Seagate 7200.8, Samsung Spinpoint or Maxtor DM10?

one80 · Post by **one80** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 5:19 pm

Hi,

I'm looking to upgrade my hard drive and want something quiet. I currently have a Western Digital WD1600 (IDE) which is really pretty noisy. When it's reading data I can hear it from a different room, and at idle it's got a very noticeable "whoosing" sound. I know that any of the hard drives I've listed are going to be better than my WD, and I have searched the forums here but seem to get so many mixed opinions on each of them that I'm hoping to hear from someone that's personally used/tested at least two of them. Thanks,

Charlie

jldet5 · Post by **jldet5** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 8:11 pm

one80 wrote:Hi,

I'm looking to upgrade my hard drive and want something quiet. I currently have a Western Digital WD1600 (IDE) which is really pretty noisy. When it's reading data I can hear it from a different room, and at idle it's got a very noticeable "whoosing" sound. I know that any of the hard drives I've listed are going to be better than my WD, and I have searched the forums here but seem to get so many mixed opinions on each of them that I'm hoping to hear from someone that's personally used/tested at least two of them. Thanks,

Charlie

I tested a 7200.7, spinpoint, WD, Hitachi, and DM10. All went back except the DM10. Priorities were lack of vibration, idle noise, seek noise, and could the pitch of the idle noise be silenced with a SmartDrive.

I went with the DM10 and for me it wasn't a close call.

Longbow · Post by **Longbow** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 8:30 pm

WD really noisy

Seagate quiet but slow

Samsung quiet and ok performance

DM10 is the choice, quiet (can be quieter) and fast, very very quiet at AAM 192, still fast.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 12:20 am

Longbow wrote:WD really noisy

Seagate quiet but slow

Samsung quiet and ok performance

DM10 is the choice, quiet (can be quieter) and fast, very very quiet at AAM 192, still fast.

The Western Digital Caviar hard drives manufactured this year are actually very quiet. Some people claim that they are quieter than the Samsung spinpoints. Being an owner of one, I'm not surprised.

jldet5 · Post by **jldet5** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 1:19 pm

Shining Arcanine wrote:
Longbow wrote:WD really noisy

Seagate quiet but slow

Samsung quiet and ok performance

DM10 is the choice, quiet (can be quieter) and fast, very very quiet at AAM 192, still fast.
The Western Digital Caviar hard drives manufactured this year are actually very quiet. Some people claim that they are quieter than the Samsung spinpoints. Being an owner of one, I'm not surprised.

I didn't have the DM10 and WD side by side but while the WD was as quiet I recall that the pitch was higher. The SmartDrive was not able to quiet this drive as well as the DM10. But the new WDs (160G version tested) are quiet if the pitch of the idle whine does not bother you.

swiharta · Post by **swiharta** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 1:46 pm

whine? I thought the whole fuss about them was because the whine is now gone. Anyone with a 2005 manufactured WD with a whine?

Kwiet · Post by **Kwiet** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 2:32 pm

I have a Seagate 7200.8 80GB SATA drive and Samsung Spinpoint 160GB drive. The Seagate sits in a Zalman heat pipe cooler with rubber plugs to isolate the drive. The Samsung is bolted into a 3.5" bay. Here is what I have noticed running the two drives.

Seagate--it is slightly faster, runs 1C hotter and is a little noisier
Samsung-- slightly slower, runs 1C cooler and is very quiet

The Seagate sits in the top 5.25" drive bay and the Samsung sits in the lower position 3.5" bay so I think the higher hotter position has something to do with the temp difference. This explains why I used the cooler/isolater on the Seagate instead of the Samsung.

The Seagate is my XP MCE 2005 drive with the Samsung for storage of TV shows, movies etc. My reasoning for the Seagate is I have never blown one up (nuked IBM, Maxtor and WD) it has a 5 year warranty. The Samsung is a drive I have never used before but has a 3 year warranty. Personally, I have not tried the "newest" drives but the 2003 WD 80GB drive in my son's computer is not too loud.

jldet5 · Post by **jldet5** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 2:37 pm

swiharta wrote:whine? I thought the whole fuss about them was because the whine is now gone. Anyone with a 2005 manufactured WD with a whine?

All HDs make some noise / whine. Its just at what pitch and Db.

one80 · Post by **one80** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:01 pm

Thanks for the replies, and I've decided to give the Maxtor DM10 a go. I'll let you know what I think when it arrives.

Sooty · Post by **Sooty** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:14 am

Seek noise tests, PC-Pro magazine, May 2005 issue.

Samsung Spinpoint P80 - 120GB- 28.1dBA
"A quiet disk with average performance. 160GB version is good value, though."
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 - 200GB - 28.8dBA
"Excellent value for money, incredibly quiet and a fine performer too."
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 - 400GB - 29.2dBA
"Almost as quick as the Raptor, but with a massive capacity and less than half the price per GB."
Western Digital Caviar SE - 200GB - 31.6dBA
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 - 160GB - 31.7dBA

Western Digital Raptor - 74GB - 33.2dBA
ExcelStor Ganymede J680S - 80GB - 33.8dBA
Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 - 400GB - 34.5dBA

There are super quiet versions of the 7200.7's out there, if you can I.D. them, but it looks like PC Pro got the not so quiet version. As far as I'm concerned, Seagate are in a different league when it comes to reliability record, with Maxtor near the bottom of the league.

HellDiver · Post by **HellDiver** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 11:32 am

Idle noise from my 36Gb Raptor is actually quieter than my 120Gb Samsung FDB drive. It's really luck of the draw.

tabbal · Post by **tabbal** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 12:31 pm

Sooty wrote: There are super quiet versions of the 7200.7's out there, if you can I.D. them, but it looks like PC Pro got the not so quiet version. As far as I'm concerned, Seagate are in a different league when it comes to reliability record, with Maxtor near the bottom of the league.

That is exactly how I feel.... I wouldn't touch a Maxtor if it were half the price of a Seagate...
HOT/LOUD/ can be Unreliable!

jldet5 · Post by **jldet5** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 5:44 am

tabbal wrote:
Sooty wrote: There are super quiet versions of the 7200.7's out there, if you can I.D. them, but it looks like PC Pro got the not so quiet version. As far as I'm concerned, Seagate are in a different league when it comes to reliability record, with Maxtor near the bottom of the league.
That is exactly how I feel.... I wouldn't touch a Maxtor if it were half the price of a Seagate...
HOT/LOUD/ can be Unreliable!

My new 160G SATA DM10 replaced a Seagate Barracuda V 120G PATA inside a SmartDrive. The DM10 runs cooler than the V by about 5 to 10 degrees. The DM10 idle noise is also quieter inside the SmartDrive.

The 7200.7 SATAS (and I assume 7200.8 ) are just not in the quiet range.

The DM10 reliability has probably not been proven yet but I'm betting I'll be buying some new awesome drive a few years from now way before the DM10 even thinks about quiting.

one80 · Post by **one80** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 11:38 pm

Well I've got my DM10 setup with AAM now, and I'm really impressed. Quiet idle and seeks now, and such a huge difference compared to my old WD. I could probably even sleep with this one on now.

As far as reliability goes, I don't see it being an issue. Knowing how I like to change hardware I imagine I too will probably replace this drive within the next few years, probably even before the warranty runs out.

jldet5 · Post by **jldet5** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 1:05 pm

one80 wrote:Well I've got my DM10 setup with AAM now, and I'm really impressed. Quiet idle and seeks now, and such a huge difference compared to my old WD. I could probably even sleep with this one on now.

As far as reliability goes, I don't see it being an issue. Knowing how I like to change hardware I imagine I too will probably replace this drive within the next few years, probably even before the warranty runs out.

Glad to hear you like it! Its pretty darn fast too. I think you'll start to notice that too if your using a defragger on a regular basis. I have Diskeeper 8.0 set on screen saver mode and it keeps it pretty cleaned up.

Seagate 7200.8, Samsung Spinpoint or Maxtor DM10?

Seagate 7200.8, Samsung Spinpoint or Maxtor DM10?

Re: Seagate 7200.8, Samsung Spinpoint or Maxtor DM10?