Having been recently disgusted by the whine of my 80gb WD JB and even more disturbingly by the seek noise from my new 80gb 7200.7 SATA Barracuda, I've finally managed to track down a seller in Australia stocking the newish Spinpoint drives. And so the questions begin:

1) The spec sheets at Samsung list identical accoustic characteristics for all their Spinpoint series, which contradicts accepted logic which suggests bigger sized drives = more platters = more noise. Can anyone confirm or debunk the theory that the Samsung drives do not get noisier as capacity increases?

2) SATA or PATA? I saw in one recent review that the Parallel ATA version performed better than the Serial ATA. The cost as is irrelevent, as is buffer, as I gather that the 8mb version is decidedly faster. Performance is important, but silence is paramount. Having been burnt by the increased noise of the SATA 'cudas, I was wondering if anyone knows if the Samsung SATA drives are noisier than the PATA version. Surely there's no necessity for it to work that way.

Any other links or helpful advice anyone can add is greatly appreciated.

The SATA Spinpoints apparently don't exist, at least here in the US so I can't comment on them.

Of the PATA Spinpoints, the 8MB cache versions are the ones to get and there's (supposedly) 3 sizes. the 80GB, 120GB and 160GB versions.

These Spinpoints are 80GB/platter drives so the 80GB version is a single platter drive and the 120/160GB versions are 2 platter drives. So if you're after the quietest drive possible, the single platter 80GB drive would be the one to get, based on the hypothesis that a single platter drive is quieter than a multi-platter drive. And it is just a hypothesis since, to my knowledge, no one's ever tested the single platter vs. twin platter Spinpoints together.

The 80GB versions (SP0812N) don't appear to exist however, at least not in the US. The only ones you can find for sale in the US are the 120GB and 160GB versions. In most cases the 160GB drives are within $5-10 of the cost of the 120GB versions, and they're both 2-platter drives. So unless you have mobo/BIOS issues with over 137GB drive size, the drive to get would be the 160GB version. This is #SP1614N.

The SATA's (and the PATA's for that matter) have surfaced for the first time in this country over the last week. I've included the prices over here below which might serve as guide for when they start popping up on your side of the Pacific (AU$ is worth approximately 2/3 of a US$, so the first drive for example, would be around $90 US).

I'm itching for soe meaningful comparisons between the SATA and PATA. I've got a newish IC7 mobo which supports SATA RAID, so I'm tossing up between a pair of SATA's or one big 160Gb PATA. I've been soured on RAID after my first experiment with a pair of 'cuda SATA 7200.7's sounded like someone was slamming doors and breaking plates inside my PC. For anyone interested, the only head to head I could find is at http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/sam ... ndex2.html and marginally shows the PATA to be the better drive. Now to find a comparison for the 80Gb and 120Gb varieties. Decisions, decisions...

Australian prices, courtesy of www.computeralliance.com.au:

80GB Samsung 7200rpm ATA HDD
Model SP0802N $129

80GB Samsung 7200rpm 8M Serial ATA HDD
Model SP0812C $159

120GB Samsung 7200rpm ATA HDD
Model SP1203N $179

120GB Samsung 7200rpm 8M ATA HDD
Model SP1213N $189

120GB Samsung 7200rpm 8M Serial ATA HDD
Model SP1213C $199

160GB Samsung 7200rpm 8M ATA HDD
Model SP1614N $225

160GB Samsung 7200rpm 8M Serial ATA HDD
Model SP1614C $259

I would just like to say that I have a 160gig/8bm cache spinpoint and I have yet to hear it.

BTW, I'm about to buy one (120 Gb) and was wondering what are the differences between both version.

Knowing that its use will be to hold all my media and its main activity will be to stream mpeg2/divx/mp3 ... is there any point to take the 8Mb cache one ?

The SP1203N has 2MB cache, the SP1213N has 8MB cache.

For what you're doing the 2MB cache version will work just fine. If they're close to the same price I'd go with the 8MB version, otherwise don't bother.

I have a SP1614N (160GB 8MB regular ATA) and this is my first quiet drive. I am however not that impressed with the noise factor of the drive. First I mounted it on the case without any dampening and that was a mistake. Next I left it on some foam padding I had laying around and that solved most of the noise (mostly the chattering when seeking). Now I hear this high pitched whine that although not *that* loud, just not silent.

Compared to my old Maxtor (some cheap 5400rpm 40GB) the noise difference is not that great. Maybe it's because I'm more sensitive towards the high pitched whine vs. the rumble with the Maxtor. The only thing is if someone I know bought another Spinpoint or a Barracuda so I could compare with otherwise I would say the Spinpoint isn't really that silent.

One thing is the drive is fast compared to my 5400rpm Does Dtemp report it correct for this drive? (currently always hovering at 32C and touching the drive does seem to be roughly 30C vs a hot 40C)

I have an SP1614N 160GB and a Seagate 7200.7 80GB. The Samsung is definitely quieter. Both drives are fairly quiet (but not silent) when idling, but when the Seagate starts seeking it makes me reach for my fly swatter. It sounds just like a buzzing bee to my ears. The Samsung is a much lower frequency. It's still pretty loud without an enclosure, but nothing like the buzzing bee sound.

Note that both of these drives are suspended with gaskets in my 5" drive bays. This quiets them down a lot. Sitting in the SLK3700 drive gage they vibrate the case like a big tuning fork (despite the rubber grommets). Needless to say I would never go back to Western Digital or Maxtor. I now store those drives in Seagate Seashells for long term data archival.

If you can find the 80GB single platter drive Samsung, it will probably be quieter.

Another interesting data point re: resonating SLK3700 cases. It appears there are two categories of experience here: "tuning fork" (like I had) and apparent decoupling (as some others here have had). I wonder if Samsungs are prone to this resonance with the SLK3700 or whether other drives do the same. It seems, from other postings, that Seagate IV does not.

It just so happens that I picked up a Samsung 1-platter 40GB "slim" hdd today -- model SP0411N. It has slightly better noise specs than the SP1604NI reviewed (vs. the Hitachi 180GXP and Seagate B-IV 40G): 2.6 bel idle / 2.7 bel seek. The 1604N is rated 0.1 bel higher in both modes.

I can shed no light on why the 1-platter 80G models SP0802N, SP0812N, and SP0812C all have the same noise rating as the 1604N. That the 2-platter 120G models are the same is expected.

I am actually getting delivery of some SP0802N in the next couple of days and will comment on them shortly. In the meanwhile, I did a quick check on idle noise among the 40G and 160G Samsungs and the B-IV 40G. (new Samsung 40G HDD unformatted)

The 160G Samsung is definitely the loudest. It could be 1~2 dBA louder than the 40G at very close range (1cm) according to this SLM. This is not the right way to measure, but there is too much ambient noise right now to be able to pick up on the <20 dBA/1m noise level of these drives.

To my ears, there is a somewhat different sonic character amongs all three drives. The 160G has more of a pink noise "shhhhh" aspect than the others. The Seagate is still a bit quieter than the 40G Samsung. The measured difference at 1cm is 1~2 dBA. Again, very untrustworthy. The noise from the Seagate has less "shhhhh" -- higher frequencies seem more damped; my guess is that this advantage is probably lost once the drives are enclosed in a case.

All three are pretty quiet, and judging from my "buzzing loose on counter" test, have similarly low vibration.

I have never trusted the spec sheets from any manufacturer. It is not that t heyare wrong but the acoustic weighting given to the different frequencies in creating the levels they quote are qyuite likely to be different tothe "annoyance factor".

I used to collect and tabulate these figures to compare them. It became clear that a lot of the figures were lisleading. If I were you I would not get too worried about these figures and Samsung's inability to provide them as I figure they do not matter a huge amount.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Then you should be comparing with the 5400rpm spinpoints.. I have a number of these in both 120gb and 160gb capacities. It's going to be very difficult for a 7200rpm drive to "beat" a 5400rpm one in noise level. If you want ultimate quiet-- even over performance-- then you really need to seek out the 5400rpm versions.

However, I think the 5400rpm spinpoints are a bit harder to find on the market now-- hasn't 90% of the IDE market migrated to 7200rpm as the "new baseline"?

So is that check in the mail yet?

So I just took a quick listen to five Samsung SP-0802N HDDs. These are single platter 80G Samsung drives. Compared them at idle to the other ones in my previous post:

I can't decide whether it is quieter than the Seagate Barracuda IV 40G 1-platter or not. The latter has an overall "darker" signature -- ie, the frequency balance is slightly lower in pitch, but the lower frequency noise appears to be louder than in the Samsung. This one (average of all 5) does have a bit lower vibration, for sure. It might be quieter... but I'd need a 0 dBA anechoic chamber and automated frequency spectrum analysis to be sure.

It is quieter than all the other Samsungs. Including the slim 40G. Will report on seek noise after I get these things going.

No real review coming any time soon, so this will have to do for now. A fat check in the mail could change things.