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TESTING
Our focus is first on the acoustics and vibration, and then second, on the performance. Readers who familiar with the hard drive specialist web site, Storage Review, know how difficult it is to obtain truly authoritative performance information about hard drive performance; it takes many different kinds of tests in a variety of conditions. We don't pretend to be such experts, nor do we care quite as much. Our usual point of view is: Give me the quietest drive with the smallest hit in performance.
- Our performance test procedure consisted of running each of the test samples in turn off the secondary IDE channel of an extremely quiet reference PC.
- Our acoustic test procedure consisted of running each of the test samples in an external USB 2.0 drive enclosure (cover removed) placed in a very quiet room adjacent to where the test PC was located. The test PC was SPCR's audio recording PC, a Shuttle Zen SFF PC modified to 16 dBA/1m noise level.
- The drive / USB enclosure was placed atop a soft piece of foam to reduce vibration effects, and angled up so that its top was facing the microphone of the sound level meter when noise measurements were done. The foam greatly reduced any low frequency resonance. As mentioned already, the cover of the USB enclosure was left off.
- The microphone was positioned 3" above the drive for the audio recordings.
- Ambient room noise during testing was 16 dBA. The room itself is 20' x 10' x 8' and carpeted, but not highly damped. The doors and windows were closed, and there were no other sources of noise in the room.
Testing Equipment
SPCR's audio recording PC:
- Shuttle Zen ST62K SFF motherboard / case / heatsink / fanless power supply
- Intel P4-2.53 (Northwood) CPU
- 512MB DDRRAM (PC3200)
- Samsung MP0402H notebook hard drive
Other Audio & Test Equipment:
Observant readers will have noticed that the test PC actually employs a Samsung notebook hard drive of the same model as the one being tested. It is an obvious giveaway about the very low acoustic output of this drive. Here is a complete listing of all the two drives in this review, along with notebook drives reviewed thus far, and our reference quiet desktop 3.5" 7200 rpm hard drives.
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2.5" HDD NOISE COMPARISON
|
| Drive Model |
Idle
(dBA/1m)
|
Seek
(dBA/1m)
|
Subjective Notes
|
|
Samsung MP0402H
|
17
|
18
|
The acoustics of this drive are virtually identical to the Fujitsu MHT2040AT, a considerably slower 4200 rpm drive and the quietest we've encountered. The Samsung is extremely quiet, and there is very little if any high frequency noise to speak of. It has minimal vibration, but placing it on soft foam does reduce low freq. noise audibly. The unit used in the test PC was suspended in elastic string and mostly surrounded by soft but dense foam. Seek noise is somewhat more audible than the 1 dBA gain suggests, but very soft.
|
|
Hitachi Travelstar 5K80
|
19
|
20
|
The Hitachi comes very close to the Samsung, but has a slightly sharper and higher pitched sound, with perhaps a touch more vibration as well. The seek noise is a touch louder too. When inside even a very quiet desktop PC, the slightly higher noise level of this drive over the Samsung may not be audible. The performance is superior, according to SiSoftware Sandra 2005, and also subjectively.
|
| Toshiba MK6022GAX |
22
|
-
|
Slightly louder than the Seagate Barracuda IV single platter 3.5" reference hard drive. The noise signature has the broadband shhhh quality exhibited by the Samsung SP 3.5" drives, but higher in pitch, a bit like the Seagate. A trace of whine, but not like the Seagate Momentus. Seek noise is only moderately louder than idle, perhaps by 3 dBA. Vibration is higher than any of the 4200rpm drives; similar to the Momentus. Performance seems quite speedy, as it should be with 16 MB cache and 5400rpm, but inconsistent results with all the benchmarks tried stops me from publishing results. |
| Seagate Momentus ST94811A |
24
|
-
|
The Momentus has a terrible constant "pure" tone somewhere in the 6~10KHz range. It drops 2-3 dBA in level when the listener or the mic faces the edge of the drive because of directionality of the high frequency whine. Seek noise is substantially higher, probably 3~5 dBA. Vibration is much lower than any 3.5" drive, but higher than either of the 4200rpm drives tried. A real disappointment, but it did perform about as fast as or faster than the Seagate Barracuda-IV.
|
| Fujitsu MHT2040AT |
16
|
-
|
The only noise maker in the Mappit A4F PC, which seemed virtually inaudible to me. The noise is not inaudible, but very low and soft, easily dismissed in the ambient noise of all but the quietest spaces. There is no high pitched whine to speak of, and the seek noise does not seem more than maybe 2 dBA higher than idle. It is the slowest performer of all the drives here. Extremely low vibration. |
| Toshiba MK4025GAS |
16
|
-
|
This 8 MB cache 4200 RPM drive offers better performance than 2 MB cache 4200 rpm drives, and it is identical in both idle and seek noise to the Fujitsu above. Extremely low vibration.
|
Seagate Barracuda IV
ST340016A
|
20
|
-
|
In idle, it remains the quietest of all 3.5" drives. This sample is almost 2 years old, but seems unchanged in noise. There may be a touch of high frequency whine but it is very low in level, and easily obscured when mounted in a PC case. Seek is considerably higher, possibly as much as 5~6 dBA. Low vibration, but MUCH higher than any of the notebook drives.
|
| Samsung SP0802N |
21.5
|
-
|
The idle noise is a touch higher, and its seek may actually be lower than the Seagate B-IV. Similar vibration level as the B-IV, but there are reports of some samples exhibiting much higher vibration levels. This is cured by HDD decouple mounting (suspension in elastic material or placement on soft foam), which is virtually mandatory for a truly quiet PC anyway.
|
Below are sound recordings in MP3 format of the two notebook drives tested here, along with the two reference 3.5" drives. Each recording is 20 seconds long; the first 10 seconds in idle, and the second half in seek, a state effected by running Windows drive defragmentation. They are presented in order of loudness.
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Samsung MP0402H 40G 2.5" notebook HDD (17~18 dBA/1m)