New 500GB Caviar - Not so Quiet!

[tuckers]

I got the new 500GB Caviar (HD 500G|WD 7K 16M SATA2 WD5000KS ) to replace two of the very quiet Barracuda IVs in my system. I put the drive in in exactly the same bay etc., so it was replacing two drives.

Should be much quieter, but it's not. It's about twice as loud. The seek is MUCH louder, and the idle is about twice as loud with a more 'gritty' and forced air quality than the two Barracudas.

I guess I should look at the new Seagates with perpendular technology. I don't see the number of platters on their site, but one would infer from the size, that it is a one platter disk. Anybody know?

[ShagMan]

the consensus (and my personal experience with two of them in one case) is that they're VERY quiet. Did you get a bad drive maybe?

[JazzJackRabbit]

Consensus means nothing. We've discussed it at length in the 500KS review and this is part why spcr implemented new testing strategy, to give more realistic picture of real life usage. The noise hearing is subjective, even if quantitavely two drives are rated 21dBA, one drive may have a higher tonal balance so it may be more noticable, which is what I'm guessing is the case here. Barras IV have the smoothest and lowest frequency idle noise of any hard drive I've tested, so to my ears it is much quieter than any other drive.

[Devonavar]

I'm not surprised the Barracudas are quieter at idle. Their idle noise is still quieter than any other desktop drive I've heard.

And, I've heard some reports that people prefer the idle noise of the Samsung P80 series, although IMO the difference is not small enough to outweigh the WD's big advantage: Seek noise. I'm surprised that you find seek noise so much louder than the B-IVs. When I compared them the WD was much, much quieter when seeking ... there was simply no contest.

By the way, which Seagate were you looking at? I would avoid them if you're interested in noise. Although they tend to be quiet at idle, their seek noise is intolerable, and there is no AAM to make it better. Also, I've seen a report that at least one sample of the 7200.10 has the directional whine that we noticed in our review of the 500 GB 7200.9.

If I were you I'd look at soft-mounting the WD drive; that should at least reduce the seek noise you're hearing. I don't think you'll have any luck finding a drive with less "forced air" quality than the WD. Pretty much all desktop drives (except the B-IV) I've heard have had this quality, and the WD has less than most. A notebook drive or two might be an option, but you'd have to decide whether you're willing to sacrifice the capacity/performance.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

If AAM was enabled on the 'Cudas, and not on the SE16, then that might expain the difference in seek noise?

[inti]

Sorry to say I disagree with experienced reviewer Devon. I use many brands of hard drive in a real-life context (high capacity HTPC) and the new Seagate 7200.10 two platter model (i.e. 320GB, not the reviewed 750GB) has one of the quietest seeks: if suspension mounted its seek is virtually silent i.e. there is very little stepping motor noise. None of my drives have AAM enabled by the way.

[nick705]

Sorry to say I disagree with experienced reviewer Devon. I use many brands of hard drive in a real-life context (high capacity HTPC) and the new Seagate 7200.10 two platter model (i.e. 320GB, not the reviewed 750GB) has one of the quietest seeks: if suspension mounted its seek is virtually silent i.e. there is very little stepping motor noise. None of my drives have AAM enabled by the way.

That's interesting - there seems to be quite a divergence of opinion on these drives. The 320GB version has been reported as having very loud seeks at StorageReview for instance.

I'd almost made up my mind on a couple of 320GB WDs for my upcoming build, although my inner geek keeps telling me to go for two platters and perpendicular storage.

/edit: Is your drive a SATA or PATA version btw... ?

[tuckers]

I built audio playback and recording computers, and have tried many of the quiet drives including the Seagates and the Spinpoints.

I can hear the WD Caviar in my music computer 9 feet away in almost any room ambient noise situation. The room would have to be very quiet before I could hear the two Seagates.

I have to substantially modify the case to mount the drives with acoustic suspension, or use one of the quiet containers available. So I have to commit to that!

My computers are virtually noiseless, hard drives create almost all the noise you hear from them. Without hard drives they are less than 15db (using AMD cool and quiet they can be at 12db). With hard dirves they can be 25 db or more without hard dirve isolation in s box.

My desktop is three feet from my head with a spinpoint and a barracuda (the single platter you reviewed) isolated with rubber webbing (as you suggest) and it is about 1/2 the sound level (and a much better quality sound) than the music computer 9 feet away with the WD caviar (not suspended).

Will you be reviewing this new Seagate 750 GB drive?

[Devonavar]

Already reviewed, right here.

[tuckers]

I missed it.

Well, because of the heat, I wouldn't want the Seagate I guess.

Listening to the noise samples again, the Caviar idle does sound like this, and in relation to the Seagate samples is a bit louder. Seek sounds are much louder in my case relative to your samples though. That could be an enclousure thing. A working

We have heard that buzzing noise in Seagates! We never knew what it was. Good to have that mystery solved, but I wish you could turn it off!

[QuietOC]

From StorageReview's 500GB SATA Enterprise Roundup

WD Caviar RE2 500 39.5 dB/A
WD Caviar RE2 400 45.2 dB/A

Pretty big difference between old WD 400GB and new WD 500GB.

Is your noisy drive just sample variation, or is it one of the older, louder WDs?

[aidanjm2004]

Should be much quieter, but it's not. It's about twice as loud. The seek is MUCH louder, and the idle is about twice as loud with a more 'gritty' and forced air quality than the two Barracudas.

is there any credence to the notion that drives can take a little time to "burn in" - and may start off sounding "crunchy", when new, and then get a bit more silent with use..?

[qviri]

Should be much quieter, but it's not. It's about twice as loud. The seek is MUCH louder, and the idle is about twice as loud with a more 'gritty' and forced air quality than the two Barracudas.

is there any credence to the notion that drives can take a little time to "burn in" - and may start off sounding "crunchy", when new, and then get a bit more silent with use..?

I found that this did happen to my Samsung SP2504C. It definitely got quieter over the first two weeks.

[afrost]

My desktop is three feet from my head with a spinpoint and a barracuda (the single platter you reviewed) isolated with rubber webbing (as you suggest) and it is about 1/2 the sound level (and a much better quality sound) than the music computer 9 feet away with the WD caviar (not suspended).

so you are comparing a soft mounted seagate to a hard mounted caviar?

are you saying the two drives it replaced were hard mounted?

can you soft mount the caviar?

[inti]

Referring to my earlier post, emphasise that the Seagate 320GB I described as having "quiet" seeks is suspension-mounted on elastic. So I am only essentially hearing the motor noise from the drive and any internal vibration-induced rattle and hum. The people reporting that the drive has loud seeks could have it hard-mounted and it could be that seeking makes big vibrations which can be transmitted to the case through hard-mounting (also could be describing the 750GB drive which as a four platter drive can be expected to be loud).

Until a drive is suspension mounted, it is, frankly, impossible to tell whether the noises that one hears are actual noises from the drive or whether they are vibration-induced.