I want to have one 40 GB disk and one 160GB disk.
Ideally both will have s-ata.
The rest of my system will be very fast, p4 2.8c,1024Mb memory.
So the performance should mach.

Here are my questions:

What 40GB barracuda drive should should i get for performace and low noise?

How silent is the 7200.7 160GB S-ATA?

Maby the differences between the differnet barracuda series noise-level wont make any difference in my system,
cause the p4 2.8c will need some cooling from a zalman 7000cu, so might just get all 7200.7, but does seagate make 7200.7 series in 40GB?

EDIT: I looked at seagates website and they make a 40GB 7200.7 IDE and a 160GB 7200.7 S-ATA drive.

So my question is how quiet the 7200.7 is and should I care, my system with the loud cooling needed for the p4 2.8c.

*gasp* "Should I care?"

Of course you should care about the noise.

Have you already seen Dru's Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 HDD Review from the main site? If not, it would be a good starting point to answer your question.

I don't have experience with the 160GB drive, but multiple drives will raise your noise table and multi-platter drives are louder than single platter drives. But we can't all get along with a single-platter 'Cuda or Samsung.

The other articles in the Storage section of the main site will have ideas on suspending, boxing, sandwiching, etc. the drive for further quieting.

I have a Zalman CNPS7000cu and my baracudda V is noisier than the fan, but not much, if I listen carefully I can here both. Especially vibrational noise is annoying

okay i will get the 40 GB and the 160 GB sata barracuda 7200.7 drives. I will make an article about the quiet system i'm building and tell you how the 7200.7 sounds among the other parts.

my 7200.7 80gig dont have idle whine most of the time
suspend it

Well, I have a 40Gb and 80Gb Barracuda IV, and a SATA 160GB 7200.7. The 80GB was in the same machine as the 7200.7 and the 7200.7 is a little noisier. However, the 7200.7 w/8Mb cache is so much faster than the IVs are.

Either way, I can only hear the 7200.7 when I'm really close to my machine (<2ft from the front bezel) and when the ambient room noise is extremely low (late at night).

I just got a Seagate 7200.7 120GB.

Firstly, its so much quieter than my older Maxtor D740X 40GB. I couldn't hear the video card fan behind the whining of that drive, and now the loudest thing I've got is the video card fan.

I've never had a Cuda IV or V, so I can't compare it to that, and I suspect that since I"m just starting out with this slien PC thing, my standards are lower than many of the other people on this list.

i think there pretty close, i dont see how (well hear ) how a IV can be significantly better. unless u talkin in f1/audiofile sence