SPCR

What the quietest 120or160GB harddrive (prefreable sATA)

This if for a SFF pc for UNI.
- So alot of the time it will be idle, but on. So id put up with a certain amount of access noise for a reduction in whine


Thanks to eveyone who proberbly ansererd this a thousand times!

Daniel

Also, im in the uk, so its ebuyer/scan/etc as newegg done deliver to the uk


Daniel

you really can't go past samsung spinpoint drives.
I don't think anyone will recommend anything different - unless you could find a solid state drive that size......but not SATA

Ok, fair enough, thanks.


Also, ive read thread on there being varous diffrent types, with diffrent motors?
- Does this matter, how can i tell which is which?


Daniel

Search the forums for that. IIRC the motors are Nidec and JVC, but I can't recall which one is the good one.

Edit: Hmm, this was just updated. May help you.

it seams the nidecs are the best.
- But the only way to tell is to look at the underside of the actualy HDD?
- Which is usless to me as im buying of the web!


Daniel

If price is no object, the quietest 120GB drive at this point is probably the 5400.2 Momentus. Of course, it's a 2.5", so this may just be me taking your question too literally.

Duckspeak wrote:If price is no object

Im afraid it is. I really can afford to spend much more that £55/60

Daniel

I like the new Western Digital drives, which all have Fluid Dynamic Bearings.

Are they better then the non-nidec spinpoints?
- As it seams not possable to tell which you geting if you order online.


Daniel

When I was looking for a new hard drive, I read that some of the new Western Digital drives were quiet, but some weren't. Maybe it was just a few batches that had issues, or they're being produced from different factories and as a result, there are quality differences. I personally like Seagate for the price/quietness (after rebate usually), but Samsungs are the quietest drives out there without going into lower rpms, old Seagate barracudas, or 2.5" notebook drives.

stromgald wrote:... but Samsungs are the quietest drives out there ...

OK, thanks.
- So there the best, even if end up with a non-nidec one

Daniel

Samsung drives are the quietest but do vibrate more than others. So you might want to bear that in mind.

I agree with IdontexistM8, there is an issue with spinpoint vibrations, but it's not too bad and it's easy to deal with, in your average SFF you probably won't notice.
If you get the spinpoints from http://www.kustompcs.co.uk, you can ask them to check them for the right motor. I've always got lucky though when I've bought them before from both scan and overclockers - always nidec

stromgald wrote:When I was looking for a new hard drive, I read that some of the new Western Digital drives were quiet, but some weren't. Maybe it was just a few batches that had issues, or they're being produced from different factories and as a result, there are quality differences. I personally like Seagate for the price/quietness (after rebate usually), but Samsungs are the quietest drives out there without going into lower rpms, old Seagate barracudas, or 2.5" notebook drives.

If you get WD drives made in 2005, they will have Fluid Dynamic Bearings. You can see the manufacturing date even on retail packages, which have a clear plastic packaging allows you to see the label on the drive without opening the package.

I have 2 WD drives that I bought directly from WD about 4-5 months ago and they are silent in my system unless I open the case and put my ear with inches of the drive during seeks.

Of course, I do have a superior mounting system:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=10450

m0002a wrote:Of course, I do have a superior mounting system:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=10450

Yeah, i saw that.

So the spinpoints greatly benifit from beeing isolated i guess.
- But all in all, what ever i get (samsung/wd/maxtor) will be at least as good as DiaMax+9?


Daniel

Well, huge delay, but about 2weeks ago i got a 200gb Sata spinpoint, from scan, with a nidec motor.
- Seams to work And its a lot quiter than the old maxtor.
- I'd like to compair it with the seagate barra5 thats in the server one day.
- But in the mean time, the loadest thing is now the Nexus NX3000 psu, which put its into perspective!!


Daniel

Since I'm on a similar situation I decided to post my question here instead of creating a new topic.

I want to buy a new 160GB HDD and I'm undecided between the Hitachi 7K250 160GB SATA (€81), the Hitachi T7K250 160GB SATA 3.0Gbps (€84), the Maxtor DiamondMax10 160GB SATA (€81) and the Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB SATA (€75).

I considered Samsung but they are just too expensive (€93 for the HD160JJ, for that price I could buy a 200GB.)

Performance is not that important since I'll be replacing a 2MB cache HDD
So, what do you say?

I'm leaning towards the WD Caviar.

Bump