may help to minimize actually hearing the noise."

I don't want a meowing harddrive for sure. Six times per hour? With all my computers my room would sound like an animal shelter. The experiences with IBM's faulty drives don't raise the need for audible drives. What codename will the 7K250 have? "Kitty-Drive", "Purr-HD" or "Furdrive"? Will the next series bark or chirp?