Maximize storage space at minimal sound cost

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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spiffy102
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Maximize storage space at minimal sound cost

Post by spiffy102 » Tue Nov 29, 2005 3:31 pm

I wanted to put 3 of the Seagate 500GB 16MB drives in RAID5, but after Mike's review - even in a P180, it might not be the wisest thing to gamble on.

WIth the large capacity (400GB) Samsung drives not available in the USA... Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to maximize storage space while keeping sound as low as reasonably possible?

Aris
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Post by Aris » Tue Nov 29, 2005 3:36 pm

you can fit 4x notebook drives in the space of 1 regular 3.5" hard drive.

the largest capacity you can get in a notebook drive right now is 120gb. seagate has a SATA 120gb momentus 5400.2. so you could have 4 hard drives, in the space that would normally fit only 1 regular drive, that are almost completely dead silent, and can hold up to 480gb of storage.

you did say maximum space at lowest noise. you never said anything about performance or if you had a budget :wink:

Seagate ST9120821AS

SebRad
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Post by SebRad » Tue Nov 29, 2005 4:29 pm

Hi, upon reading the title I had similar thoughts to Aris but seeing you proposition I've had a rethink. For that sort of quantity of storage my suggestion is in a file server on the end of 1Gbp cable as long as needed to be out of earshot. Unless you really need/want local drives I think for TB+ of data a file server is the best bet.
Other than that what you're suggesting sounds reasonable. What sort of level of quiet are you aiming for, what are your current fans/speeds like?
There is a lot of difference between inaudible in an office and inaudible in a quiet bedroom.
Seb

spiffy102
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Post by spiffy102 » Tue Nov 29, 2005 5:19 pm

Yeah I thought about notebook drives.

But I'm looking to get 800-1000GB of data. While I'm not in a "money-is-no-object" state of mind, I am willing to pay for quiet. (Notice I did not say silence)

I'd be blissfully happy with 3 400gb spinpoints. Not available now. Have to buy this year :(

Any other recommendations?

Aris
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Post by Aris » Tue Nov 29, 2005 5:36 pm

well if all you want is 800-1000gb then just get 4 of the samsung 250gb model drives. is their a specific reason you can only have 3 hard drives?

spiffy102
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Post by spiffy102 » Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:15 pm

Aris wrote:well if all you want is 800-1000gb then just get 4 of the samsung 250gb model drives. is their a specific reason you can only have 3 hard drives?
That is an option I have considered, and not entirely dismissed.

The beauty of 3 500GB's of course - is 1TB of storage (RAID5)... Using only 3 drives, which normally would be more quiet than 4...

With Samsung it may not necessarily be I guess.

It seems those Samsung drives are going for about $115. I could get 5 of them and hit 1TB, but again - 5 drives likely are to be more loud than 3 for sure? Ick that's a lot of drives.

Aris
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Post by Aris » Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:54 pm

250gb x 4drives = 1tb. not 5 drives. that would be 1.25tb

you could always put the drives in One of these which would make them virturally silent.

it would add 60 bucks per drive, but it would still be much less than using notebook drives.

spiffy102
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Post by spiffy102 » Tue Nov 29, 2005 7:05 pm

Aris wrote:250gb x 4drives = 1tb. not 5 drives. that would be 1.25tb
RAID 5. . . 1TB effective...
you could always put the drives in One of these which would make them virturally silent.

it would add 60 bucks per drive, but it would still be much less than using notebook drives.
I have toyed with the idea of getting the seagates and using the Silentmaxx enclosures... One of the very few enclosures that addresses heat effectively... Unfortunately that puts you up in the upper chamber, and with a dvd drive, doesn't really leave you any 5 1/4 slots.

Not trying to knock down everyone's ideas... I may end up doing one of the above. It's just tough. I want those 400gb Samsungs :)

theyangster
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Post by theyangster » Tue Nov 29, 2005 8:58 pm

spiffy102 wrote: I have toyed with the idea of getting the seagates and using the Silentmaxx enclosures... One of the very few enclosures that addresses heat effectively... Unfortunately that puts you up in the upper chamber, and with a dvd drive, doesn't really leave you any 5 1/4 slots.

Not trying to knock down everyone's ideas... I may end up doing one of the above. It's just tough. I want those 400gb Samsungs :)
you wouldn't necessarily need to put them in the 5 1/4 spots

you could try alleycats homebrew solution with gelpacs, though bluefront warns about moisture problems

http://users.bigpond.net.au/esc/public/enclosure/

stack them in various places?

Aris
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Post by Aris » Tue Nov 29, 2005 10:37 pm

theyangster wrote:
spiffy102 wrote: I have toyed with the idea of getting the seagates and using the Silentmaxx enclosures... One of the very few enclosures that addresses heat effectively... Unfortunately that puts you up in the upper chamber, and with a dvd drive, doesn't really leave you any 5 1/4 slots.

Not trying to knock down everyone's ideas... I may end up doing one of the above. It's just tough. I want those 400gb Samsungs :)
you wouldn't necessarily need to put them in the 5 1/4 spots

you could try alleycats homebrew solution with gelpacs, though bluefront warns about moisture problems

http://users.bigpond.net.au/esc/public/enclosure/

stack them in various places?
i dont know how comfortable i would be with even a SLIGHT possibility that those jelpacks cause moisture around the hard drive. and from what i read, its more than just a slight possibility. mikec was talkin to me and a few other guys about writing up a piece about using gelpacks like this, but scrapped the idea when he saw bluefronts warnings.

but you dont have to put them in 5.25" bays. you could stack em up on the bottom of the case, or string em all up on suspension wires under the 5.25" drive bays.

another possibility, get a NAS external enclosure for them. ive seen some small ones that hold 4 drives, its a small external box that would sit next to your pc. you could take it with you when you want, take it without your pc, or put it on a long cable and put it in the closet with some blankets around it.

-----------------------

eventually you are either going to have to wait for a new product to hit retail channels, or make a comprimise somewhere. you should catagorize what things are most important to you. noise, capacity, cost, performance, etc etc etc. then take your top 2 or 3, and scrap the rest.

Elixer
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Post by Elixer » Tue Nov 29, 2005 10:48 pm

You might look at 3-4 WD 300-400GB drives. The new WD drives have FDB which are supposed to be pretty quiet, possibly more so than the seagates.

Really to keep things quiet with this kind of storage you'll want a media server on gigabit lan in the closet or in another room. What are you planning on storing?

nici
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Post by nici » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:34 am

Well you could fit a couple SmartDrives in the case, and the ones you dont have room for get something like this and place the rest outside the case. I have my Raptor connected via one of these things, enclosed in an enclosure. I could place it under my desk or something if i wanted, or make a bigger enclosure so i could fit the existing enclosure inside that :lol: The only real limitation is the 75cm cables.

You could also get a ready sata RAID system, like this one from Lacie, but these are not cheap though.

spiffy102
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Post by spiffy102 » Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:18 am

Yeah GbE was one of my thoughts...

As far as storage... This is will be a SW development machine, but will also have multimedia files, and games. A bit of everything.

The GbE is quite a performance hit over SATAII RAID 5... I thought of a 1394b configuration... But to get the "box" at a far enough distance... Well I'd need to convert to fiber, and that costs a fortune.

I think I'll check the WD drives out that are mentioned above.

spiffy102
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Post by spiffy102 » Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:04 am

From:
http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/hard_driv ... 00.9/3.htm
Seagate's new 7200.9 hard drives are extremely fast. In fact they are right up there with Hitachi's "SATA II" hard drives we tested a while back. It just blows me away that we now have 500gb hard drives available to us at a decent price. The speed of the Seagate drives are just amazing as well. For those of you who are looking for a silent hard drive, the 7200.9 is a perfect choice. I had both drives sitting flat on my desktop for testing and they were virtually silent other than for a slight click when they first spin up. Other than that, they were perfectly balanced and silent. The 7200.9 hard drives are yet another great choice from Seagate. And don't forget the 5 year warrantee!
I trust Mike more - he's more scientific.. However those are some positive comments about the 7200.9... (500gb)

Aris
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Post by Aris » Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:20 am

spiffy102 wrote:From:
http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/hard_driv ... 00.9/3.htm

I trust Mike more - he's more scientific.. However those are some positive comments about the 7200.9... (500gb)

ive seen review sites that say full speed 3000rpm 120mm fans running at 12volts are dead silent. so the term "quiet" is very subjective without some sort of standardized acoustic measurement.

spiffy102
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Post by spiffy102 » Wed Nov 30, 2005 3:39 pm

From AnandTech:
When idle, the drive's sound output is barely audible. More specifically, we can't even tell that the drive is on. When actively reading and writing, however, the drive puts out about 55.1 dBA, which is just as loud as the Barracuda 400GB 7200.8.
I am NOT doubting SPCR - just wondering if maybe it is worth the risk :)

MoJo-chan
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Post by MoJo-chan » Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:05 am

What you need is a way to have lots of drives cooled properly at once, in a quiet way.

So, you need a case that will let you cool at least two drives (500GB each) with one low speed fan.

How about some Samsung 200-250GB drives, in an external enclosure. With some modding, you could cool them with one fan. External SATA is just as fast as internal. The drives could be suspended for quietness.

It seems like more of a mechanical problem than anything.

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