Advice on hard drive.

Ronaldo7

I want to get a hard drive from about 160gig up to 200gig. It has to be the normal ide type ata 133 or whatever and not Serial ATA.

Any suggestions on a nice silent drive?

BoB_BoT

I find my maxtor 120gig nice and quiet, but i'm running the s-ata model, i'd guess there wouldn't be much of a difference. So i suggest the maxtor range

Zaphod B

I'm generally impressed with this Seagate 160 Gigger which has been sitting on top of my old 60Gb Maxtor for 5 days now. It's nice and quiet, and although it feels warm (I was unsure about having the 2 so close together so I've left the cover off to feel it occasionally) it's not melted yet

However from what I've heard, the Samsung Spinpoint series are the best to go for - fast, quiet, 3-year warranty - and I'd definitely have gone for one myself if they hadn't given a projected lead time of several hundred years before they got some in (now I've bought the Seagate they have 60-odd Samsungs of course ) I'd say go for the Samsung on the basis that it seems to be perfect in every possible way, failing that go for the Seagate on the basis that I've got one and I'm happy with it

vibe666

funnily enough, i've just been playing with some drives to find a quiet one.

not really big ones, but i'd assume higher capacity drives of the same type would have the same noise levels more or less.

anyway the quietest I've found so far is the western digital caviar. (40gb 7200rpm)

noiser ones were quantum fireball and seagate barracuda's all drives between 20-40gb.

strangely enough the WD was quiter than 2 quantums and the seagate and the quantums were 5400rpm drives which i would have thought would be the quietest given their lower speed.

might be different for the bigger drives though, so i don't know how relevent this info is. don't take it as gospel, it's just my experience in the last 3 days of trying different drives.

Ronaldo7

Ye AFAIK the newer 7200 rpm ones are usually a lot quieter than the older type. Ive a seagate barracuda 40gb IV or V(not sure which one) is silent compared to my fujitsu 5400 rpm 20gig hard drive.

Tivoli

Ronaldo7 seagate barracuda drives are very quite, their built that way, its nothing to do with the motor speed, my maxtor 7200 is noisier when idle then my seagate is during defrag


Zaphod B you should install speed fan, it will tell you the drive temperature, and close the case up, pc's are cooled by fan, convection is too slow, most cases are designed to blow air out the back (block any holes at the back that could pull warm air back in), and suck it in at the side and front (over the harddrive(s) you will probably notice slits in the inner case near the drive holder), taking the side of the case will stop the airflow at the drive(s)


vibe666 shocked by your test results, can you give me more details which model drive you have, i want a quiet drive for my xbox

BadCharlie

My cpu was alot cooler with the side case off about 10C. Was running at 47 with case on and 37with it off.

Tivoli

BadCharlie- your absolutily right, your cpu fan is pulling fresh air in at room temperature and blowing it through the heatsink and its doing a much better job of cooling then air that has sat in the case for a few minutes.

but this is my way of thinking and everyone is right to shoot me down for this....

my cpu currently runs at 55oC max and hdd runs at 32oCmax (defragging) when i take the side of my case the cpu fan sucks in air at room temp cpu temp drops (50oC) but my harddrive soars to 37oC max (again defragging) as theres no air flow and its kinda snug there under the floppy drive.

and i am convinced that a hard drive would be more sensitive to heat changes, and your cpu should be fine at 47

okay i should buy a hdd fan and solve all my problems but i am also trying to make my pc as quiet as possibal

OfflerCrocGod

A CPU should be fine at 60C, anyway I am also shocked at the "tests" carried out that showed the Seagate as noisy and the WD as QUIET, then of course vibe666 mentions that he used 20-40GB hard drives even at 5400RPMs. vibe the h/w you are testing is a little old:p, things change very quickly in the computer world the WD are the noisiest now and the Seagate Barracudas IV and V are the quietest (the 7200.7s are quiet but not as).

unkel

Originally posted by vibe666
i'd assume higher capacity drives of the same type would have the same noise levels more or less.

Doesn't seem to work like that. I've the WD SE 80GB and WD SE 160GB drives. The 80GB is a screamer, the 160GB is ok. The latest WD drives are not known to be quiet, but their performance is generally very good

If you prefer sound over speed, I would not recommend WD

BeatFreak

I second that Samsung Spinpoint recommendation, had a minor problem with my 160gig showing up as a 120gig but a small driver update sorted that. Otherwise totally silent as far as I can hear, even when seeking. I'd go for Samsung over WD, Seagate and Maxtor for that reason oh and the 3 years warranty of course

joePC

The Samsung Spinpoint is an excellent drive, it recieved alot of awards for its brillance, Id go for the samsung.

Thanks joePC

Virus_Inc

Seagate use a fluid bearing in their drives so they're generally the most quiet 7200rpm 3.5" HDDs you can buy these days..

vibe666

Originally posted by mukki
vibe666 shocked by your test results, can you give me more details which model drive you have, i want a quiet drive for my xbox

ot sure of the exact models I 'had', but I know the ones I 'have' now are Western Digital Caviar's, Model No. WD400BB <- *CLICKY LINKY*

Found them to be very quiet overall, although occasionally have been getting a fairly noisy one, although as they are generally quieter than most system/cpu fans you won't hear it at all.

when I say 'occasionally' I'm talking about 1 or 2 out of 50 machines where you can just about hear it over the general system noise from cpu/psu fans in a new desktop machine (HP D530's) which are pretty quiet overall anyway.

BeatFreak

Seagate use a fluid bearing in their drives so they're generally the most quiet 7200rpm 3.5" HDDs you can buy these days..

Samsung Spinpoint drives feature fluid bearings as well, infact most HD's these days do afaik.