What is a good QUITE hard drive?

[JohnnyB58]

I had run out and buy a Hard drive in a hurry, so I went to the local Circuit City and bought Seagate 500GB 3.5" Serial ATA Internal Hard Drive ( ST3500641ASRK). After installing it in I realized that it is noisy. I originally want to set up a couple of mirrored drives, but I don’t think I can stand the sound of two of these.

I bought my wife a new HP m8400f and it is so quite that I forget that it’s on. Everybody is giving me a bad time on my computer building because although they always run great, they sound like a Harley Davison. The last computer was so loud that I replaced all the case fans, the CPU fan, and then the power supply only to find the noise was coming from the two Western Digital drives that I had set up in Raid 0. Why can’t I build a quite computer like that HP?

Can anybody recommend a quite SATA hard?

 

[cjl]

Notebook hard drives are the quietest that you'll find, but as far as desktop drives are concerned, the Western Digital Caviar Green will be about as quiet as they get.

 

[chooney]

i second the wd drives.... u described my experiences with loud hardrives. replaced everything as well tho it needed to upgraded anyway but ya seagate drives are loud when u have 3 in ur case.

 

[halcyon]

Not only do you want to look for quiet (it is quiet, not quite) hard drives but you also want to invest in some kind of vibration dampening solution, if one didn't come with your enclosure. Something such as this may assist:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817984001

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118215

I have used the Zalman...nice, if not extreme.

 

[Kraynor]

I've found that if you don't like noise the best option is a set of 5.25" dampening cradles for your HDDs. Leaves the space in front of your hard drive bay open for a totally unobstructed fan, too. Win-win.

 

[ausch30]

The drive you bought is the older 7200.9. The newer 7200.11 drives are much quieter and much much faster so if your going to buy another drive I would suggest one of those. That drive was released a few years ago, how long ago did you buy it?

 

[nukemaster]

I find most drives to be loud. i just live with it.

Try 4 seagates and 2 wdcs. Thats kind of loud. Next to most HP machines its loud, but some of there machines have those loud suckers too.

Anyway. There is a feature on some drives called AAM(Automatic Acoustic Management) Its off by default, but it makes a world of quite difference. It can be enabled with Hitachi Feature Tool on any drive that has AAM support. Its claimed that AAM is available on new Seagate drives, but you can try.

That said i have had drives with it and turned it off because it is somewhat performance draining.

If you do not want to play the software game, You can look into dampening enclosures like the ones above, or if you are up for some modding, you can try to suspend the drive. This makes then much quieter, but the computer should not be moved too much ones this is done as the drives are just hanging there.

There are links on the last page to peoples one setups. worth a look for sure
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article8-page1.html

 

[JohnnyB58]

Not only do you want to look for quiet (it is quiet, not quite) hard drives but you also want to invest in some kind of vibration dampening solution, if one didn't come with your enclosure. Something such as this may assist:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817984001

Thanks for the spelling correction, my eye sights not so good any more. Thought it looked funny, but spell check accepted it. Oh well!
Anyway, I think I’m going to give the “Anti-Vibration HDD Stabilizer” a try before I buy anymore drives for my raid set up.

The drive you bought is the older 7200.9. The newer 7200.11 drives are much quieter and much much faster so if your going to buy another drive I would suggest one of those. That drive was released a few years ago, how long ago did you buy it?

I just bought it last weekend. My motherboard took a dump and I was having trouble getting XP to run so I bought the drive so that I could backup all my stuff.

I’m playing with the Idea of using a 2.5” SATA with a 3.5” adapter if that doesn’t work and use it as my boot disk. The only problem is that I still want to use the 3.5” drives because of the capacity and price range. It would be great if I can just figure out a way to shut down drives when I’m not using them. I don’t want to use external drives because I’m trying to keep it clean without too many wires and paraphernalia all over the place.

 

[ausch30]

Thanks for the spelling correction, my eye sights not so good any more. Thought it looked funny, but spell check accepted it. Oh well!
Anyway, I think I’m going to give the “Anti-Vibration HDD Stabilizer” a try before I buy anymore drives for my raid set up.



I just bought it last weekend. My motherboard took a dump and I was having trouble getting XP to run so I bought the drive so that I could backup all my stuff.

I didn't think stores would still have something that old on the shelves. You should buy a 7200.11 and take that one back. I'm sure Circuit City has at least a 30 day return policy and the drive you have is before perpendicular recording so the performance difference as well as the noise level would be well worth the effort.



"If you're not completely satisfied with a product, Circuit City will gladly exchange or refund the purchase within 30 days of the sale date, except as noted below."


" *
Digital cameras, camcorders, desktop PCs, notebook PCs, monitors, printers, scanners, projectors, PDAs, mobile video, GPS and radar detectors must be returned within 14 days of the sale date, and (except where prohibited by law) are subject to a 15% restocking fee if returned opened or in a non-factory sealed box.
*
Home theater seating must be returned within 14 days of the sale date, and (except where prohibited by law) are subject to a 25% restocking fee if returned opened or in a non-factory sealed box.
*
There is no restocking fee for defective product returned in exchange for the exact same product, or for product originally purchased as Open Box.
*
For any exchange or refund, we need the original receipt or a record of the purchase in our system, and the product must be in its original condition, including the box, UPC bar code, packaging, and all accessories.
*
Opened software, music, games, and movies may be exchanged for the same title only.
*
Charges for installation and delivery services are nonrefundable after the services have been performed.
*
Restocking fees do not apply to the return of a purchase made from a Hawaii address.
*
Circuit City is not responsible for contacting wireless carriers regarding changes or cancellations of your service plan.
*
For in-store purchases, refunds are issued in the original payment type. Refunds on check purchases less than 14 days old and in excess of $100 are issued by check from our corporate office within 14 days of the return date."

 

[knotknut]

I found the seagate ES.2 250GB drive to be very quiet. Much more so than WD and Max drives that I ave used.
Raided drives will make more noise because you are using both drives at the same time.
I unchecked the "Allow Indexing Service" box in Local Disk C> Properties o see what that did for HDD activity. Real quiet, PC didnt seem any less responsive but I turned File indexing back on anyway.
You wont be unhappy with the ES.2 250

 

[pbrigido]

How much money are you willing to spend and how much capacity do you need?

 

[ausch30]

Your drive uses 4 125gb platters while the 7200.11 uses 2 250gb platters. Less platters means less moving parts and less noise and less heat with faster speeds.


http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2559
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13440

 

[JohnnyB58]

How much money are you willing to spend and how much capacity do you need?

Right now, I want to keep it at a minimum because I just spent about 1K on a new Gigabit motherboard, CPU, CPU Fan, new quiet case fans, Vista premium, and a new 22” LCD monitor.

Your drive uses 4 125gb platters while the 7200.11 uses 2 250gb platters. Less platters means less moving parts and less noise and less heat with faster speeds.


http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2559
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13440

Thanks, I’m going to package this drive back up in its original box and take it back to Circuit City today.

 

[JohnnyB58]

The drive you bought is the older 7200.9. The newer 7200.11 drives are much quieter and much much faster so if your going to buy another drive I would suggest one of those. That drive was released a few years ago, how long ago did you buy it?

Well Circuit City took back the drive, so I’m now in the market for a new drive. Is this the drive that you’re talking about? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288
This is less than what I paid at Circuit City for that other drive. I wish I would have thought about this sooner, because I just placed an order at Newegg yesterday. I’m also going to buy the “Anti-Vibration HDD Stabilizer”. I only have one available 5-1/4” drive slot, so unless I buy a new case, I’m going to have to wait on the raid setup.

 

[bf2gameplaya]

Not only do you want to look for quiet (it is quiet, not quite) hard drives but you also want to invest in some kind of vibration dampening solution, if one didn't come with your enclosure. Something such as this may assist:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118215

I love pimping this device to others...I use it on a WDC D500AAKB-00YSA0 (500GB PATA 16M 7200) with S.M.A.R.T. OFF.

The drive fits snugly in the aluminum walls and the heat pipes are embedded in those walls and the whole thing fits in a 5.25 bay just like an internal cd-rom would but you leave the faceplate on so you can't see it. It has rubber mounts (with brass threads..nice) and a ground wire (also nice).

In a stiff aluminum case, this thing is a godsend...by isolating the seek vibration you eliminate it. I've never hear it FWIW. You can still get worm gear seeking noise out the top of the HDD to echo in the bay and then in the case but you need to avoid drives that have that problem anyway and the WDC Caviar drives have such low noise in that regard I don't even hear it with the case door off. The only thing I do hear is whirrr when my ear is next to it.

The funny thing is, this is supposed to be a drive cooler, which I suppose it could be if I had a blisteringly hot SCSI drive, as it is everything is just nice and pleasantly warm.

For the geeks: The vibration is still there, but because the mass of the drive now includes the entire case due to the rigid attachment, the frequency of the wave is much lower, lower making it harder to hear, and less annoying to hear as it is relatively quieter and less distinct in emanation. I also put the case on dense but cushioned feet on a hardwood floor, further attaching and isolating vibration, you might be surprised how well it works.

 

[cjl]

That's it.

If you're truly after quiet though, I would look into the Western Digital Caviar Green. It is quite a bit slower than that seagate, but even quieter.

 

[JohnnyB58]

That's it.

If you're truly after quiet though, I would look into the Western Digital Caviar Green. It is quite a bit slower than that seagate, but even quieter.

Yes, I do want quiet. I’ve spent a few hours reading reviews on the Seagate Barracuda drives and there are a lot of unhappy people. I’m going to take a look at Western Digital.

 

[ausch30]

I've got 2 of them in my system right now and they are very quiet but if your after absolute silence you might want to look into a notebook hard drive.