Quieter drives in future?

Empty17 · Post by **Empty17** » Wed May 07, 2003 9:27 am

I have to decide wether to buy a Seagate Barracuda IV 40GB before they're not available anymore, or wait. I have a brand new WD drive. My question is, are the newer drives going to be quieter drives? I hate giving up performance for quietness, but I want both, *lol*. So, in 6 months, a year, what will hard drives be like?

It's kind of amazing to me that computer manufacturers are not designing quiet parts to begin with. By now, quietness should have caught up to technology. It should be a main priority.
There are way too many questions about which fan, etc...They should be obvious by now.

silenx · Post by **silenx** » Wed May 07, 2003 10:14 am

Which newer drives are you referring to? The ones currently on the market or products due in the future? As far as performance goes, to improve hard drive performance, there's only two practical options: one, increase rpm and two, increase data density (there is the option of adding more platters, but that's a different story altogether). Increasing rpm yields warmer temperatures and also more noise generated. Obvious examples of this is the 10k and 15k SCSI drives. The Raptor is a pretty fast drive and actually quieter than the largest capacity WD 7200 rpm drives but they fall far short in terms of capacity.

Seagate and Samsung will continue to make drives quieter as they are actively targeting that market. The other manufacturers don't seem to have any focus at all in this segment, noticeably their lack of marketing or research in quieter drives. Using Serial ATA won't make any real meaningful difference in noise so it really comes down to how effectively a manufacturer designs a quiet motor and reduce noise from the actuator arm.

You mention quietness should have caught up to technology. But with increasing speeds, that's just one of the set backs. CPUs have only been getting hotter with increasing performance, the new Via chips are nothing more than older architectures on new processes.

Katana Man · Post by **Katana Man** » Wed May 07, 2003 10:23 am

I bet a year from now you'll see only small changes in noise levels of hard drives. But the future will hold hard drives with no noise at all. Completely silent.
Read about solid state hard drives.

silenx · Post by **silenx** » Wed May 07, 2003 10:40 am

Hmm, aren't those the same type of technology used in flash memory drives? The ones others have been making quite a deal over the number of rewrites? Well, "In average daily use, the drive will last 127,000 years.", guess the number of rewrites isn't an issue. There's still quite a bit of time before the prices become more acceptable. Also, there are other technologies on the horizon, including protein based drives and optical 3d drives among others that might be commercialized in a matter of time.

Empty17 · Post by **Empty17** » Wed May 07, 2003 11:59 am

Thanks for the info.

I meant any drives in the next 6-12 months, that's all. I know speed and heat slow up quiet, but I still think they could have quieter fans, CD Drives, DVD drives, more widely available. For instance, Newegg.com is a pretty popular computer parts site, but they don't even carry low DBA fans. Anything under 21 DBA anyway.

I think quiet could be achieved if companies were willing to do it. I really don't think they're that interested in supplying us with quiet computer parts. Hard Drives may be hard to quiet down, but how many hard drive silencers are out there? Smart Drive, No vibes, a make your own, a couple others maybe, and how widely are these available? Heck, you can't even buy rubber grommets and fan isolators at most computer parts places.

silenx · Post by **silenx** » Wed May 07, 2003 12:14 pm

Well, Silent PCs, at this point in time, is a new, emerging field. It was where overclocking was back in '98; not every motherboard manufacturer had overclocking features back then, but now, even Intel is interested in having overclocking available on their boards.

Problem with CD and DVD drives is simply their high motor speeds. Try any old 4x CD drive and they'll tend to be much quieter than anything available today. Unfortunately, manufacturers are more interested in creating faster and higher numbers than noise and also, the optical pick-up heads that the chipset manufacturers are creating are only available for the higher speeds. It's just poor synchronization between the actual drive manufacturers and the ones creating the circuitry for the devices.

As for the 21 dBA you specifically mentioned, 21 dBA will do just fine for an overwhelming number of people out there. As others have mentioned in this forum in the past, this forum does have the highest concentration of silence freaks in the world but at this present time at least, we are still a minority.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Wed May 07, 2003 1:11 pm

Well one problem is there alot of overclockers that thing that a noise computer is cool. Infact ive heard people talk about selling their 9700pro to buy a gffx because it had that cool loud fan.
By the way newegg has a suggestion box thing on their site, and I bet if a bunch of us suggested carrying quiet components, like panaflo L1A's ect. then they probably would, and they would be alot cheaper from newegg than anywhere else I bet.

Empty17 · Post by **Empty17** » Wed May 07, 2003 2:07 pm

Gaminggod, I would suggest it to them. I already suggested they carry the Silent Drive 2002. Haven't heard anything from them on it. Strange thing is, they have a poll today on their site asking what people think if they carry automotive parts. Amazing! Iwould like them to carry some more computer parts first, *lol*.

Zhentar · Post by **Zhentar** » Wed May 07, 2003 3:54 pm

when you think about it, quiet operations has improved massively over the years. Noise wise many things are not that much quieter- but at an operation many times more powerful. This requires quiet design, though not to the level that we like

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Thu May 08, 2003 12:49 pm

well my seagate is very quiet, u really cant get much quieter, not idle at least. i was gonna make quiet pc bits as a business, but got fvcked by the system here in the UK

Ducky · Post by **Ducky** » Thu May 08, 2003 7:50 pm

Zhentar wrote:when you think about it, quiet operations has improved massively over the years. Noise wise many things are not that much quieter- but at an operation many times more powerful. This requires quiet design, though not to the level that we like

Actually, when I compare my P75 to my current PIII, my PIII was waaaaay quieter even before I did any semi-silent mods... it only went up in noise to be only slightly quieter once I plunked a Geforce 4 in there, in fact. (My 286 was still nosier, though my TRS-80 is truly silent, except when doing the tape recordings...)

So, yes, you're right that it's just us being picky, as computer components *have* been getting quieter over the years.