Is there such a thing as a high-capacity performance hard drive that is also quiet?

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J

JasSingh93

Commendable
Jul 1, 2016
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1,510
So i've been wanting to upgrade my 1TB 7200RPM Western Digital Blue drive for a while now as i'm running out of space. I am happy with the performance as I use an SSD for the OS and main applications, and the WD is also silent for a 7200rpm drive I cannot hear it at all.

I purchased a new WD Blue 3TB drive but it was only available in 5400rpm speeds but I read good reviews, but of course the drive was noticeably slower when gaming or seeking in HD movies, and had a spin up time of around 5-6s, but was still quiet.

After returning this I did some research and eventually tried a Toshiba P300 3TB 7200rpm. Now this drive was the fastest one so far, but it's really noisy I can feel the seeking vibrations on my desk as the PC sits next to my monitor, and the drive is installed with rubber mountings. Also this takes a solid 7-8s to spin up! Compared to my original WD Blue which was 2-3s this feels like an age. I'm currently using this Toshiba at the moment, but still have the original 1TB WD Blue.

So my question is are there any 2-3TB drives that offer solid performance while operating quietly? It would be nice to have a quick starting drive like my first WD too but I don't know how the bigger capacities affect these spin up times. I read Seagate offer some quiet faster drives but the reports of reliability issues concerns me, and the WD black is apparently naturally loud due to its fast performance. Does anyone have any they can recommend as a good compromise between noise and speed for 7200rpm 3.5" drives? An identical WD Blue in 3TB would be perfect but they are only available in 5400rpm.

Thanks in advance!
 
Solution
Ralston18
Setting aside noise and vibration for the time being.....

Spin up:

Try using the Resource monitor and Disk tab to identify what processes and programs are accessing the disk drive.

There may or may not be something you can disable to save time.

But just as a matter of mechanics I would expect a disk to take longer to speed up to 7200 rpm (versus 5400 rpm) all other things being considered equal. Which in reality they are not so even more time may be necessary.
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Ralston18

Ralston18

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Oct 11, 2014
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Is a second SSD a viable option instead of another HDD? SSD probably will not have the storage capacity you appear to need but a second SSD could be worth considering....

How long has the existing drive been installed? You might try replacing the rubber mountings - if old/low quality they could be getting brittle. Or maybe try adjusting them a bit by tightening or loosening the screws through the rubber mountings in small increments.

Could make difference with respect to the noise/vibration.

 
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J

JasSingh93

Commendable
Jul 1, 2016
4
0
1,510
I did consider a second SSD yeah but I ideally need 2-3TB but the cost would be just way out of my budget at the moment. Are there any 2TB SSDs available? I have a 250GB for the OS but the largest I've seen is 1TB so far. I mean if I had the funds I could get a 2x-3x 1TB SSD setup, speed and silence!

I have only had this new drive for 2 days, the original WD drive I purchased in April 2014 so respectively the new one is barely even broken in, do you think I should give it more time? The mountings came with my case in 2014 same time as the drive, I checked them when I screwed them into the new drive they looked okay, no cracks or marks, they feel quite soft still. I did have a go at playing with the mountings, I even tried using bare screws! (not recommended) The spin up time is starting to bother me though as I regularly put my PC on standby, but it doesn't fully wake until the HDD is accessed despite the OS being on the SSD, used to be 2-3s but its now 7-8. Unless I can disable this "check" somehow?

Thanks for your teply!
 
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Ralston18

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Oct 11, 2014
34,894
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Setting aside noise and vibration for the time being.....

Spin up:

Try using the Resource monitor and Disk tab to identify what processes and programs are accessing the disk drive.

There may or may not be something you can disable to save time.

But just as a matter of mechanics I would expect a disk to take longer to speed up to 7200 rpm (versus 5400 rpm) all other things being considered equal. Which in reality they are not so even more time may be necessary.
 
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Solution
J

JasSingh93

Commendable
Jul 1, 2016
4
0
1,510
Sorry I clicked best solution instead of answer in the email by accident! (How does one undo this?) There isn't anything accessing the drive on standby resume or idle, ir has a few kb of data transferred in resource monitor that I can't track down what that data is, but I wouldn't have thought it would be a problem.

Yes I totally agree a 7200rpm would take longer to spin up, but I can't get my head around how the original WD was so quick! It was quicker than the 3TB Blue that I tried out, and that was 5400rpm. I am partially tempted to put that back in and purchase another identical 1TB WD drive and set it to sleep regularly with my archived data.
 
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Ralston18

Ralston18

Titan
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Oct 11, 2014
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No problem with the mis-click. I think that the Moderators can undo that.

Beyond my previous posts not sure what else to suggest as there are so many factors involved with performance.

And software always seems to be doing more and more behind the scenes. Also slows start up times.

Plus it could be that the 7200 rpm comes with the trade-off being a longer spinup time to reach 7200 rpm. Things are not made as well these days and the base components, or the drive overall, probably cannot handle any faster acceleration. That could include the rubber mounts; i.e., they are just less effective at 7200 rpm than 5400 rpm. Doubt that anyone has ever conducted such tests.

You could try going back to the 1 TB WD drive - hopefully it is still as good as the original with respect to spin up time and noise level.
 
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J

JasSingh93

Commendable
Jul 1, 2016
4
0
1,510
So just an update to this random situation, I have found and settled on a drive I am happy with. I read good reviews on the Seagate ST3000DM001 3TB 7200rpm drive. So I bought it, arrived today and I've fitted it. Using it now I'm transferring my data onto it, and I cannot tell it's even spinning let alone reading/writing or seeking, quieter than my already subtle WD drive and with a spinup time of around 4 seconds I'm very happy with it!

I get consistent speeds of 180MB/s+ of sequential data and without the annoying chrrr noises! If anyone else is getting annoyed by any noisy drives I highly recommend this one.

Also see this link from silentpc reviews, i found it quite useful in choosing this drive http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1232-page1.html

Thanks Ralston, I appreciate your help in finding a solution for me!
 
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