After fast and quiet HDD - not SSD :)

[Megalon]

Hi all,
bit of a newb round here but currently building my new desktop.
So far I've got:

Asus P8P67 PRO
i7 2600k
8GB 1600hz RAM
1GB MSI GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II OC

Was thinking of adding an SSD just for the O/S, but think this might be a bit extravagant so probably going to opt for a 1tb mechanical HDD.

I was all set to pick up the Samsung 1tb F3, and have heard good things. But wondered if there was a faster drive which is still nice and quiet? I've looked at the WD Velociraptor, but is a tad pricey and the WD Caviar Black with a Sata3 or 6 connection as well as a Seagate hybrid drive but not sure which one to opt for and looking for some advice which might be the speediest for bootup and app running and quietest also - although understand the two might be mutually exclusive

Thanks in advance.

[MSIC]

I looked in to the Hybrid drives, however the reports at present suggest that they lose speed after some months of use, and Seagate seem not to have released an updated firmware at present - overall it seems like a good idea, but not fully implemented well yet.

I'd advise either a Samsung or WD drive.
You can also now get a small capacity SSD for under £50 for boot only, with data on a 1TB HDD.
This OCZ is on 'Today Only' for example for £52, which for 60GB is good value.

[Megalon]

Yeah my original plan was to simply get a smaller SSD as you suggets and boot from that - but not sure if it's worth. That said at £52-odd it is a pretty good deal I guess.

[mikeo01]

Just go for a nice Seagate or Maxtor, quality and reliability should be preferred over noise.

You can easily buy hard drive enclosures. Seagate hard drives are quiet as they are, run cool.

I have a 7200RPM hard drive, you can't hear it (apart from vibrations).
Pick up a nice Arctic Cooling hard drive enclosure, which is cheap, for damping.

I would suggest get 7200RPM+, because if you knock your case with a lower RPM hard drive theres more chance of the headers getting stuck. Also the write and read speed is reduce.

Maxtor or seagate for definite cheap enough too.

[MSIC]

That there is some ... bizarre advice.
Get a maxtor for quality?
And I think the OP knows if he wants quiet or not.
As for the drive cages... My advice is do NOT buy a louder drive then try to quieten it.

[mikeo01]

Is it Maxtor which are rubbish? I can't remember but I know seagate is top quality
And why not, damping I would say is better. Lower RPM isn't exactly good for performance, and Seagtae hard drives are quiet as it is anyway.

Ah its my opinion at the end of the day. But I would rather spend bit more to keep performance. My opinion

[MSIC]

To be fair i'm not having a dig at you personally buddy, and I think that you are broadly correct that Seagate is a good manufacturer.
We are both guilty of being too broad however, since pretty much every manufacturer of most devices, HDDs included, have certain lines that are better than others in certain measures, other lines which generate more profit for the company etc etc.

For the OP, the best drive is something that is from the most modern manufacturing process, ie 2 platters (1 platter per TB isnt quite to market yet from my understanding, although in principle 1 platter would be best) so there is less to go wrong, and high density. Because of the high density, a modern (2011) 5400 speed (or commonly 5900 speed) is often faster than a 7200 speed from a few years ago; coupled with good cache, modern firmware, and SATA functions such as NCQ etc.

A good place to look as a general resource is Storage Review.
For something more specific, always good to check out the ol' interweb review sites:
Eg: http://www.silentpcreview.com/hitachi-5k3000-2tb

[Megalon]

Thanks for the input guys.
Yeah to be honest I'm not planning to buy a noisy unit and quieten it down! If anything I'd rather get a good compromise between speed and noise. Obviously I don't want an aeroplane in my case, and noise is a priority. It's going to be running in a Fractal R3 case, so quite a lot of noise dampening to start with.
Thanks for the links MSIC - I've obviously had a nose around the web, but it's been a while since I built a system and an even longer while since there was so much HDD choice!

[Megalon]

Think I'm going to plump for either a Sammy F3 1TB or F4 2TB. Obviously I'd rather go for the latter, but having read a few reviews know that it is 5400rpm as opposed to the 1gb's 7200 and also read it's not great for OS. That said I reckon with a few tweaks I could get it running ok - so probably going to go for the 2GB and wait for SSD prices to drop.

[Butuz]

The small ssd for boot is a waaay better option. Once youve tried ssd you wont go back for boot drives.

Butuz

[Megalon]

I keep hearing/reading that some of the cheaper/smaller ssds have issues after a while, so would have to spend out for quite a bit surely?

[ik9000]

Maxtor are no more. Seagate bought them out. V annoying as my Maxtor external HDDs don't work with win7 as no one will update the encrytion software.

Seagate 7200.12 are fast and quiet. Not quite as fast as Samsung's F3 but quieter in operation. I'd go for one of these 2 options depending on which matters more, less noise and very good performance, vs more noise and even better performance.

I have the 7200.12 1TB paired with an OCZ Vertex 2 and it all runs just fine.

Definitely fork out for an SSD boot drive if you can.

Agreed on the hybrid drive comments above. Last time I checked circa 5 months ago things were not looking good.

[bibio]

Hi, and Seagate are buying (or by now have)Samsung HDD division, & WD have bought Hitatchi HDD business.
Various info

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourc...72l1.12.4l17l0

I thought Samsung had bought Seagate OTOH, memory etc, but other way around it seems.



Cheers BOB

[ik9000]

The deal is expected to complete in full by year's end

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/19/s...1-375-billion/

so no, samsung are still independent (just)

[bibio]

Hi, its a shame competition is so Ephemeral in owt, web shops ( check those out) etc etc.



Cheers BOB

[Larkspeed]

I has three drives in this machine:

Western Digital Caviar Green
Samsung (can't remember the rest)
And a Samsung 500 Gig laptop drive for extra storage

The WD is my main boot drive and the other two are storage drives I am very happy speed wise and all three are totaly silent, I never hear anything from the drives even when reading and writing