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Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a solid technical reason for that though, as ISPs have no control over the performance of your connection's remote part. Sure, it leaves plenty of room for abuse, but this is a necessary disclaimer, not some slippery marketing.
Does anyone in the US actually get the “up to” even plugging directly into the ISP provided modem at off peak times?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a solid technical reason for that though, as ISPs have no control over the performance of your connection's remote part. Sure, it leaves plenty of room for abuse, but this is a necessary disclaimer, not some slippery marketing.
The ISP is also in the best position to publish the p50, p90 and p99 speeds their customers reach. But why bother, when they can feign ignorance and just talk about what the boffins in the Science Lab say it should be. Perhaps, with tongue in cheek, we could call this the p0 speed — as in it doesn’t make sense and it’s guaranteed that 0% of customers achieve it.
It's really really difficult to predict this statistically.
OTOH, there's a guaranteed minimum speed the ISP has to deliver.
The German-language forum that the article mentions has been doing some great detective work: https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/crystaldiskinf... The conclusion on page 4 of the above thread: > Non-Pro RED = 5400rpm according to data sheet > Pro Red = 7200rpm according to data sheet > Internal both 7200rpm and 120Hz. > Apparently all WD / HGST helium plates have real 7200rpm, no matter what it says. Simpl…
Does the spec sheet have inaccurate decibel and watts information provided, such that the drive being purchased has inappropriate noise (decibels) and thermal (watts used) properties when compared to the specifications printed for those specific properties? Or has everyone been taking for granted that '5400 rpm' is a shortcut for 'cool and quiet' and is just now realizing that they should have been reading the actual…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What a world when you can't even trust the spec sheet. What's next, 10 watt class drives that pull 20 watts? 3-year class warranties? Just like how internet speeds are advertised ("Up to 300 Mb/s").
There's a solid technical reason for that though, as ISPs have no control over the performance of your connection's remote part. Sure, it leaves plenty of room for abuse, but this is a necessary disclaimer, not some slippery marketing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a solid technical reason for that though, as ISPs have no control over the performance of your connection's remote part. Sure, it leaves plenty of room for abuse, but this is a necessary disclaimer, not some slippery marketing.
Does anyone in the US actually get the “up to” even plugging directly into the ISP provided modem at off peak times?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no "may" about it: they are oversubscribed for consumers so as to get the price points down. If anyone wants to have an unfettered pipe then call up a Tier 1/2/3 ISP and ask for a commercial connection via a single-mode fibre, and be ready to pay quite a bit for it.
> If anyone wants to have an unfettered pipe then call up a Tier 1/2/3 ISP and ask for a commercial connection via a single-mode fibre, and be ready to pay quite a bit for it. You might be surprised to find it surprisingly affordable. Cheaper than colocation, even.
If you get half a rack or less, that tends to be (quite a bit) cheaper.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does the spec sheet have inaccurate decibel and watts information provided, such that the drive being purchased has inappropriate noise (decibels) and thermal (watts used) properties when compared to the specifications printed for those specific properties? Or has everyone been taking for granted that '5400 rpm' is a shortcut for 'cool and quiet' and is just now realizing that they should have been reading the actual…
decibels isn't the main advantage of 5400 over 7200. The lower frequency makes it both less loud to the human ear and subjectively less "annoying"
Exactly. The difference can be huge, even if the number of "dB" measured are the same, to the point that one would not recognize the noise of one running HD, whereas another could be extremely irritating.
There is an exact reason why: the curve of perception limits of our ears is not a horizontal line but a curve, where the higher power of the tone is needed when moving to the lower frequencies.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour
Knowing that: 5400RPM == 90Hz; 7200RPM == 120Hz
The proper reporting of the noise levels would therefore be a noise histogram, or at least should include the frequency of the peak level and not be just a single number if one'd want to compare how irritating the noise is. And even a single histogram can miss the time component, as the noise with the main peak level at some frequency can also come in the waves, making it even more irritating, basically, the histogram of the histogram could also be needed to tell you what's going on.
Moreover, the said "equal-loudness contour" is not exactly the same for different listeners, and as a result different listeners could hear the same noise sources differently. E.g. my girlfriend and I hear the same noise sources (emitting different levels of noise over different frequencies) completely different.
In short, not having precise histograms and analysis simple "is it 5400 RPM" was a really useful information to know the expected noise characteristic of a HD. It's not an accident that these two became two different speeds with the expected use in different environments.
I've intentionally bought 5400RPM disks whenever it wasn't for some servers locked in the server rooms.
Edit (answering "floatingatoll"'s comment below): All the above should be an argument that: "“are they essentially silent from a few feet away”, which is often simple to answer given a drive to test" is not something that has the same answer for everybody. If I'm hearing the lower frequencies better than you, what is "essentially silent" for you can be very annoying for me, and that's why I'd need 5400RPM where you could tolerate 7200RPM. It's also an argument that the proper measurement could indeed be made to know what will be irritating for which person, but it's not common to be present even in the reviews, even less in the specs of the manufacturer. Which is again not surprising, as the frequency histograms sadly aren't common even in the reviews of the music equipment. Common consumers indeed prefer some simple "yes/no" verdicts ("is it quiet" enough), like the one "floatingatoll" below proposes. But such statements just aren't the answer usable for everyone -- that's anyway why the number for noise level is reported. But it's not enough. I know it firsthand, as I personally do hear better low level sounds than many people around me. What's "quiet" for them is "irritating noise" for me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
decibels isn't the main advantage of 5400 over 7200. The lower frequency makes it both less loud to the human ear and subjectively less "annoying"
> The lower frequency makes it both less loud to the human ear and subjectively less "annoying" Exactly. The difference can be huge, even if the number of "dB" measured are the same, to the point that one would not recognize the noise of one running HD, whereas another could be extremely irritating. There is an exact reason why: the curve of perception limits of our ears is not a horizontal line but a curve, where th…
This reminds me of how, to make a whole lineup of Intel chips, they just make the highest-price model, and then disable features to create the lower-price ones. Or how shorter-range Teslas have the same battery capacity as longer-range ones--they just disable using the extra capacity in software. In this case, the "5400 RPM" drive runs at 7200 RPM, but WD presumably makes it (either via software or hardware) perform…