OT: Jumper setting on Raptor drive

xberk wrote on 2/17/2009, 5:36 PM

Just got a Raptor drive back from WD (had problems) ..I'm going to use it as a main drive. I was surprised to see a jumper pin covering 1&2. On the drive it says "Jumpered pins 1 and 2 enbales SSC (Spread Spectrum Clocking) .. I googled this and found that normally the drives are set to "disable" SSC .. Went to WD's website and it shows that covering pins 1 & 2 can "enable" SSC or "disable" SSC .. Really confusing. Which is it? Do I remove the jumper? I don't want SSC enable.

WD diagram confusion

Comments

ChristoC wrote on 2/17/2009, 7:29 PM

Yes confusing isn't it!
Had the same dilemma here with newer SATA drives ... you have to go by the label on the disk.

xberk wrote on 2/17/2009, 7:35 PM

Yeah. Confusing. My head hurts. I'm going to take two aspirins and call tech support in the morning.

craftech wrote on 2/17/2009, 7:36 PM

SSC was designed to reduce EMI of other nearby computer parts from hard drives through frequency modulation. Third party confirmed this as a non-issue. They also found that enabling it marginally hurt performance.

You want it disabled so it ships with either no jumper pin or a jumper pin across pins 1 & 2. In both cases SSC is disabled unless also enabled in the BIOS. Check your BIOS and make sure SSC is not enabled and forget about whether the pin is on or off.

John

xberk wrote on 2/17/2009, 8:11 PM

Thanks guys. I'm going ahead tonight. I pulled the jumper. My theory is that the WD diagrams are saying that no jumper means no SSC is possible even if turned on in the bios. If you want SSC you jumper 1 & 2 and turn it on in the bios. So I agree. You go by whats written on the drive. I have a Gigabyte P35C MB and I can't even find the SSC in the bios. I"ve tried Ctrl F1 to get additional bios settings but none come up. I think it's a minor point with little impact. Anyway -- off comes the jumper and we go for a full system restore on the Raptor tonight. Love that Acronis!