What about 1.8" HDD's?

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 3:35 pm

Ebay-IPod hard drive 20GB

According to Toshiba's technical specs page, the official noise specs are very SPCR-friendly: 16dB during idle, max. 22dB during seeks.

Also, the price of these doesn't seem to be that much more than equivalent 2.5" drives, obviously a bit more per GB but the price gap isn't huge, and the novelty factor and the "Wow! Cool." technical ingenuity angle.

From the Ipod's that I have seen they are silent in operation (apart from clicking of the buttons etc).

I suspect the main stumbling block would be trying to find an adapter to use these with standard 40-pin IDE cables; it supports up to ATA-6 interface standard.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 4:06 pm

jaganath wrote:Also, the price of these doesn't seem to be that much more than equivalent 2.5" drives, obviously a bit more per GB but the price gap isn't huge

Yeah, totally isn't huge, I mean it's not like I paid less than this for a 60 GB 2.5" Samsung half a year ago

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:21 am

I mean it's not like I paid less than this for a 60 GB 2.5" Samsung half a year ago

OK, so they're more expensive than the equivalent capacity 2.5" hard drives; is this a surprise to anyone? In fact it would be more surprising if that wasn't the case. With every new technology there are always early adopters who are happy to pay a price premium to have state of the art gear; I have no doubts that this applies to silent PC types as much as any other computer owners.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 4:46 am

It should also be noted that 2.5" Samsungs / 4200rpm Toshibas / potentially many others are inaudible in but the quietest of situations (especially when suspended), so I really fail to see the usefulness of a drive like this for desktop computing (or laptop computing, for that matter).

I'm always prone to sarcasm, apologies. The point I intended to make (but perhaps never got around to it) was that this is really an overkill. Think Zalman TNN-level overkill.

scaryduck · Post by **scaryduck** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:07 am

My 4G B&W 40GB iPod is far from silent. The drive, that is. Whines like a ball bearing drive. Louder than my 180GXP, definitely.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:13 am

My parents insist that my flash-based iPod shuffle makes noise too. I insist on calling it "music"

cloneman · Post by **cloneman** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 11:12 am

The IBM x40 laptop has a 1.8 inch HD. I find it very quiet. Don't know how MUCH louder it would be if it were a 2.5'

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 11:38 am

There's a 1.8" drive in my portable media player. It's quiet, but louder than my quietest 2.5" drive (a 40gig WD Scorpio).

For now, I don't see any advantage for them. As for the "wow" factor--impossible to see any difference when you've entombed the drive in a heavily damped enclosure the size of a 5.25" optical drive.

Tigr · Post by **Tigr** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 2:16 pm

I have a portable with a Toshiba 1.8" 40GB drive. It is louder than the WD 2.5" 40 GB drive in another laptop. The third disk, Samsung 2.5" 40GB, is quietest of them all. There is no point in having simply a 1.8" drive, it must be a quiet one.

SixToes · Post by **SixToes** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 5:10 am

From the Ipod's that I have seen they are silent in operation (apart from clicking of the buttons etc).

I thought the iPod harddrive spins for only a fraction of the time the machine is working, and the rest of the time it parks the drive and reads from memory? Could be why the ones you've seen seem so quiet compared to the other posters here.

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 4:56 pm

SixToes wrote:
From the Ipod's that I have seen they are silent in operation (apart from clicking of the buttons etc).
I thought the iPod harddrive spins for only a fraction of the time the machine is working, and the rest of the time it parks the drive and reads from memory? Could be why the ones you've seen seem so quiet compared to the other posters here.

Playing off that, I don't think 1.8" hard drives are meant to run hard in a computer environment, and I'm thinking the current ones would be too slow to be of any use.

Tigr · Post by **Tigr** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:11 pm

Badger wrote:Playing off that, I don't think 1.8" hard drives are meant to run hard in a computer environment, and I'm thinking the current ones would be too slow to be of any use.

The 1.8" drive I mentioned I have in my laptop is fairly fast. It does not seem to work any slower than other laptops and it is permanently on. If it was not for the noise, it would be as suitable as any other drive for a system.

What about 1.8" HDD's?

What about 1.8" HDD's?

Re: What about 1.8" HDD's?