The absolute quietest Hard drives

Caporegime
Joined
24 Dec 2005
Posts
40,065
Location
Autonomy
Having got my raptor and its now in a silentmaxx i want to get some new hard drives.

What are the quietest?

must have 16mb caches and not be audible whn idle.I mean quiet when spinning.
 
Permabanned
Joined
10 Apr 2004
Posts
13,122
Location
Darlington, County Durham
I have an 18 month old Hitachi 250gb drive, which is still as quiet as the da I bought it.

Ok, so it has 8mb cache - but I believe the ones out now, have 16mb of cache. Not that I think there'll be much difference between 8mb and 16mb, TBH.

You tend to find most drives become noisier with age.
 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
24 Dec 2005
Posts
40,065
Location
Autonomy
I have been looking ta the Samsung spinpoints 250 GB.I notice they are sata II.

Its just a shame they don't do a model with 16mb cache as these would be the ones I would get.

Its been a while since I have had a seagate drive.

Are the new seagate models quieter than the maxtors?
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Dec 2004
Posts
7,621
Location
Derry
easyrider said:
I have been looking ta the Samsung spinpoints 250 GB.I notice they are sata II.

Its just a shame they don't do a model with 16mb cache as these would be the ones I would get.

Its been a while since I have had a seagate drive.

Are the new seagate models quieter than the maxtors?

The seagates are slightly quieter than the maxtors, not by much though, you can still hear it accessing.
 
Permabanned
Joined
30 Dec 2005
Posts
1,900
Location
16,000ft
I've had a Maxtor and a Seagate, both 80Gb 7200RPM. The Maxtor was audible, the Seagate wasn't.
Also, after a while, the Maxtor died on me.
 
Associate
Joined
6 Nov 2003
Posts
2,120
Location
West London
Another shout for Samsung Spinpoints - they are extremely quiet. I'm using Seagate Barracudas at the moment, simply because I couldn't find any Samsungs when I last upgraded, and they are very quiet too.

I've used a WD 250GB ATA133 drive and it turned out to be the loudest thing in my system, and the 300GB Maxtor I have in my Xbox is also reasonably loud.

If you really need a 16MB cache I would recommend Seagate, if not, Samsung.
 
Associate
Joined
28 Sep 2005
Posts
1,282
Location
London
Of my drives, the 200GB Barracuda 7200 is a fair bit quieter than the 120 gig spinpoint. The spinpoint was quiet to begin with but as it fills up it dpes more work and get's louder. The seagate i can't even hear read in that PC, My Spinpoint can be heard faintly in a far louder PC (i.e 5x80mm fans @ 2500RPM).

If you want quiet but big. I'd probably look at some smaller 5400RPM disks and Raid them.
 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
24 Dec 2005
Posts
40,065
Location
Autonomy
Skilldibop said:
Of my drives, the 200GB Barracuda 7200 is a fair bit quieter than the 120 gig spinpoint. The spinpoint was quiet to begin with but as it fills up it dpes more work and get's louder. The seagate i can't even hear read in that PC, My Spinpoint can be heard faintly in a far louder PC (i.e 5x80mm fans @ 2500RPM).


If you want quiet but big. I'd probably look at some smaller 5400RPM disks and Raid them.


I'm not so much bothered about the seek rumble really.
Its the high pitched whine of drives

My maxtors are quiet but I'm am very close to having a silent system now and the ringing of the drives can just about be heard.

Its between the seagates and the spin points
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
28 Sep 2005
Posts
1,282
Location
London
The high pitched whines is the drive spinning. 5400 drives spin slower and would be quieter in that respect...The sound will also be lower frequency.

most laptop drives are silent. They're nion all 5400 rpm.

The drives in our new Dell SX280s are 40gig barracuda 7200.8s and are completely silent.
 
Permabanned
Joined
17 Aug 2004
Posts
3,462
Location
Pencoed
I have a 320gb SATA western digital

And boy is it quiet. I cant hear it when it random accesses!!!

my raptor and my maxtor crunch away like hell on accessing. but the WD is virtually inaudible.

Tom
 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
24 Dec 2005
Posts
40,065
Location
Autonomy
welshtom said:
I have a 320gb SATA western digital

And boy is it quiet. I cant hear it when it random accesses!!!

my raptor and my maxtor crunch away like hell on accessing. but the WD is virtually inaudible.

Tom


what about the ringing?

The bells the bells they deafen me the bells(quasimodo) :D
 
Permabanned
Joined
10 Apr 2004
Posts
13,122
Location
Darlington, County Durham
kimandsally said:
I've got 2 Hitachi 250GB drives one is average noisy and the others now permanently silent it's failed tonight and doesn't spin up at all that's 2 failed out of 4 so I'm now looking for reliable drives.
How old were the 2 failed drives?

Just I have a 250gb drive which is 18 months old, and I'm looking for an excuse to upgrade. :o;)
 
Associate
Joined
7 Jan 2006
Posts
913
Location
Bedford UK
I have 2 wd2500ks in raid 0, they are pretty quiet, drowned out by the fans in my case, I have to put my head near the case to hear them at work.
 
Back
Top Bottom