RS> The other noise is the noise it makes moving the head around.

RS> Some modern drives are reasonably quiet when just sitting
RS> rotating, but make quite a racket moving the head around,
RS> particularly if the drive is working hard head movement wise.

PE> Sitting there it is quiet, but accessing
PE> data it makes enough noise to wake the dead.

Yeah, it can be a problem, it aint that easy to move the head
around silently and get the sorts of access times we now demand.

Some of the full height 5.25" drives really give you a
sense of raw power as the shake the shit out of even the
table they are on thrashing the heads around at times.

PE> Or at least it did in my IBM.  It seems to be
PE> quieter in my Amiga, but maybe I'm imagining that,

It can be real. The case can make a surprising difference and you can also
get resonance effect in some cases too which amplifys the noise in some cases.

PE> or its just a factor of it not doing very much on the Amiga or something.

Yeah, that makes a considerable difference too.

PE> I'm only compressing floppies at the
PE> moment, I don't know how to do a chkdisk.

One of the tests that does make the head movement noise most
audible is a random head movement test in a diag like Nortons
Diagnostics. That really thrashed the head around all over the
platter and some drives are really quite noisy in that situation.
@EOT:

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