Free-fall sensor

I just finished reading an article on PC World's website where they said that having a free-fall sensor system in a laptop is a good thing. I guess Apple and Lenovo have been doing it for a couple of years.

Is this something that Asus has ever offered on their laptops?

 

i thought they already had it, u need to use ASUS NB Probe to monitor it

 

They may all have it, I just didn't remember seeing anything about it in their promotional material. PCWorld thought that this was a good option to have. Here's the link to that article:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144080/are_extra_laptop_features_worth_it.html

 

For IBM it has to have a driver for it,otherwise it wudnt work.May be u need a software to enable it in Asus.

 

Irregardless of the software drivers needing to be enabled, is the capability for free-fall sensor even available on Asus laptops?

 

I thought drop sensors weren't build into the Notebooks, but rather the HDD. As soon as the HDD detects that it is accelerating it raises and locks the reading arm away from the plates so the shock won't damage the plate or the arm. Hence you could say all newer notebooks with these HDD have fall sensors. I know Lenovo adds those ridiculous looking rubber cages to there HDD housing, utterly useless, but none the less its considered there second level safe guard for there HDD.

 

That's what I think too! Isn't this a type of HDD technology that should be integrated to safeguard data by hard drive manufacturers? I would think it would be a ridiculous apparatus if this was built-in the notebook rather than the hard disk itself.

 

Yes, you're both correct that the technology would be within the hard drive itself. I'm copying the pcworld article below:

Free-Fall Sensor
You'll never drop your laptop. Of course you won't. Someone will, however, jostle you, or the laptop will be balanced precariously on the arm of your seat in an airport waiting area, and--crash! When you inspect it, the laptop is fine; the drive, however, is trashed.

A free-fall sensor can detect when a drive experiences sudden motion that indicates a near-term poor outcome. Turtlelike, the drive instantly retracts its read/write heads to keep them from damaging the internal platters. The drive then pops the heads out when the coast is clear.

Apple has included motion sensors in all of its laptops for the last three years, and Lenovo has done the same in all of its ThinkPad laptops since 2004. Other manufacturers may charge a small premium, about $40 to $50, to upgrade a drive to have the feature.

Our verdict: Let's not be coy. Get it.

The way this article reads it sounds like it is at the discretion of the laptop maker to determine if they want that feature in their hard drives. Perhaps this is a silly question to ask, but from the article's perspective, it would be accurate to ask if Asus requires that technology be used in the hard drives they install in their laptops.

 

AFAIK, you just need to enable a SMART register and it'll work.

No, I don't plan on dropping my ST9200420ASG, so I didn't enable it.

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/notebook/momentus/7200.2/100451238d.pdf

2.13.1 Free Fall Protection feature
The Free Fall Protection feature provides enhanced data protection against shock events that may occur while the drive is operating. This feature is designed to decrease the likelihood of data loss by detecting a free fall event and unloading the actuator before a shock takes place in falls of >8 inches (nominal). The drive uses a 0 G sensor mounted on the printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) to sense this event.

To enable the Free Fall Protection feature on ST9200420ASG, ST9160823ASG and ST980813ASG models, use Set Features command 41h. To disable this feature, use Set Features command C1h. Information about Free Fall Events that have occurred are available through SMART Attribute FEh.

Note: The Free Fall Protection Feature is provided only on ST9200420ASG, ST9160823ASG and ST980813ASG models

 

My M50Sv came with a Hitachi hard drive, so I'm sure that I can access similar information from their website. Thanks for the guidance.

Jerry

 

This technology is mainly used for the Hard Drives as noted, but some laptops have the Accelero-meters regardless of the one's put inside the HDD, like the sudden motion sensor in some Apple Laptops.