Hard disks & noise

[directhex]

I'm looking at expanding my disks & decreasing noise in the process by moving my 80gb wdse into my server, and putting something quiet of equal size into my desktop. i'm leaning towards sata since, well, it's there & unused on my mobo - but since noise is a HUGE concern for me, I want to make an absolute check based on peoples' experiences, ESPECIALLY those who have heard all options running more or less head-to-head - who makes the quietest disks on the market? i always thought seagate, but everyone keeps saying maxtor are just as quiet, so now i'm all confused...

[joshwa]

Samsung

The difference between a WD800AB and an 80GB Samsung was ASTONISHING! I had a WD400JB as well, and that was slightly quieter than the WD800AB, but nowhere near as quiet as the Samsung. Kustompcs also think Samsung are the quietest drives, and some people who have owned both Seagate and Samsung say the samsung are quieter, plus you get 3yr warranty on the samsung drives

[Bindibadgi]

No dont seagate? Western digitals (non fluid bearings) are well noisy so ANYTHING is quieter next to them.

[atifds9]

i'm with josh have to say samsung drives are outstanding, just got a samsung sp1614n 160gb 7200rpm 8mb cache and it's fantastic can't here it at all when it seeks and in big transfers very very quiet i think the only reason i can here it is it's mounted to the inside frount of my case which amplifies the noise but thats the dell case for you

£84 inc vat+shipping www.komplett.co.uk a couple of weeks ago i think it's gone up now to £90

[SilentDeath]

maxtor d740x's (which are old) can be very niosy
dmp9's seem to be a lot quieter, my 120gb i can hardly hear and it gets less hot.
my 160gb sata 8mb dmp9 is different though, makes quite a lot more niose, maybe more platters? niether have accoustic management enabled and the 160gb is noticably louder in seeks, i suspect maxtor might have tryed to increase performance at the expence of more niose. my first drive was faulty so it got rma'd, the new one i havent tryed yet but it might be very differnt

[Aaron]

I've got a Seagate Barracuda V, which according to Seagate's marketting, is the quietest HD around at the moment. Even with a very queit system, I hardly ever hear it at all.

[Bindibadgi]

The only thing that pisses me off about harddisks is the vibration. Ive got mine on a load of foam padding yet the table still vibrates enough to keep me awake sometimes (the 12db cpu can i cant hear), but i put my finger on it and it stops

[Gunbuster]

I Have a Barracuda 4 40gb and a Samsung 160gb 8mb cache.
I can't hear either from where I sit. If I put my ear to either I can hear:
The Seagate accessing, the samsung spining, but I can not hear the seagate spin or the samsung access. So overall on a par.
I got the Samsung from Komplett inc vat and P&P for £85 last week when it was on special.

[rough_neck]

Originally posted by www.josh.org.uk
Samsung

Another vote for samsung. I've just bought a Samsung SP1213N 120GB 8MB for one of my shuttle's its alot quieter than my other drives which are WD 120MB + 80GB 8mb cache

[bledd]

Originally posted by Aaron
I've got a Seagate Barracuda V, which according to Seagate's marketting, is the quietest HD around at the moment. Even with a very queit system, I hardly ever hear it at all.

thats bs (not having a go at you mate ), the barracuda IV is quieter than V,

the quietest solotion i've seen is a WD 80gb SE, inside my Silent Drive, i can bearly hear it when my i've only got my PSU fan running (most other 7200 rpm drives would run too hot + maybe die inside a Silent Drive), wheras i can blatently tell when my Seagate Cuda V is accessing data,

after christmas, i'm just gonna buy 2x SATA drives, and make an enclosed hd watercool unit, to block out almost all noise they make

but w/o an enclousre, the quietest drive i've used was a Seagate Cuda IV (never used a samsung btw..)

[directhex]

spinpoint 80p is in the post from the friendly folks @ Dabs

[directhex]

aw crap, they're doing a SATA version nowish

[Zak33]

Hex man.....cos I know how sensitive your ears are and youlove a quiet PC, there's only 1 HDDI have used that was really quiet and really very very good for the money.

Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 8 40Gb ATA 133 7200rpm Disk Drive - OEM

Got it from ebuyer...but it was only 40gb.....thing is, its really really slimline....very quiet and intensley cool. I rate this as a seriously good buy. I have one in Sair's MSI Hermes and it gets warm in that little case, (but the HDD is not the heat source)......its a faultless HDD. XP boot times are ace.

I also used on in an ASUS Nforce and AMD XP setup for a friend , who has NO ability to keep his HDD clear and loads everything to hand onto his PC (you know the type....clueless ) and it handles it all with aplomb. It defrags very fast and its quiet even on a deep search for a file (you know....the normal pneumatic drill noise with background chugging other HDD create)


So if its a RAID-able affair I think these would OWN the market.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...0971&offset=10

[Aaron]

Originally posted by cky2k
thats bs (not having a go at you mate ), the barracuda IV is quieter than V,

the quietest solotion i've seen is a WD 80gb SE, inside my Silent Drive, i can bearly hear it when my i've only got my PSU fan running (most other 7200 rpm drives would run too hot + maybe die inside a Silent Drive), wheras i can blatently tell when my Seagate Cuda V is accessing data,

after christmas, i'm just gonna buy 2x SATA drives, and make an enclosed hd watercool unit, to block out almost all noise they make

but w/o an enclousre, the quietest drive i've used was a Seagate Cuda IV (never used a samsung btw..)

According to This graph at StorageReview.com, the barracuda V is quieter than the barracuda IV. This is only idle noise though, I can't find anything for accessing noise.

[Lexeus]

I have 4 pc's here, among them I have a 13gig seagate drive, 15 gig WD, 40 gig IBM/Hitachi, 120gig Maxtor and 40 gig maxtor.

I have to say the loudest has to be the Wester digital, it makes so much noise accessing.
The seagate is very quiet, I can't hear it at all with just one 120mm fan in the case.
I was presently suprised by the Hitachi, it one of their new ones as I just got an rma from an old IBM, the old one did make a bit of noise accessing, not bad though, but the new one is fine nothing noticable at all really, but then again I do have alot of fans in the case so its rather noisy anyway, so it may just be no acessing noise.
As for the maxtors they are just as slent as the seagate. Maybe a bit of noise, but its less than the couple of fans in the comp with the 80gig, and certianly less than the fans in my main rig. No accessing noises to be heard at all, just like the Hitachi drive.

Overall I would rate them from First to last as:

Maxtor
Seaagate
Hitachi
western digital

I would have to rate the Hitachi over the WD simply on the fact that they are not as noisy but still cheap. If you aren't bechmarking your drives then the Value of a hitachi is gonna beat a WD if you ask me.

[Theo]

Originally posted by Zak33
Hex man.....cos I know how sensitive your ears are and youlove a quiet PC, there's only 1 HDDI have used that was really quiet and really very very good for the money.

Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 8 40Gb ATA 133 7200rpm Disk Drive - OEM

Got it from ebuyer...but it was only 40gb.....thing is, its really really slimline....very quiet and intensley cool. I rate this as a seriously good buy. I have one in Sair's MSI Hermes and it gets warm in that little case, (but the HDD is not the heat source)......its a faultless HDD. XP boot times are ace.

I also used on in an ASUS Nforce and AMD XP setup for a friend , who has NO ability to keep his HDD clear and loads everything to hand onto his PC (you know the type....clueless ) and it handles it all with aplomb. It defrags very fast and its quiet even on a deep search for a file (you know....the normal pneumatic drill noise with background chugging other HDD create)


So if its a RAID-able affair I think these would OWN the market.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...0971&offset=10

I have the 30GB version of this in my mp3 pc. Sits on my desk very quietly, and stays nice and cool despite the (small) case only having 1 low cfm 80mm fan and a low cfm 60mm exhaust fan.