low noise hard drives

[Neo_VR]

Dont forget that pretty much all drives have Fluid bearings these days, and they can be put in quiet seek mode with the drive software at the expense of a bit of performance. ive just swapped a WD BB drive for a samsung, the samsung is only *marginally* quieter..

[snedger]

first time I became aware of how quiet Samsung HDDs are was in mid-build I got momentarily devastated that my disk had failed, only to realise that I just couldn't hear it at all.

[Butcher]

Suspending your hard drives with elastic cord will reduce noise significantly, especially seeks. You'll need a bit of airflow without the case to sink heat into though.

[geezerone]

I have a samsung spinpoint and seagate barracuda and both are quiet but would recommend the samsung as it is a little faster and cooler.

[dave87]

Suspending your hard drives with elastic cord will reduce noise significantly, especially seeks. You'll need a bit of airflow without the case to sink heat into though.

Thats great until the elastic gets hot & then brittle, & then snaps. Much better to get one of those quite hard disk boxes if you are really worried about it.

Me I have a simple solution. Turn the music up

Seriously though, most new cases have rubber mounts for the hard disks (My P160 has them, and thats just over 2 years old), and they make quite a difference.

Dave

[Butcher]

I didn't mean use elastic bands, you want something that's not going to break after a while. Personally I use tent pole shock cord - seems to work and no evidence of embrittlement.

[timread]

Another vote for the Samsung drives here!

I just added 2x 2504C SP 250GB drives in RAID1, to my existing setup which had one Samsung SP 160GB. My PC is not any perceptibly louder with 3 Samsung drives than it was with the one drive - and my PC is pretty quiet anyway (self built and selected quiet components). The performance of the drives in RAID1 is better than I was expecting too.

One pleased Samsung customer here!

[theuncharmed]

Samsung again. Had lots of different HDDs in the past, very very impressed with my current Samsung P120

[nvening]

Dual Raptor 150s FTW!!!!

Every review i read rates the samsungs as the quietist, this "reducing sound at expense of performance" sounds intresting though.

[Funkstar]

i had actually forgotten about being able to tune a drives noise/performance. I'll have to try this out when i finally get my grubby mits on my Qnap NAS that should be sitting in the office waiting for me (offshore right now. bored)

[TooNice]

Hitachi is good too (T7K250/7K250), don't think 7K400/7K500 is as quiet though.

Umm, Compared to other 250GB, the Hitachi is measured as being one of the noisiest. Hitachi's never had a reputation for silence (although I find mine unoffensive). The WD did the worse there, but one one user suggested that the latest WD are much better.

Still, I'll wait for the full review before making any conclusions.

The problem with HD, is that it is hard to say which brand is more silent than the others. In some case, the earlier/smaller drive are more quiet. In other case, the opposite occurs.

[geezerone]

Every review i read rates the samsungs as the quietist, this "reducing sound at expense of performance" sounds intresting though.

Not according to Micromart review (comparison of raptor. maxtor, seagate and samsung) - fast, quiet and cheapest on test!

[Zak33]

Quiestest drive I've used recently was Seagate Barracuda 80gig SATA II drives. Have two..quiet as mice.

But then my Tagan is quite noisy so it's irrelevent!

Maxtor make quiet drives too.

[budgie]

I don't think it has been mentioned here before, but there is a site reviewing silent PC components including HDDs here. Samsung HDDs seem to be the top performers.