Drive Noise Level
As you can see, the new Western Digital drive is surprisingly quiet. Both the IBM DTLA and the DiamondMax Plus 60 produce more noise. However, the noise in its idle state might sound louder if compared directly to other drives.
Conclusion
Western Digital did an excellent job with their WD1000BB. On their website, they promote it as a drive that has both high capacity and high performance. And they were able to keep this promise! Maximum data transfer rates of approximately 45 MB/s and more than 30 MB/s over 3/4 of the medium are excellent. In addition, the drive is currently the best performer in the Highend WinBench 99 benchmarks.
The WD1000BB currently is the fastest IDE drive available with both acceptable noise and temperature levels. Taking into account its performance and capacity, it is not even expensive at all.
