Do you think that the Raptor is overly loud?

[dougle]

I'm putting together a new computer. I want performance, but also want quiet. I've read other reviews that the Raptor is a rather loud hard drive. I'm going to use an Antec P180 case, Corsair 620w psu, E6600 cpu, and either x1900 (or Sapphire x1950 Ultimate Pro) or 7900 gtx video card. Will the P180 case help keep things quiet? If I decide to go with 7200 SATA HD, is there a size cut off (or recommendation) for premium performance using Raid 0? I have a new Seagate 7200.9 400gb, but I'm thinking that it might be a bit large to use Raid 0 (regarding scans, defrag, backups, etc). I'm not a gamer, so that is not an issue. I pretty much use my computer for general purposes. Later on I might do some video editing.I've built a few computers so I'm moderately computer saavy.
What do you think, Raptor or 2 (maybe even one) SATA HD?
God, I'm wishy-washy!
Thanks

 

[The_Interloper]

I've had my Raptors in Raid 0 for over a year. I've never heard them over my system fans in addition to watercooling. I recently switched cases with a different fan setup (2 120mm fans) and turned my pump down. Now I can hear them, but only when they seek. If you are air cooling, you won't hear them over your graphics and cpu fans but in a quiet setup, seeking is audible and sometimes irritating.

 

[I]

Yes it's louder than most, no it's not "overly" loud.

You want performance and quiet. So what's new or unusual about that? Who doesn't? Pick one or the other. For the quietest system possible, you won't want to use a Raptor unless you went to extremes to contain, isolate the noise but we dont' know what was noisier about your present system, look there at what you would've changed had you built IT all over again and go from there.

There is no drive too large for RAID0, just partition the array as needed to suit the purpose, which also increases performance by running things needing the performance off the first partition(s).

In an otherwise quiet system your video card fan may be the loudest, replace that first. Personally I'd get one Raptor to run the OS (at least) before doing ANY drive combination in RAID0, as RAID0 with lower RPM drives won't get you the very low latency for the small OS/app files that the Raptor will.

So for performance, 1st drive - Raptor, 2nd - add one very large SATA, 3rd - add either 2nd separate SATA volume or RAID0 the two lesser SATA, 4th - RAID0 a couple Raptors.

Keep in mind that multiple drives also increases noise even if not Raptors.

 

[dougle]

So what you're saying is I can partition the drives and use Raid ? In my ignorance I thought that Raid 0 hard drives couldn't be partitioned and I had to use the whole drive in Raid.
Also, I don't need extreme quiet, I'm running an old AMD 2600+ system now. The Raptor sounds very tempting. I think I might gp that way.
Thank you to all who have and will reply. I have been going back& forth on this issue.

 

[Lumberboy]

I have a raptor in a P180 case, and it is really quiet!

 

[mpjesse]

Compared to newer hard drives, the Raptors are very loud. In comparison I'd rate them about as loud as hard drives in the late 90's used to be.

I definitely hear mine all the time. My other 7200rpm drives are very close to silent.

 

[The_OGS]

Do you think that the Raptor is overly loud?

No. The key word is 'overly' and I think the Raptor sounds good.
Kind of like a muscle car - sometimes a bit of grumble to accompany the performance is nice.
And my Raptor is very fast, noticably faster than other HDs...
I'm really happy with it,
Regards

 

[kitchenshark]

Nope, not loud at all.

Mounted with rubber or felt washers it'll be nearly as quiet as 7200 RPM drives.

 

[I]

So what you're saying is I can partition the drives and use Raid ?.

No I'm saying you can RAID0 the drives and THEN partition the array volume, but that's probably what you were thinking, I just wanted to makek the order of doing it clear.

A RAID basically turns multiple physical drives into one logical volume. Once you have that "built" logical volume, you can do with it (partitioning, etc) just as you would with one drive, making one logical volume, in a more traditional non-raid configuration.

 

[BlackAxe3001]

Compared to newer hard drives, the Raptors are very loud. In comparison I'd rate them about as loud as hard drives in the late 90's used to be.

I definitely hear mine all the time. My other 7200rpm drives are very close to silent.

I second that. My 7200rpm drives are nearly silent compared to the raptor.

 

[choirbass]

i think it depends really... for instance, i have 4 raptors in my tower currently, and i can barely hear any of them... when i switched a 5th raptor from mine to my brothers system to give him an upgrade, i couldnt believe how loud it seemed then... primarly because of how quiet his computer was before, now you can always hear it whenever it does anything (it did give his system a nice speed boost either way, having windows on it now)

so, if your computer is nearly dead quiet, a raptor may be too loud, possibly (unless you find a good way to dampen it)... but, if your system already has some fan noise going on, a raptor most likely wont seem too noticable really

 

[levicki]

Raptor is loud, you can hear both seek and spindle buzz which has higher pitched note than the other drives in system because of higher rotational speed.
However, I got used to it, I like the sound of it because it comes with the speed other drives just can't match.