help find sweet spot in noise to capacity ratio newHD

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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Juliusz
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Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:58 am
Location: Poland, Warsaw

help find sweet spot in noise to capacity ratio newHD

Post by Juliusz » Tue Nov 15, 2005 5:42 am

I want to buy a new drive, my old WD800JB is the loudest thing in my pc, previous i've samsung SP1614C(nidec) and i've good opinion about samsung hd (cool and silent). capacity is not the main thing which i guide with, but i want to find sweet spot in. my pc is mostly running 24/7 and so WD RE drives are interesting because of MTBF but i worry about the noise of wd drives... which drives you recommend to me with that needs... thanks for reply!

kesv
Posts: 300
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2003 8:44 am

Re: help find sweet spot in noise to capacity ratio newHD

Post by kesv » Tue Nov 15, 2005 7:20 am

Juliusz wrote:WD RE drives are interesting because of MTBF
WD has stated that the RE (raid edition) drives are not suitable for desktop use. This is apparently because the RE drives have a more simplistic internal error correction algorithm so they might return corrupted data. This works in RAID setups where the controller should checksum the data and notice and correct the error before giving it to the user. Come to think of it, the drive might also work with Sun's just introduced ZFS that does checksumming on the filesystem level too.

Juliusz
Posts: 47
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:58 am
Location: Poland, Warsaw

Post by Juliusz » Tue Nov 15, 2005 12:23 pm

so if i wan't to buy RE then i must go with min 2 drives set,yes?
Anybody have their opinion about sweet spot between capacity and noise?

Bengt
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Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:53 am

Post by Bengt » Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:22 pm

That WD800 isn´t silent at all. Have listened to it. Right now i'm using a WD300 in a nexus drive-a-way. It's lying on foam in the bottom front of my tower. Have no fan there but a nexus case fan att 680rpm (my only fan) makes a little airflow over the drive. Idles at 43 and max about 48 when downloading, extracting files and copying at the same time. Stress test over night maxed out at 52 so I'm convinced the temp is no problem. Reduced idle whine pretty much but since my computer is so silent I can still hear it in nights when no car is outside, my neighbours are sleeping and the toilet door (ventilation) is closed. It's possible but extremely hard to hear seek noise under these circumstances. Very easy install and you can use it with future drives so I don't think it's expensive. (Guess it's about $50 in the US(?)). I highly recommend a drive enclosure!

As for what drive to buy, I've heard to few to give personal recommendations. But it seems most peoble recommend samsung. Consider a 2,5" (compatible with drive-a-way) if you have the money and don't need much storage space.

Good luck!

Bengt
Posts: 24
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:53 am

Post by Bengt » Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:25 pm

BTW, that case fan is in the rear just under my fanless Silvestone PSU.

mellon
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Location: Helsinki, Finland

Post by mellon » Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:45 pm

I recently bought a 250GB SATA Samsung P120 and I've been totally happy about it. Inaudible idle and low seek noise (suspended) with nice performance, even with "only" a SATA1 controller.

Juliusz
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Location: Poland, Warsaw

Post by Juliusz » Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:57 pm

i'm very happy with this replies :D , really thanks, but i don't have sataII controller, my Southbridge is VIA VT8237, is there will be problems using sataII drives, i read somewhere that WD sataII drives run flawlessly in both of sata mode I and II

teknerd
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Post by teknerd » Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:07 pm

well focusing on the sweet spot for price/size, i'd say Western Digital, especially over at Monarch Computer (monarchcomputer.com).
They are currently carrying 200GB, 250GB, and 320GB Caviar SE drives for less the $.50 a gig.

Juliusz
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Location: Poland, Warsaw

Post by Juliusz » Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:23 pm

ok thanks teknerd :wink: But the problem is capacity to noise, you know, more capacity-more platters-more noise etc... Every HD producer have own cut noise systems in their drives and i'm very confused... drives at the same capacity difference only in platters number, so more platters-more noise, am i wrong? :lol:

kesv
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Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2003 8:44 am

Post by kesv » Tue Nov 15, 2005 3:49 pm

Juliusz wrote:so if i wan't to buy RE then i must go with min 2 drives set,yes?
And use them in a real raid configuration, not raid-0. Preferably with a dedicated raid controller too.
Juliusz wrote: Anybody have their opinion about sweet spot between capacity and noise?
Try to get a drive with 2 platters max. That will mean the drive has less mass to keep moving and causes less vibration and noise. Most manufacturers should have a drive of 250GB capasity with just two platters available now. As it happens the same 200-250GB looks to be the sweetspot for price/GB right now.

Juliusz
Posts: 47
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:58 am
Location: Poland, Warsaw

Post by Juliusz » Tue Nov 15, 2005 4:27 pm

kesv, your posts are VERY useful to me. :D thanks :!:

Juliusz
Posts: 47
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:58 am
Location: Poland, Warsaw

Post by Juliusz » Sat Nov 19, 2005 6:21 am

so the samsung 80gb sataII is the quietest 3,5" drive now?

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