Saturday, January 3rd 2009
No, seriously don't. An engineer at Sun Microsystems' Fishworks lab discovered that yelling at your hard-drive causes sharp (yet momentary) increases in the hard-drive's latency. The engineer demonstrated this by yelling a portion of a server holding a RAID JBOD array, while monitoring its IO/s and latencies of the drive he was yelling at it. Each time he yelled at it, there was a surge in the drive's latency. The engineer posted his demonstration on YouTube. Now you know that yelling at your hard-drive isn't going to help, or is it? This opens up some interesting topics to research on, of how the rather loud environment enterprise hard-drives are put through in high-density storage environments impact on them, and to what extant vibration dampening helps them. The video can be viewed here.
posted by btarunr - 10:53 AM |  Related News

User comments
by btarunr (10:55 AM) - Reply
Many Thanks to AuDioFreaK39 for sending this in.
by MRCL (10:57 AM) - Reply
Lol. Good thing I only yell at the monitor.
by Homeless (12:00 PM) - Reply
lol that's pretty funny
by DonInKansas (12:04 PM) - Reply
That's why the purepwnage.com]pwnerer only pwns his monitor while pwning noobs at RTS. And stuff. :laugh:
by francis511 (12:10 PM) - Reply
Dude , funny shit !
by rampage (12:52 PM) - Reply
noise can create vibrations and we all know vibration is bad for read/write/seek times on a HDD, i thought this was common sense ? but i have to admit i didn't realize it was that sensitive tho
by oli_ramsay (1:23 PM) - Reply
"yelling at your hard-drive causes sharp (yet momentary) increases in the hard-drive's latency" or to put it another way; scientists get very bored :laugh:
by Lillebror (2:58 PM) - Reply
Just think about it! the vibrations from your high cfm fans can make your hdd's go slow!
by Mr.President (3:04 PM) - Reply
hmm speechless.
by technicks (3:15 PM) - Reply
I can see the future waring stickers on drives already. WARNING DON'T :eek:. Hehe.:laugh:
by 3870x2 (3:32 PM) - Reply
I tried to convince my unit to go for SSDs instead of the 2.5in hdds for our laptops, that there will be less failure for us, and a more streamlined workforce, the chiefs reply was "too expensive". and they wonder why there is so much field failure with our laptops.
by Black Panther (4:12 PM) - Reply
Interesting... I wonder what effect will it have on a HDD having a Z5500 subwoofer placed barely 3 ft away then... :twitch:
by TheGuruStud (5:39 PM) - Reply
by: 3870x2
I tried to convince my unit to go for SSDs instead of the 2.5in hdds for our laptops, that there will be less failure for us, and a more streamlined workforce, the chiefs reply was "too expensive". and they wonder why there is so much field failure with our laptops.
You're not running raid 1? :eek: I swear, most bosses are retarded.
by hrvoje (5:40 PM) - Reply
Maybe this explained failure of my 2 HDDs in about 2 weeks. I have one 300/600W Sbu near comp, and 4 other speakers in room 2 150/300W and 2 35/50W. I like to use them very loude. :ohwell:
by TheGuruStud (5:41 PM) - Reply
by: hrvoje
Maybe this explained failure of my 2 HDDs in about 2 weeks. I have one 300/600W Sbu near comp, and 4 other speakers in room 2 150/300W and 2 35/50W. I like to use them very loude. :ohwell:
I'm sure that plus the magnetic field isn't helping :laugh: :slap:
by hrvoje (5:45 PM) - Reply
by: TheGuruStud
I'm sure that plus the magnetic field isn't helping :laugh: :slap:
Well changing brand from Maxtor to Hitachi helped
by TheGuruStud (5:49 PM) - Reply
by: hrvoje
Well changing brand from Maxtor to Hitachi helped
Even more :laugh: Yeah, I wouldn't trust a maxtor for one day. WDs all the way :rockout:
by Mussels (3:07 AM) - Reply
by: Mr.President
hmm speechless.
good way to get better latency.
by: Black Panther
Interesting... I wonder what effect will it have on a HDD having a Z5500 subwoofer placed barely 3 ft away then... :twitch:
Do what i did. put the sub on the opposite side of the desk to the PC.
by Haytch (9:36 AM) - Reply
Ive always tried to minimize the sound and vibration around the hard drives. Sun Engineer's should get back to work and stop messing around.
by LAN_deRf_HA (8:28 PM) - Reply
Like a decade ago I had a computer that would speed up or unfreeze when I hit it. Wonder if doing that caused a program error or some sort of usage denial on whatever programs were causing the slow down.
by Aceman.au (11:38 PM) - Reply
Good thing I put my keyboard thru the screen istead...
by Lazzer408 (2:46 AM) - Reply
Interesting stuff. I didn't want to take the risk that my drive's spindle motor could effect performance....so I unpluged the power to them. They do nothing faster then I've ever seen them do it before.
by farlex85 (2:51 AM) - Reply
Verbal abuse doesn't make hard drives tow the line quicker? Well, I'm out of ideas, looks like they'll get the belt.....
7557 Users online, 4.61 mbps
Quick Search
Already a member?
Username:
Password:
Register Here!
TechPowerUp on Facebook 
TechPowerUp on Google+ 
TechPowerUp Mobile App
New Forum Posts
14:33 by slyfox2151
PSU Deterioration Info (10)
14:31 by JrRacinFan
Help needed please (blue screen) (25)
14:31 by HossHuge
Your PC ATM (20709)
14:24 by Canzara
Google Android users clubhouse (2179)
14:11 by mtosev
Need a new router (12)
13:54 by JrRacinFan
Crunchers Helping Crunchers (2579)
Popular Reviews

Latest VGA Drivers

ATI Catalyst 12.4 WHQL

XP32 | XP64 | W7 32 | W7 64

NVIDIA GeForce 301.42 WHQL

XP32 | XP64 | W7 32 | W7 64