Can't stand SEAGATE BARRACUDA IV ANYMORE !!! IDLE WHINE!!!

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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fouster
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2004 10:01 am

Can't stand SEAGATE BARRACUDA IV ANYMORE !!! IDLE WHINE!!!

Post by fouster » Tue Jan 18, 2005 4:01 pm

Hi there this is my first post! :lol:
I'm a silent , not quiet!!, PC enthusiast for 3 years now .
Now I have 3 fans in my system.
2 120mm Revoltec at 7V near 700rpm
1 80mm PcPower&Cooling at 7V don't now rpm.
What I know is that I have enough aurflow to cool my computer and my
system is TOTALLY SILENT not taking the disks into consideration.
With the disks unplugged I can't listen to my system!!With my eyes closed,not my ears! , i can't tell if it is on or off.
Totally Silent I mean it!!!
The problem is with the disks.
I have 2 Seagate Barracudas IV 40GB and although the seek noise is very very quiet, the idle whine is a very irritating high pitched noise ,that is getting into my nerves.I tried using only one and the result was the same :(

I'm looking for a bigger H.disk now.What do you reccomend me to buy??
I'm conserned MOSTLY for the idle whine noise!!!!!!
A Samsung SP 160GB perhaps???
Thank you.

P.S Sorry for my english
P.S2 Sorry for the long post but it's my first one
:lol:

BOOGS
Posts: 45
Joined: Fri Jan 14, 2005 9:17 am

Post by BOOGS » Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:18 pm

Silent PCs are a bit freaky !

suddenly, the click sound on your mouse becomes a loud noise........

and then the keyboard is so loud, and oh my god, theres sound on that dvd too !

its never ending..............so yeah, try the spinpoint................its highly recommended as a quiet drive

try a max 10 if u want ultimate performance, and still a quiet drive

Project
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Post by Project » Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:23 pm

if your really desperate, try installing windows on a 4gb flash drive

Tyrdium
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Post by Tyrdium » Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:31 pm

Flash drives have a relatively limited number of read/write cycles before they die. I wouldn't suggest it as a main partition, especially if you're using swap space.

wim
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Location: canberra, australia

Post by wim » Tue Jan 18, 2005 7:19 pm

Barracuda IV 40G is probably the quietest 3.5" HD. iirc SP 160GB is louder (according to MikeC - haven't tried one myself). however swapping the two barracudas for ONE 160GB will for sure be quieter. not silent. maybe you should be looking into 2.5" HDs?

mathias
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Post by mathias » Tue Jan 18, 2005 7:32 pm

wim wrote:Barracuda IV 40G is probably the quietest 3.5" HD. iirc SP 160GB is louder (according to MikeC - haven't tried one myself).
That's not a fair comparison(not that you're inteding it to be), a one platter cuda to a two platter spinpoint, so it should be expected to be louder. Not that much of a point too replacing two 40 gig drives with one 80 gig drive though, too bad seagate isn't releasing any single 125 gig platter versions of the 7200.8.

My two platter cuda is actually louder than my two platter spinpoint, I'm wondering if I got an unusually loud one (I guess I should check where it's made).

Mr Hanky
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Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:21 pm

Post by Mr Hanky » Tue Jan 18, 2005 9:22 pm

Hi there, if you haven't already; I can't overestimate the effectiveness of suspended hard-drives. I have the kind where the drive is suspended between silicone rubber mounts. It goes into a five inch drive bay. You won't hear any whine from the motor. GOod Luck

tay
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Re: Can't stand SEAGATE BARRACUDA IV ANYMORE !!! IDLE WHINE

Post by tay » Tue Jan 18, 2005 10:05 pm

Can there be two BOOGS????????????
WHAT ARE THESE FORUMS COMING TO I SAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11ONE ONE
fouster wrote:Hi there this is my first post! :lol:
I'm a silent , not quiet!!, PC enthusiast for 3 years now .
Now I have 3 fans in my system.
2 120mm Revoltec at 7V near 700rpm
1 80mm PcPower&Cooling at 7V don't now rpm.
What I know is that I have enough aurflow to cool my computer and my
system is TOTALLY SILENT not taking the disks into consideration.
With the disks unplugged I can't listen to my system!!With my eyes closed,not my ears! , i can't tell if it is on or off.
Totally Silent I mean it!!!
The problem is with the disks.
I have 2 Seagate Barracudas IV 40GB and although the seek noise is very very quiet, the idle whine is a very irritating high pitched noise ,that is getting into my nerves.I tried using only one and the result was the same :(

I'm looking for a bigger H.disk now.What do you reccomend me to buy??
I'm conserned MOSTLY for the idle whine noise!!!!!!
A Samsung SP 160GB perhaps???
Thank you.

P.S Sorry for my english
P.S2 Sorry for the long post but it's my first one
:lol:

lenny
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Post by lenny » Tue Jan 18, 2005 10:33 pm

A quiet hard drive in a suspended Smart Drive enclosure? Don't think you can get any quieter than that for 3.5".

Alternatives : use network storage.

Flash disks for windows is a bad idea. Even the fastest only rates about 10 MB/s or so. And it's going to cost you $100 per GB, higher as you go above 4 GB.

RAM based storage (e.g. RocketDrive) will be totally silent, and way faster than hard drives. And cost more than the rest of your system combined...

Elixer
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Post by Elixer » Tue Jan 18, 2005 11:02 pm

Definately look into laptop hard drives. Many are as quiet as 16db which should be a very noticable drop from your current drive.

fouster
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2004 10:01 am

Post by fouster » Tue Jan 18, 2005 11:38 pm

II'm not sure of suspension , i would like something more professional ,no offence .
I'm not sure for 2.5HD , cause of their performance and their capacity .

I was thinking for maybe a Samsung SP 160(Still haven't decided,open to suggestions) , combined with a silent enclosure drive for instance the
SILENTMAXX. You can find it at www.silentmaxx.de .
Has anyone tested this??
I liked that you can put into both PATA and SATA drives and can support 10000rpm disks. You'll never know :D
And I'm not advertising,just telling my thoughts.

:wink:

Trip
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 2928
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Location: SC

Post by Trip » Wed Jan 19, 2005 12:12 am

Smart Drive 2002C is another. SiliconAcoustics and Endpcnoise both have them.

If you put some foam under enclosure, it will reduce vibration. Foam in your case would absorb noise too...

Uberapan
Posts: 43
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 8:30 am

Post by Uberapan » Wed Jan 19, 2005 6:22 am

fouster wrote:II'm not sure of suspension , i would like something more professional ,no offence .
I'm not sure for 2.5HD , cause of their performance and their capacity .

I was thinking for maybe a Samsung SP 160(Still haven't decided,open to suggestions) , combined with a silent enclosure drive for instance the
SILENTMAXX. You can find it at www.silentmaxx.de .
Has anyone tested this??
I liked that you can put into both PATA and SATA drives and can support 10000rpm disks. You'll never know :D
And I'm not advertising,just telling my thoughts.

:wink:
I have two silentmaxx HD enclosures and they are very, very good at reducing noise. Combine them with a quiet disk and I doubt you'll hear the idle whine at all. I am not very bothered by seek noise, but idle whine gets to me after a while and their enclosures helped a lot.

Putz
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Location: Ottawa, Canada
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Post by Putz » Wed Jan 19, 2005 6:41 am

I have two Seagate drives in my quietest system (which has only one fan at 7V; inaudible during the day but ever-so-slightly noticeable at night). I've noticed that neither drive (a 40GB IV and an 80GB .7) could be considered "loud" or "annoying" on its own, but when they are both running, they produce some kind of high-pitched interference sound that is very annoying. Soft-mounting/suspension reduced this effect significantly, though it is still present.

While these drives are undoubtedly the quietest drives I own* individually, a single NIDEC SpinPoint (even a two-platter one) beats them when they're together.

* I own the following drives as reference points:
- Seagate single-platter Barracuda IV
- Seagate single-platter Barracuda V
- Seagate single-platter Barracuda 7200.7
- Samsung two-platter SP80 (JVC)
- Samsung two-platter SP80 (NIDEC)
- Hitachi two-platter 7k250
- Maxtor two-platter DiamondMax 9
- Western Digital three-platter (according to website...) Caviar 80GB (with FDB)

lm
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Joined: Wed Dec 17, 2003 6:14 am
Location: Finland

Post by lm » Wed Jan 19, 2005 8:00 am

Filling the cases sides with dampening material has eliminated most of the high-pitched noise from my hard drives in both my computers. Oh and they are somewhat decoupled from the case by rubber mounts.

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