160GB 7200.7 - a quiet drive or not?

blackpudding · Post by **blackpudding** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 9:06 am

Well after a few false starts the pc I'm building for my living room is getting ever quieter - 7V panaflows, a thermalright SK7 and a passive cooler for the graphics card have all done thier jobs - a godawful PWM 4 fan bay has not (fans buzz like mad unlike the 7V mod).

Now the problem is the HD sounds like a hoover! I'm considering the 160GB 7200.7 for the system as its going to be filled with music and films, but how quiet is it? I can't find the 'smart drive' case in the UK only the inferior 'silent drive' so this isn't an option (duties + delivery from overseas make these dearer than the hard drive!).

Any ideas welcome but especially those from anyone who's experienced this drive first hand

Regards
BP

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 2:29 pm

my 80gig single platter 7200.7 is silent, i doubt the 2platter can be that much louder. ive suspeneded mine with good effects

aphonos · Post by **aphonos** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 8:01 pm

See Dru's Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 HDD Review in the Storage section of the main site.

The extra platter in the 160GB will add a (little) bit of noise, as all double-platter drives are noisier than single-platter.

blackpudding · Post by **blackpudding** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 12:49 am

Thanks for that, I'm nearly convinced but I'd love to hear one before commiting - I really want the 160GB Samsung but here in the UK its apparently unobtainable (?) Seagate IV's can be had but they are way too small for my needs and the last thing I want is a case full of 40/80GB's humming away:(

Regards
BP

Spoonfed · Post by **Spoonfed** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 1:12 am

Blackpudding.

If you can obtain 2 80gb barra IV's i think you will find even with two they are very quiet.

elitezoid · Post by **elitezoid** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 1:14 am

Just saw a review of the 7200.7, check it out:

http://www.storagereview.com

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 8:38 am

/me reads

Phrozenpenguin · Post by **Phrozenpenguin** » Sun Jun 29, 2003 7:52 am

You can get the 160gb samsung for £105 from www.savastore.co.uk in the UK

Im in the same dilemma as you ( i think)

Samsung drive, cheaper than seagate and slower, and not serial ata with cool cables. But cheaper and quieter (but by how much?)

Seagate drive - more expensive, but much faster and full of serial ata goodness. But louder?

Hmm, its a hard decision.

blackpudding · Post by **blackpudding** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 5:22 am

I got the Samsung in the end, its whisper quiet and much faster than my 2 month old Maxtor 9 80GB - easily fast enough for the HTPC duties I got it for, and to repeat myself, very, very quiet (quieter than a 7V evercool case fan!). The 3 year guarantee isn't to be sniffed at either

Regards
BP

chiahaochang · Post by **chiahaochang** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 12:31 pm

I've got a 160GB 7200.7 STA and it's pretty quiet. It's only marginally louder than the BIV I had. Louder seek noise, they are occassionally audible, while with the BIV I'd never hear seek noise. Both were suspended in the same case lined with sound damping materials.

Siili · Post by **Siili** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 2:23 pm

Thinking about getting the samsung, but it seems there aren't many of those quieter 80G/platter as 120G versions, so might have to go with 160G version. What I'm wondering is that is it possible to get the full use of that space with windows 98SE? Read somewhere about this 137G limit (24bit LBA), that could be exceeded with certain SPs in win2000 and XP, but there was no mention of 98. Has anyone tried 98 with big drives? Also, I have epox 8kha+ mobo, does anyone know if it's bios supports 48bit LBA? couldn't find anything with google, and epox site only has release notes for the last bios update.

blackpudding · Post by **blackpudding** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 6:28 am

Hi,
in theory the maximum size of hard drive if you are using FAT32 is 2 Terabytes. In XP you need service pack 1 and my Soltek board needed a bios update (you may need to email epox). Not sure about Win 98 although it did have an LBA service pack once upon a time, but it might have been to support smaller drives than the Samsung?

I have read of some problems with older windows versions though:

"problems above 64 Gig: with a cluster size of 32k. Many programs under Windows 95 and 98 cannot access more than 2.1 million clusters on a drive."

Maybe time to upgrade to XP? No more blue screens (!) and mostly stable

Regards
BP

Spoonfed · Post by **Spoonfed** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 1:49 pm

Why not just run NTFS?

me is happy, sorced 3 60gb Barracuda V's

blackpudding · Post by **blackpudding** » Thu Jul 03, 2003 5:38 am

Why not just run NTFS?

I am doing and still needed sp1a on XP to recognise the full 160GB, but Siili can't as he's got win98 and NTFS isnt an option

Regards
BP

Spoonfed · Post by **Spoonfed** » Thu Jul 03, 2003 2:46 pm

What does XP recongnise no Service pack (which is what i run)

Recognoises 120gb NTFS no probs

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Thu Jul 03, 2003 11:57 pm

Spoonfed wrote:What does XP recongnise no Service pack (which is what i run)

Recognoises 120gb NTFS no probs

The limit for 28-bit LBA is 127 GB (as Windows will show it), or 137 GB (as HD manufacturers present it). So, the biggest drive for XP without any SPs is 120 GB, any bigger (next size is 160 GB) and You'll end up having only 127 GB.

Cheers,

Jan

jaimemitche · Post by **jaimemitche** » Fri Jul 04, 2003 2:15 pm

I just got a baracuda 7200.7 160gb sata drive and the seek noise is awful. Its very load in comparision to the cuda 4's I have. Is this not normal, does it have amm and is there anyways to set it to quiet seeks.

Thanks

Jaime

Captain Spaulding · Post by **Captain Spaulding** » Fri Jul 04, 2003 2:39 pm

I run XP Pro with no SP and it recognized my 2 120's striped together as 1 240 gig drive.

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Sat Jul 05, 2003 7:32 am

upgrade to xp or 2k man!
98=teh icky

Spoonfed · Post by **Spoonfed** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 1:44 pm

98 is horrible, i could never go back