I just got a WD25EZEX (a 2.5TB), and it is pretty much silent. There is no difference with a WD20EADS I also own.

With most of those issues the only secure answer is: you have to try it. Being a BIOS limitation I'd say the drive will be seen as a single 1 TB drive. But I am speculating.

Is this one of those new drives that wont work in "old" motherboard with BIOS?.

So, for a new sandy bridge mobo with 6GB sata, what would you get today?.

-Crucial M4?
-Vertex 3?
-Intel 510?.

Or maybe still a 3 GB sata drive, like the intel 320?. On tests it seems the vertex 3 ( or the m4?) is the way to go. What are the opinions now at the end of june, 2011?.

I have a WD20eads that is silent. The ears variant is getting cheaper and cheaper; those are good drives. The wd20ears is like 85 euro now.

I have a 20EADS as main drive and it is less noisy and faster than my old 500GB samsung (which was very good). Problem is they are being discontinued and (if you find them) they are more expensive than the ears models, likely because the eads dont have the silly 4kb formatting problem.

I just got a new WD20EADS. This thing is heavy as a brick, but pretty much silent. A good choice. The EARS should be (mechanically) the same.

Forgive me!. I didnt mean to offend your EARS drive

I have one wd20eads running ubuntu 10.04. Thre is no reason (other than getting annoyed by partitioning problems) to purchase an ears model at this time. My eads does not park the heads so much: 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 428 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age A...

9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 371 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 9 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Alway...

It is really curious. I only get a few head parks every day with my wd20eads. Using ubuntu 10.04 (I get confused with the animal names ). How can this be so variable?.

I just got a wd20eads and use it with ubuntu. My load count does not go up as much as described: 2 in 24h. Maybe people have a problematic kernel or something?. Other than that, this thing is heavy as a brick, but as silent as my old samsung 501lj. A meter away is not audible over the light woooosh ...

Regardless of the backing up, the tone of this (and other) discussions here is too harsh. Too many people being right all the time.

I agree. Most of these questions posted are reasonable, and the tone of some responses is too harsh. Maybe we have too many adolescents here that know so much better than the old guys!

I have a IP35 pro working 24/7 with 2 GB of kingston memory working more than one year perfectly. I hope I got a good sample

I have one suspended in an Antec solo. Great drive.

I have a bolted ninja on my IP35 pro. Fanless (E6750), no problems.

Yep, you must optimize to get to 6V. Still with BIOS 14 here, no reason to change. Never tried a PWM fan, don't have one. Sorry!. Just a few questions before I build my rig with the IP35 Pro I have just sitting and waiting. In order to achieve the lower limit of 6V on the Sys/Aux fans, is it necessa...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... count=1486

Right. The Optimize button in the uGuru software (I've tried only winXP, not Vista) lowers the minimum voltage from 8 (the default BIOS minimum) to 6, and then stores it in the BIOS, so it'll work even in linux, without the uGuru soft running. The BIOS alone wont let you do that. And This works in 1...

I just want to clarify a couple points here: the IP35 pro is THE MOBO from a silencer point of view: 1 4pin CPU fan socket 1 3pin SYS fan socket 4 3pin AUX fan sockets I dont use the 4pin one. As described above, the others are regulable from 8 to 12 V in the bios, and you can link them to CPU, PWM ...

I am a big fan of the quiet Samsung HD501LJ 500GB hard drives. None of the four units that I have used have ever exceeded 35 degrees even without active cooling. If you search for reviews from Anandtech and elsewhere you will find that these drives have superior energy efficiency and run cooler tha...

You can go just with the back fan. I have a noctua at 600-700 rpms maintaining cool a solo. The only use for slow undervolted front fans would be to cool the hard drive; I have one 500GB samsung suspended down there right now running at 32ºC with only the air pulled from the back fans (I closed wit...

What about an esata drive with on-off switch?

I agree...open a hole with a tin snip and put a good 80x25mm fan outside the cage. I have a 15 mm fan (from a VGA cooler) and it is a noisy beast. Dont try those. Bad idea.

...and how much silence you've gained?

I tried linux (red hat) years ago, before internet, and I could not make it work. After the vista fiasco, I gave Ubuntu a new try. Boy, things have changed for the better!. Free, amazing GUI (compiz is called) and with an enormous community in their forum that help you when the search gives you noth...

It is well known that modern intel cpus don't give real temps. Maybe they don't want us to know. I like the case a lot, but I know it is very expensive. The question is: is it worth it?. Is it so much silent that a solo with a ninja and a good rear 120 mm-600 rpm fan, a suspended hard drive and fanl...

I have a scythe 1600 rpm and it is too loud. The 800 should be enough if you have a decent CPU heatsink.

My sparkle 8800gt coolpipe does that too; running atitools buzzes up-and-down annoyingly.