After modding my PC over the past few weeks, it's starting to get really quiet.

Unfortunately I now realise that my previously ultra-sexy Western Digital Caviar SE with 8MB buffer is driving me mad!

I've tested my system on standby which powers down the HD while leaving the fans running - and it's so much quieter.

I only bought the drive last november but now I want to replace it. It's not so much the access noise that bothers me - it's the whine and vibration - it kind of reminds me of a refrigerator.

I'm a bit worried about taking a step-down in performance, especially as I work form home and use my system for video editing.

It seems like the best choice would be a Barracuda 7200.7 or an IBM 180GXP.

I only really need 80GB, though I've been looking at bigger capacities simply for the 8MB buffer.

I've already spent a lot on making my system quieter, so I want to make a good choice if I'm replacing my Hard Drive.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Hey Mythmaker,

Have you tried simply decoupling the WD drives. I know they are loud, but I've had great success decoupling WD drives. They're still not silent, but it helps a great deal.

You could buy a No-Vibes kit, or if you want a DIY solution, go down to Wal-Mart and buy some elastic used to make dresses or underwear or whatever. These work great for suspension. You can also try to simply place the drive on some foam at the bottom of your case, I've done this with excellent results to a pair of IBM drives.

Remember as soon as you try these solutions your drive will get hotter, so just get a Panaflo L1A at 5v in front of the drives giving them a bit of a breeze and monitor the temps.

I had to get rid of my WD1200BB drive. There was no way to quiet the damn thing! The biggest culprit is the bearing whine when the drive spins up to operating speed. It just cuts into your skull!
I replaced the WD with a Maxtor DM+9 120GB drive and switched into quiet mode from Performance mode. Now my noisiest component is my panaflo 80mm L1A at 12V
The vicious circle continues!

I have a WD800JB HD with the same whine problem. I'm trying a smartdrive 2002 as a solution (should be here in about a week). I know it seems kind of crazy to spend almost 70bucks on quieting a HD when I could buy a new quieter one and sell the WD. But I figure the smart drive will always help with what ever disks I buy in the future (cooling as well), plus I don't have to migrate my system to yet another HD!

Good luck with whatever you deceide to do,
Fingle

I actually have my hard drive in a Coolermaster Cooldrive 3.

That is supposed to reduce noise - but as I made my PC quieter I noticed that the fan inside the Cooldrive was actually making a lot of noise. So I've now disconnected the fan, but left the HD in the Cooldrive (it's like a heatsink so it should keep cool).

I'm not sure if it's actually noisier in the Cooldrive - it was such a pain to put together that I haven't bothered testing it outside of the enclosure.

ive replaced my wd with a dm9 maxtor, no whine but sounds like a fan. so its not bad
my seagate 7200.7 has no idle whine most of the time, and its decoupled.