Recommended Hard Drives - a major revision

EDIT: Another update, 4 Oct 2014: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_Hard_Drives

Excellent update, Mike. Are the recommendations in any particular order? Favorite to least favorite?

Wow, not one Seagate on the 3.5" list. I'm surprised that its been beaten out by newer drives from WD. I guess I've gotten used to the seek noise of my Seagate 7200.7s, slightly annoying but not too bad for me, but I can't stand the old WD drive I used to have. I have it in my old Dell now (which I rarely even turn on). Its whine is awful even with the plastic Dell cladding around it.

Maybe I should try a suspended 2.5" drive for my next build *drools over the Antec P150 with built in HDD suspension*, and get spoiled by absolute silence so much that I can't stand the Seagate seek noise anymore .

Sort of... Generally, the quietest ones are at the top. Tho this is not true for the notebook drives where the 4200 rpm drives, which are quieter, are at the bottom. The Samsungs are generally more widely used in the lab than any other drive simply because I bought large numbers of them back before there were as many choices.

I have to say, tho, unless you've achieved something close to 20 dBA @ 1m, suspension and a good case together tend to wipe out differences between the 3.5" drives, even including some drives not on the recommended list.

Now all we need is a real roundup of Enclosures to go with it! There seems to be quite a lot of them out there, no clue about which one to buy..

i find the notebook drive in my Toshiba notebook quite loud when i'm sleeping about 2m away even though its a Toshiba 4200RPM i think

Hi everybody !

Hi mike !

I'm co-administrator of http://www.pcsilencieux.com a french website dedicated to computer silencing.

I'm very surprised that you don't include the hitachi 7k250 the favorite on www.pcsilencieux.com , better than the samsung SP line, but vibrating much more, I admit.

Hi, welcome to SPCR. Obviously, that intro wasn't for me; I helped Kostik get the site started. Is he still involved?

As for the 7k250, I think the two uncontrollable issues mentioned in the article -- sample variance and changes by the mfg -- are at work. here's our assessment of our sample: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article244-page3.html

We've had only one sample, a 3-disc 250GB model. How many have you had of which models?

Mike C. and others have experienced super quiet 7200.7/8’s. I think it was concluded that they were leaving the factory with AAM enabled – more PATA than SATA, but it was a grey area as to how you could guarantee purchasing one, so I guess that’s why Mike C. left them off. I reckon most PATA versions were enabled and were super quiet.

Re. P120: I’ve read on these forums and the OCUK forums of people complaining of a droning noise with these.

The best thing about notebook drives is that you don't have to worry about airflow when silencing them. I've packed sound absorbing foam around a 5400RPM 2.5" Western Digital drive without any problems and it's totally inaudible. Doing the same thing to a 3.5" drive would be a recipe for disaster.

Thanks for reminding me about this; I'd forgotten all about it. The PATA 7200.7 does deserve a recommendation, esp the ones made in China. AFAIK, all of Seagate's PATA models have AAM enabled -- and this cannot be changed. Their SATA models have no AAM and it cannot be enabled. The list in the recommended article has been changed.

I tested myself a 7k250 of 120GB compared to my samsung SP0812N 80GB with jvc engine and a barracuda IV.
The tests were conducted in a completely noiseless environment, at night, and hdd were out of the case, just on a piece of foam. (power supply was fanless)

Of course, the barracuda IV was by far the best.
But the hitachi was only a little bit louder.
Only then, much louder, came the samsung.

The hitachi was vibrating the most of the three, the samsung much less, then the barracuda IV.

I'm sory mike but i can't tell you the firmware of the hitachi 7k250.

www.pcsilencieux.com website is not involving very much, but the forum as ever been very frequented / growing / active
And, yeah, Kostik is still involved, and my boss !

Thank you so much for your website. In my mind the best website about noiseless computing

Is there any difference in noise between 7k250 and T7k250???

Hi Mike! Thanks so much for keeping things updated in terms of Hard Drive Info, I've been enjoyed your site for about 2 years now and I'm so glad we have the best resource around for silent computing now.

One thing I'd like to note: On the sidebar comment about Seagate's lack of AAM management in recent drives. I have a feeling this is more related to the AAM lawsuit which seems to be ongoing..Seagate removed all AAM management when that lawsuit started and it seems they'll keep that until it resolves. I hope they'll add in more AAM features, especially in SATA drives when they're clear of legal hurdles.

I can't believe the Maxtor DM10's are not on the list - I have four of these drives - 2 x 300gb SATA, 1 x 250gb SATA and 1 x 250gb IDE, and all of them are very, very silent. This is in comparison to the 160gb Samsung (SATA, NIDEC), which I also own!

We're very clear about how HDDs get recommended: Our samples have to do well. This does not mean other samples will all be same. Sample variance is every reviewer's bugaboo.

Our Maxtor D10 samples were pretty quiet, but exhibited higher vibration levels than the recommended models. I think we had 3 samples. Based on this, I'd say soft elastic string suspension is mandatory if you want quiet real-world performance from these.

Hi Mike:

What do you think of currently produced Western Digital 160 GB JB IDE drives?

Also, are the 320 GB Western Digital JB IDE drives also still considered exceptionally quiet?

As I plan for an upcoming app server, I am favoring SATA 2.5" drives because of their power efficiency and relative silence. The Travelstar 5K100 currently appeals to me. However, I am keeping my eye on the Samsung 2.5" SATA drives.

Since reading the review, I can't wait to see this on the recommended list!

The "Seagate Momentus 5400.3 ST9160821AS" is referred to as "The successor of the Momentus 5400.2", and linked to that review.

BUT

The 5400.2 is a SATA drive while the 5400.3 is NOT, nor is it available so - to my knowledge.
My inattention cost me $70 in restocking fees.

Sorry for the incorrect link -- it's been fixed.

Got one of these at 200GB and found it really pretty loud - compared to my old PATA barracuda 40GB at any rate. I've got a SOLO case on it's way now so hopefully, the suspension will help matters.

I'm wondering why the Samsung Spinpoint P120 aint on the recommended list?

In the conclusion, the SPCR review says:

"About the only criticism that could be made from an acoustic point of view is that the subjective quality of the seeks has worsened slightly and become more noticeable, but this is really just picking nits. Inside a case, the sharpness of the seeks will be dulled and they are not loud enough to be seriously disruptive."

As far as I understand, this is compared to a P80, which is on the list ???

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article258-page3.html

Thanks.

Check the retired list. It was there until recently, when I replaced it with the WD5000KS as the best high capacity drive.

Unfortunately, those louder, sharper seeks were enough to make many users complain, and, given the discovery of the WD drive, I felt that it was no longer worth recommending. I will be adding the Samsung T Series (recently reviewed) shortly.

Oups !

Thanks a lot. The retired list confirmed what I wanted to know: The "only" noise problem is seeks, which dont bother me. However, idle noise certainly do.

Thanks again

My previous post here is unrelevant now when the list is updated.

Thank you Mike C.

Samsung Spinpoint T166 501LJ (500 GB) and
Samsung Spinpoint T166 321KJ (320 GB)
Seem to be the quietest ones now.

If you have missed this please search for "501LJ" and "321KJ" in the SPCR forums.

Good stuff.

I have drives suspended so that could be why they are quiet even on seek.

I have a Seagate 400GB .10 and I can't hear it. I could barely hear my Raptor on seeks. Barely.