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Hello, I was wondering if the noisy hard drive on my brand new 5000T was ( normal ) it says in the forums it’s well documented but I can’t see the thread.
It’s only when recording,so must be to do with the hard drive I guess.
I didn’t think it had a fan, it sounds like a whiring noise, and when watching something quite, is very noticeable
I don’t think the 5000T has a well documented HDD noise issue.
I am sat 2 metres from a unit which is currently recording and I can not hear it…the only time I have heard the HDD is when I had the lid off to take some pictures.
There is a definite hum when the machine is on, but that is normal as far as I can tell since there is a moving part. It doesn’t get noticeably worse when recording.
Is your box firmly seated on a solid platform? Can you isolate it perhaps with bits of blu-tac?
Is the case loose? Is that rattling?
Thanks
-Mat
the HDD is very quiet on my 4000, apart from when its recording more than one program and watching another then there is a bit of head noise, but that is to be expected.
The 4000/5000 do not have a fan.
Hi guys
I have the unit sitting on top of a DVD player and I think it may be acting as a sound board and amplifying the hard drive sounds I will try separating them .
Many thanks
I hope that Humax have been concentrating on getting the lowest operational noise from their latest models. Its an important issue
The hum on hard drives never bothered me. Ive heard this on models from the 8000t onwards but it was never obtrusive and you wouldnt focus because its constant, not too loud, within a zone and it sort of blends in to the background if you know what I mean.
What bothered me was the head noise on the 2000T and I hope Humax have been acting on the feedback for later models. I sorted it out to an acceptable low level with damping and shielding of the hard drive…something I feel Humax should have done with the design
I accept that a hard drive has an operational noise but I would have thought Humax would build some shielding and counter measures in as standard.
Ive heard some very quiet hard drives but they are not doing heavy TV use. I cant really get hard drive manufacturers to tell me how quiet they can make them so I found it a bit of a grey area. I wonder about the base unit cost of hard drives for PVR mass production.
I suspect that we are not too far away from the adoption of SSDs. The storage limits on these boxes seems lagging compared to how HDs have enlarged over similar periods. 2TB seems so small although of course “adequate”. A 2TB SSD would be a very attractive option in a year or so when prices would have dropped for these boxes as they are nearly always in the lounge and not the study. 1TB SSDs are around £200 or so retail ……
uk1 – 30 minutes ago »
I suspect that we are not too far away from the adoption of SSDs. The storage limits on these boxes seems lagging compared to how HDs have enlarged over similar periods. 2TB seems so small although of course “adequate”. A 2TB SSD would be a very attractive option in a year or so when prices would have dropped for these boxes as they are nearly always in the lounge and not the study. 1TB SSDs are around £200 or so retail ……
Apart from the obvious power saving and silence what if any are the advantages. I can’t hear the hard drives in any of my four Humax pvrs all in the lounge. I have to stick my ear close to any of them to tell if the hard disk is running.
I remain to be convinced that the longevity is going to be as good as a conventional drive designed for 24/7 video recording.
Interested to see how it copes with recording up to 5 (including the time shift buffer_ or recording 4 and replaying a existing HD recording.
Graham, on all technical things I genuinely bow to your greater knowledge. I’d only say that as far as I know there are no moving parts in an SSD so that leaves us with the roughly level playing reliability field of hard wired components. Also, with the inevitable increase (I hope) of tuners then simultaneous read/write perfromance will start to suffer more on HD compared to SSD …. It also seems to me that the moving parts in an HD will cause more heat, and it seems to me to be the heat that is a factor in reliability and failure rates. Finally in my experience HDs are often not consistant even within specific models ie one customer will get more noise than another due both to the drive, it’s age, and how the box is positioned and in my experience they do tend to get noisier with age whereas SSDs shouldn’t make a noise they will simply work or die silently.
It took me a long time for the penny to genuinely drop about SSDs. My Surface Pro started making terrible noises and of course I feared it might be the drive. But remembered it is an SSD. So I thought “Dust in the micro fan”. I’ve read about lots of returns for this. I decided to use plan b. I turned it off, put my lips over a vent blew and sucked. Noise gone for nearly two weeks. The dust might be elsewhere in the box, but as long as it leaves the fan alone ……
uk1 – 33 minutes ago »
I’d only say that as far as I know there are no moving parts in an SSD so that leaves us with the roughly level playing reliability field of hard wired components.
No that is not correct. SSD drives have a finite lifetime based on the amount of data written and this does not apply to conventional hard drives. This lifetime has steadily increased as the design of the flash RAM used in SSD drives has improved as has the wear levelling technology in the latest controllers. The last time I did the calculation a Samsung SSD (which currently tend to have the longest guaranteed lives) would have a life of about 5 years if used for about 12 hours a day in a PVR with what I estimated as a typical recording usage.
Also, with the inevitable increase (I hope) of tuners then simultaneous read/write perfromance will start to suffer more on HD compared to SSD
The last time I looked at the specifications I think the conventional hard drives could cope with ten simultaneous streams which still gives a fair bit of head room; the usual limitations on a PVR performance at the moment are the CPU and amount of RAM not the hard drive.
In my view it is entirely feasible to use an SSD in a PVR but it will cost significantly more (at the moment) and the only advantage will be the complete absence of noise. In the future I am quite sure we will all have SSDs in PVRs but I suspect it is still a few years away.
Martin,
You appear to have disagreed with a statement I didn’t make. Where did I suggest that an SSD didn’t have a finite life? In fact I said otherwise when I said that when they die, they tend to die quieter.
At the moment, most of what I read speculates that SSDs and HDs have roughly the same life expectancy. My point is that SSDs are quieter which is more appropriate for the environment in which they work.
uk1 – 51 minutes ago »
Martin,
You appear to have disagreed with a statement I didn’t make. Where did I suggest that an SSD didn’t have a finite life? In fact I said otherwise when I said that when they die, they tend to die quieter.
At the moment, most of what I read speculates that SSDs and HDs have roughly the same life expectancy. My point is that SSDs are quieter which is more appropriate for the environment in which they work.
Unless you have one in a bedroom, you watch TV with the sound muted ?
Yes I long for the day when SSD takes over. I dont know about the technical or longevity issues and it blows my mind what can now be stored on a micro sd card.
I suppose it looks like a memory board which hard stores the data…double dutch to me but if it works and does away with the noise of moving parts its got to be a bonus
I didnt get upset with hard drives until my 2000T story. I wish you all could have heard because it was horrendous. I tend to think it was more than just a faulty batch as there was no damping or shielding. The design and thin casing just amplified it. I could hear the heads chuntering away in the kitchen and that is plainly ridiculous.
All I am saying is the noise of fans and moving parts has to be considered in a home entertainment unit. Its something I will be watching out for in future.
Best wishes to everyone on the forum
Martin
I’m sorry Graham, I don’t understand your question.
Minstrel,
It is a logical progression to SSD cards. The problem in my view about failures shouldn’t be seen as being as big an issue as a drive failure on a PC. As important as recorded programmes are, more people would be prepared to simply shrug and replace the drive and not be unduly concerned about losing some TV programmes. On a PC it’s more of a concern for most people.
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