The absolute quietest Hard drives

[kimandsally]

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.

Both within 3 months, it's sad really as I bought them because on storage review they are supposed to be about 30% more reliable then other drives, and out of litterally 100's I've bought for pc's I've built these are the only 2 that have failed. The other one was a 160GB model. Both Sata the 160 was sata 1 the 250 sata 2.

 

[Fuzz1]

Samsungs all the way.
Very reliable as well unlike 2 Maxtors I've had

 

[yak.h'cir]

I've got 5 spinpoints in my case and they're all very quiet. Never had one fail on me! Seagate are also supposed to be really good.

I dont think you could go wrong with either of the drives... But samsung I would say is just a little quiter then the seagate.

 

[DannyW]

Samsung and Seagate are very quiet, and the Maxtors... well ive heard less noisy food blenders...

 

[ted34]

Seagate are slightly quieter than the samsung at idle but at spinning the samsungs are very slightly quieter than the seagates. Most important though is how you mount the drives. I have 3 seagates - 2 are in silentmaxx enclosures (which lower temp a few degress as well) and then the 3rd drive is mounted 90 degrees up in a drive bay and is suspend by string. This made most difference and there are now no case vibrations caused by my hard drives

 

[yak.h'cir]

Good point on the mounting!

I'm in the process of placing rubber dampening inbetween the drive cage and the rest of the cage to reduce vibrations. The vibrations at the moment are not unreasionable, but when you've got 6 drives going they add up. I want absolute silence!

I looked at those enclosures too, but dont want to spend that kinda money per drive... Planning on getting a raptor to put the OS on soon so may purchase one of those at the same time then.

 

[james.miller]

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.

snap. blooody fast, very quiet.

easyrider why must it have 16mb cache?

 

[easyrider]

snap. blooody fast, very quiet.

easyrider why must it have 16mb cache?

The maxtors I have all are 16mb cache.

Maybe I'm a bit anal and would like my new drives to have the same.
Something to do with justifying the upgrade I guess.

Bigger cache is better too?

Let me know.

Editing is smoother with bigger cache's right?

I might Raid 0 two and keep the the other two single.