Now that I'm happy with my quiet PC, I am now trying to silence my extremely noisy DirecTV DVR. The hard drive is always active because there's a diagnostic program running 24/7. So I need an external eSata drive to use instead of the internal drive. This external eSata drive will disable the noisy internal drive.

What would you recommend? Should I buy an eSata external drive or an internal one with an enclosure? Which models are recommended?

Thanks in advance.

I think I'm going to go with a Caviar Green drive in some kind of silent enclosure... Still looking for a silent enclosure, though.

I don't know how quiet you need, but I have been very happy with the sound levels of the newest generation green drives. For enclosures I've been happily using the Antec MX-1 for a good number of years.

It looks good, but it's kind of expensive. I was thinking of getting an enclosure without a fan, but now that I think about it, the DVR will be on 24/7 so the enclosure I get might benefit from a fan.

I bought a Rosewill enclosure for 3.5" hard drives, but after installing a Seagate Barracuda 320GB drive, I was disappointed with the loud noise emanating from it. I think I"m going to install a 2.5" hard drive in the enclosure and suspend it with cords.

Is the loud noise the fan? I bought a Rosewill enclosure w/ 80mm fan and the fan noise reminds me of a jet engine (I exaggerate, but it is loud).

I was thinking of splicing in a resistor to undervolt the fan but got busy at work and after a few months the fan degraded and started making an awful grinding noise. I'm going back to the MX-1 as soon as I have some free time.

Nah... it was just the hard drive. Loud hard drive. THe fan is loud but I never even considered leaving it on.

I installed a Caviar Green and didn't screw it to the enclosure. I just left it in place so it could vibrate freely. Now I'm very happy with the drive in the enclosure. It's very quiet.