Samsung HDD...

[DarkSlayer]

I'm soon going to buy a new motherboard & mem.chip. Then I will have enough components to build a small private multipurpose server for private use.

I was thinking of buying a new HDD for this server. I want to try build the server as silent as possible, and was thinking of Samsung HDD ( 120 or 160GB ).

But I resently heard that Samsung disks had alot of problems, 23% of all disks were returned. And they are wery hot.

Can you guys confirm this??? Is there any differences between 5400rpm, and 7200rpm disks regarding these problems? And what are my alternatives if I'm to choose a silent disk??? ( I mean dead silent disk without the need for a fan ). There is not a point in buying a silent disk if you have to use a fan on it.

Priority 1: Silent
Priority 2: Low Temperature
Priority 3: be able to put more noise isolation around the disk without having to fear overheating.

 

[sjonnie]

Generally speaking the faster the drive rotates and the more platters there are per drive, the more noise and heat it is going to generate but the better performance you get from the drive.

<A HREF="http://www.storagereview.com/comparison.html" target="_new">Storage review </A> have good comparisons of drive specs.

Seagate Barravuda V drives are the quietest 7200rpm drives you can buy. The Samsung P80 drives are about 1°C cooler but considerably noisier. Samsung is not particularly well known as a hard drive manufacturer. As long as you have reasonable airflow through the case you shouldn't need a dedicated hard disk cooler. I don't think you will be able to put any 7,200rpm drive in a noise reducing enclosure. Noise reduction enclosures specify a maximum power dissipation of 5W. The Barracuda 7200.7 has 7.5W standby, the 5400.1 4.5W.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=114979" target="_new">My PCs</A>

 

[DarkSlayer]

Well, I looked into the differences at storagereview, but I didn't get much wiser.

I have only read one article about samsung vs seagate where they said seagate where a bit more silent, but with an unpleasant noise or something like that. And samsung had an pleasant noise, and no whining when seeking. Personaly I'm not sure what to make out of all this.

I fear the airflow will not be any good, most likely only 1 fan .. in the PSU ... 120mm silenced. I also read about vibration in the seagate.. and my case is sensitive to vibration.

Have anybody made an very silent pc with either seagate or samsung?

 

[Denman76]

DarkSlayer, I have a near silent aluminum rig with both a Seagate 7200.7 80GB PATA & a Samsung SP 1614N 160GB PATA drive. Originally I bought the Seagate first with the idea of buying another one, until the problem with acoustic management and the “buzzing” sound at idle showed up. This Seagate series does not have the adjustable acoustic management program on this drive because the company is in patent litigation. The buzzing sound at idle (movement of read/write heads) is caused by the firmware, “prolonging” the life of the read/ write heads. Seagate has no plans to fix this although I use a workaround to solve this problem. My second Seagate RMA replacement drive has the same identical problem and overseas Seagate customers have posted this problem as well.

The Samsung SP 80s have had good user reviews at SilentPcReview.com. It is very quiet with full acoustic management adjustment (I like to use the Hitachi Feature Tool for adjustment) and the DMA transfer rate can actually be set to UDMA 6-133 ata. Performance is better than the Seagate, but not as fast as a Maxtor DM9 or WD. It is just as quiet as the older Barracudas and it definitely does not have the offline idle buzz sound. This is a 2 x 80 GB platter design. It runs cooler than the Seagate at about 25c in my system. I currently have 2 x 80 Panaflo L1As in the front and 2 x 80 Panaflo 12Ms in the back controlled by a Zalman MFC1 at the lowest rpm setting. To keep interior noise down I also use a Zalman 7000A-ALCU on the P4.

Although, I cannot address your concerns of overheating, I was swayed to purchase the Samsung because of the quietness, the above-mentioned features and a 3-year rapid exchange warranty. Furthermore, Seagate tech support was not interested in solving the “buzzing” noise problem.

Hope this helps.