Fujitsu’s Silent Strike: The MAM3184MP With Ultra160 and 15,000 rpm
Fujitsu has set high goals for itself: back in January, we tested a 10,000 rpm drive () that impressed with its performance and acceptable noise level. Now, Fujitsu has upped the stakes once more — the MAM series at 15,000 rpm is supposed to conquer the high-end sector. Just one word in advance: Fujitsu is a master of its trade.
According to Fujitsu’s website, this drive offers seek times of only 3.5 ms, a speed that had been considered almost impossible only a few years ago. The tradeoff for such high performance is a low data density: 17,716 bit/mm (450,000 bpi), a figure which is anything but record-breaking. However, low data density is a neccessity at such high rotation speeds. Fujitsu offers two models, the MAM3184 at 18.4 GB and the MAM3367 at 36.7 GB. These drives use two and four platters respectively, which amounts to approximately 9.2 GB per platter, and here you can see that this is hardly comparable with the latest IDE drives (WD1200JB: 40 GB per platter).
The first drive to run at 15,000 rpm was Seagate’s Cheetah X15 (). On the one hand, we were a bit disappointed by the fact that it was not able to set new records in data transfer speeds. On the other hand, the seek times of 3.9 ms were unmatched at the time of the review. In the end, this drive offered extremely high application performance, making it suitable for workstations and servers.
Fujitsu launched their latest series in order to combine all of the important qualities such as high data transfer rates and quick access times, as well as acceptable temperatures and tolerable noise levels. The result is the MAM series; we received the 18 GB model for review.
The Recipe: High Rotation Speed
It’s no secret that the best way to speed up the access times is to increase the rotation speed, because the mechanical options for the read and write heads are pretty much exhausted by now.
There are three factors that play a role for data access: the drive logic (which determines the exact position of the desired sectors), the mechanical components (which should position the heads as quickly as possible), and the rotation speed. The higher the rotation speed, the shorter the time it takes for the desired sectors to pass the read/write heads.
Basically, an increase in data transfer performance is directly related to an increase in the rotation speed. However, this puts several aspects in the balance. Unfortunately, with an increase in rotation speed, the data density becomes a critical factor, since high speeds make high demands on the materials used — usually, it’s more difficult to be exact in positioning the heads when running at high speeds of 15,000 rpm, for example. So, in order to ensure reliability, the data density is reduced.
Also, faster rotation speeds mean that further effort is needed to minimize friction and keep both noise and temperature levels within a tolerable range. High speeds result in increased friction, which leads to high temperatures. The noise level increases with the spindle motor as well. If a drive runs too hot, you will have to use an additional cooling fan, which in turn raises the noise level again.
Noise Level: No Louder Than 10,000 rpm Drives
Fujitsu has managed to do it — the MAM series is the first to offer models that are not unbearably loud, so it can definitely be recommended for workstation use. Using noise reduction materials, you can minimize the noise generated by the computer to the extent that you won’t even hear a difference between this drive and a standard IDE model! Fujitsu did a good job in this regard.
Technical Data
| Fujitsu MAM3184MP | |
| Capacity | 18.4 / 36.8 GB |
| Rotation speed | 15,000 rpm |
| Seek Time | 3.5 ms |
| Cache Memory | 8096 KB |
| Warranty | 3 years |
It bears mentioning that the drive is 1 inch in height, which has been standard for many years now. Particularly in the high-end section, there are still some drives that require 1.5″ drive bays and thus require two conventional drive bays. This is particularly interesting for systems that have to make do with limited space (e.g. 1U modules).
For detailed information about this drive, refer to Fujitsu’s website:
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Test Setup
| Test System | |
| CPU | Intel Pentium III, 866 MHz |
| Motherboard | Asus CUSL2-C, i815 Chipset |
| RAM | 256 MB SDRAM PC133 |
| SCSI Controller | Tekram DC-390U3 |
| Graphics Card | i815 On-Board Graphics |
| Network | 3COM 905TX PCI 100 MBit |
| Operating System | Windows XP Pro 5.1.2600 |
| Benchmarks & Measurements | |
| Office Applications Benchmark | ZD WinBench 99 — Business Disk Winmark 2.0 |
| High-end Applications Benchmark | ZD WinBench 99 — High-End Disk Winmark 2.0 |
| Low Level Benchmarks | HD Tach 2.61 |
| Performance Tests | HD Tach 2.61 |
| Drivers & Settings | |
| Graphics Drivers | Intel i815 Reference Drivers 4.3 |
| Tekram SCSI Driver | 1.0 |
| DirectX Version | 8.1 |
| Screen Resolution | 1024×768, 16 Bit, 85 Hz |
Data Transfer Diagram
What’s impressive here is not only the maximum transfer speed of almost 60 MB/s, but the consistency along the whole medium. Write performance is excellent as well, which means that this hard drive is well-suited for audio or video editing.
Access Time
Write Performance
Read Performance
Application Performance
Temperature
We measured the surface temperature after one hour of operation. The MAM drive heated up to 49°C, which may sound high, but this is actually quite a good result when you consider the high rotation speed. Since the temperatures inside the drive are usually much higher, we recommend that you use at least a small fan to keep the drive alive.
Noise Level
Our noise level measurements gave us quite a surprise: 55 dB(A), a result that we didn’t believe was correct at first. Was the drive actually running? It was. This result means that technically, this drive is not louder than high performance IDE drives running at half the rotation speed (7,200 rpm).
However, the noise that is produced by 15,000 rpm drives is subjectively more annoying, as the frequencies are higher. So in the end, this drive is still at the noise level of 10,000 rpm drives!
CPU Usage
Conclusion
Fujitsu did it! The MAM3184MP combines both high performance and acceptable environmental conditions. Subjectively, the noise generated by the drive is still louder than what we are used to from most other drives. Nevertheless, the performance you get is tremendous. Launching applications such as Adobe Photoshop is clearly faster than with standard IDE drives, particularly due to the quick access times of less than 6 ms.
This drive is currently one of the best choices for workstations with high performance demands — we liked the fact that the noise level was not any higher than what you get with 10,000 rpm drives.
This drive could also be quite a good choice for server systems. Of course you cannot set up huge drive arrays at maximum capacities of 36 GB per drive. Currently, however, a RAID array consisting of Fujitsu MAM drives will deliver the highest achievable performance for storage subsystems.
The high price of these drives make them less attractive for use in home systems. You have to shell out at least $340 for the 18 GB model, while the 36 GB version should be priced at $500 or even more. This doesn’t make it a bargain buy, but then again, nobody would really expect low prices for a drive of this caliber.
