I thought that buying a Silentdrive would help 
Unfortunately it didn't get rid of enough noise, and the thought of making it any hotter frightened me, so I whipped it out of there in about five minutes.So I began scouring hdd manufacturers datasheets, trying to find a drive that
1) had 80gb capacity
2) was as quiet as possible
3) had the lowest possible heat dissipation (I still hoped to be able to find a use for this Silentdrive)
What I came up with was the Maxtor Diamondmax 16 4R080L0.
This is an 80Gb, single-platter model, turning at just 5,400RPM.
The 4R080L0 model features fluid dynamic bearings, as opposed to the 4R080J0 with ball bearings.
According to datasheets, the Diamondmax 16 range consume about 5.5Watt when idle, with the fluid bearing models outputting 2.5Bels when idle and 3.6 when seeking. Hopefully this single platter model would do a little better than that.
When I finally received this drive, I found that it was indeed very quiet when idle. In fact it cannot be heard above the fan of my QuietPC 300W Power Supply at minimum speed.
I was however, a little disturbed by the seek noise, which was clearly audible, though much quieter than my old IBM drive. Fortunately, I discovered that no "seeks" are audible when playing back a Divx or running a PTP file transfer program overnight. The drive is only audible when loading programs or copying large files.
The metal chassis of the drive never really feels warm to the touch, but the controller chip isn't something you like to leave your finger on for long periods. In the end though, there was no point mounting it in the Silentdrive when the only noise source I can now hear is my "QuietPC" power supply (when the central heating system isn't running!).
I also think my whole reasoning that a single-platter model would better tolerate living in a Silentdrive was flawed. Yes, this may have reduced the heat build-up, but the super-high areal density also must make for very fine tolerances, one hard drive you certainly want to treat with kid gloves, no?
And finally, to performance. How much did I loose by dropping back to 5,400 RPM? A couple of runs of SiSoft Sandra in fact showed that this drive was a good bit faster than the IBM Deskstar!
Unfortunately the Deskstar joined the great IBM retirement home in the sky shortly after this point, so I am unable to provide any figures.
So why not just get a Barracuda w/Sea Shield?
Er dunno, good question.
Think I'll get myself one of those too so I'll have something to compare with!
