SPCR

Is the Samsung (the old one not the Samsung branded) HD204UI 2TB still the best rated HD?

If not, what other hard drive should I look for that is ~2TB?

The WD Green series received as good a rating in the review. I've been happy with my EARS Green. Buying WD would be easier as you would not have to hunt for just the right kind of unit.

Yet to see reviews on the upcoming WD Reds, but those are geared towards NAS use.

PS. No acoustic data, but performance and power consumption figures, plus analysis of what the Red is and what it does: http://www.storagereview.com/western_di ... w_wd30efrx. In short: a high-performance, low-power drive with good tweaks towards home server/NAS use.

The review linked to by Das_Saunamies shows that the noise level of the Samsung is 13/15 dBA@1m. These Western Digital Greens are more quiet:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1127-page4.html

Also, they vibrate less than the Samsung.

Nice find kuzzia, I completely forgot about that one!

Based on that review, I'd say Green is the leader, not the Samsung. No contest.

Did you guys have the same head park sound/issue like others wrote:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=63051
viewtopic.php?p=471312

My load/unload cycle count for the WD10EARS-00Y5B1 I have, if the hex-dec conversion is correct, is 0000013B7F = 80,767. In two years or so, working as a storage/media drive. I went to bother the drive just to see the counter rise, it's accurate.

Drives can take hundreds of thousands of these. Non-issue mechanically. Has not been a noise issue either.

Das_Saunamies wrote:My load/unload cycle count for the WD10EARS-00Y5B1 I have, if the hex-dec conversion is correct, is 0000013B7F = 80,767. In two years or so, working as a storage/media drive. I went to bother the drive just to see the counter rise, it's accurate.

Drives can take hundreds of thousands of these. Non-issue mechanically. Has not been a noise issue either.

I guess you meant 80767 (do you use "," as thousand separators in Finland?).
That comforts me. I thought that my 8800 cycle count for my hd503hi in almost 3 years was exaggerated.

I used the English formatting, i.e. "," and ".". For Finnish it's " " (space) and ",": 999 999,999.