300GB (ish) Recommendation

doctore · Post by **doctore** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:47 am

I'm looking for a pair of 300GB-320GB drives (one for OS/Apps and one Data) for a new build. I was going to get the WD 16MB SE drive (3200KS) but my supplier misquoted me the RE drive (3200YS) and in researching the difference I'm now completely lost!

I've read about platter sizes, platter count, NCQ, TLER, RAFF and audio measurements and realised I don't have a clue! It's also difficult because most reviews focus on the new large drives and from the web sites it's not clear if these use the same technology as the smaller drives.

I'm after decent performance but quiet (a good balance - I don't expect everything). Do I need to worry about 8MB/16MB cache, NCQ or platter size?

David

lm · Post by lm » Thu Oct 12, 2006 1:22 pm

One 300GB drive for OS and Apps? Pretty large apps you got

doctore · Post by **doctore** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 1:31 pm

Yep. I write them myself

It won't end up like that. I have a lot of digital photos which will probably end up going on the second drive.

I would definitely go for smaller drives rather than larger, but I've filled up the 160GB in my existing machine and given the prices it sems to make sense to jump to 320.

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 2:51 pm

-You should look at the Samsung Spinpoint T HD301LJ 300GB or Western Digital Caviar SE16 3200KS. Both of these drives have 16MB of cache and should perform and sound very similar.

-Hitachi and Seagate drives may be faster, but they're also louder and they run warmer.

-NCQ shouldn't mean too much to you unless you're running a server.

-Platter sizes are similar on modern drives with the exception of Seagate's perpendicular recording drives. You don't need to worry about them.

-You don't want the Caviar RE because of the TLER issue you mentioned. While most users could probably use it as a single drive without trouble, it was really meant to be in a RAID.

silence_seeker · Post by **silence_seeker** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 5:37 am

I'm also looking for a suitable drive in this size range (although I'm not entirely sure how big it should be truth be told). It should be a 3.5" drive with an IDE interface.

I'll be using it for editing home-videos and recording/editing music (multitrack recording) with a Mac Powerbook G4.
Naturally I want to work in a quiet environment, but the drive must also be able to keep up with what I'm doing, though I'm not sure what kind of technical specs I need.

I'll be placing the drive in an external metal enclosure (without a fan) which looks like this (OWC Mercury Elite-Aluminium).
The enclosure will be connected to the Mac via a FireWire 800 cable (the enclosure also has Firewire 400 and USB 2, but since my Mac has a FireWire 800 connector I see no reason not to use it).

I see that manufacturers such as Hitachi and Seagate have 500 GB drives, but having read this and other forums/websites I've gathered that Samsung is the way to go for low noise/low heat and reliability. On the downside I hear that speedwise other brands are better, but if it's "good enough" and does the job it might not make that much of a difference for a home environment?

I see that Samsung has a 400 GB model, as well as 300 GB and 320 GB models, but aren't larger drives noisier and give of more heat (the latter probably being an issue for use with a fanless enclosure)?
So I'm leaning towards the 300 GB version, but ofcourse, if the 400 GB version is just as quiet and good I'll most likely go for that.
What do you advise me to do?

nici · Post by **nici** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 5:41 am

The 400Gb samsung did pretty well in a recent review on this site

The 500Gb WD caviar SE should also be nice. You should check out www.storagereview.com for performance data.

whiic · Post by **whiic** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 7:14 am

"You should look at the Samsung Spinpoint T HD301LJ 300GB or Western Digital Caviar SE16 3200KS. Both of these drives have 16MB of cache and should perform and sound very similar"

Except most people experience that Samsung has a nicer idle while WD has the nicer seeks. They aren't similar, but they are both good. Which is better depends on the listeners preference.

"Hitachi and Seagate drives may be faster, but they're also louder and they run warmer."

That only partly correct. Hitachi and WD have lately made the best "power consumtion per platter" drives. And T7K500 has only 2 platters while WD3200 has 3. Samsung drives are not power efficient. (You are right about Seagates running hot, though.)

When it comes to performance, the result of 7200.10 750GB (or more accurately Barracuda ES) are now in StorageReview Performance Database. The review hasn't yet been written but it should be there "soon". Here's one possible comparison. Note how Seagate gets beaten by old 7K500 and newer WD4000 and WD5000 in desktop performance. It also gets beaten by both WDs in server environment. It's low-level performance (seek time and STR) are excellent, yet all real-life benchmark show it's the slowest mammoth there is. Don't believe all Tomshardware and similarish review sites say. They only perform low-level performance measurement. Seagate may have the fastest (and noisiest actuator) but they just don't know how to create high-performance firmware.

It's true though, that neither Hitachi or Seagate are as quiet as WDs and Samsungs are. Hitachi is probably closer to silence but still far away from a silencers goal. Hitachis do support AAM while Seagate doesn't, so at least there's hope (with decoupling, enclosing and other means of silencing).

To Seagate's defence, there's no option if one needs 750GB in a single HDD. (But 2x WD5000 would likely be cheaper, certainly give more capacity, and possibly be less annoying than a single Seagate.)

Another comparison, this time with 250GB drives. (There has been no 320GB round-up in SR.) Here Hitachi T7K250 and WD2500 share the lead in desktop performance. Seagate 7200.9 is the worst performer. Samsung P120 and Maxtor DM10 are somewhere in between. T7K250 idles the coolest, while WD is the coolest under high I/O load. Maxtor has the highest power consumption when idle and when seeking. Seagate has the highest peak current (stressing the power source the most).

Due to these I wouldn't rule out T7K500 320GB variant as candidate. It's unlikely to be much noisier or hotter than T7K250 because they have the same number of platters. Certainly we can't tell for sure. I haven't read any detailed reviews on T7K500 yet. Has any daredevil on SPCR tried that drive and compared it to some reference drive?

Yacho · Post by **Yacho** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 4:45 pm

i recently Went for 2x HD300LJ - what can i say - two those raided0 drives make half of barracuda10 noise - yes they are audiable but i find their seeks hell lot nicer than barracudas - also i have them totally undumped - they are just put into chieftec case (wich resonates like hell

Preformance Wise Samsung may not be the top - but i guess ill live with 3-5 mb less transfer rate

silence_seeker · Post by **silence_seeker** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:11 am

The Samsung HD300LJ drives you have are the same as the HD300LD only with a SATA interface as opposed to IDE, right?
(as far as I know I need to use regular IDE drives as my enclosure doesn't handle SATA).

Looking up the technical specs for each drive at the Samsung website both drives share the same noise levels:

Idle noise level : 2.7 Bel
Random read/write: 2.9 Bel

Actually, the specs for the HD400LD (400 GB IDE) show the exact same noise level specs! Can this be?
I've always been of the understanding that larger drives make more noise, but perhaps this is an exaggeration and the actual difference doesn't make much of a difference to most people?

Are there quieter drives than this in this size range?

PS. Do your Samsung drives give of a lot of heat? I'll be using one of those in a fanless enclosure.

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:05 pm

It's probably true, they have 3 platters each (133GB/platter), the 300GB version just has part of the space disabled.

shadowfire1 · Post by **shadowfire1** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:50 pm

if you can softmount them the seagate 7200.10 is great , elseif then they are too loud.

In silicone gromits they just make a quiet, but extreamly high pitched noise(most likely inaudable to anyone older then me). Fortunetly that noise is only audable with case door open and when my head is within 1-2feet of the computer. the p150 has some dampaning so your results may very.

EDIT: spoke too soon. I don't notice it whith some ambient noise , but if it's quiet you can clearly make out the high pitched squeel untill like 2-3m. It is very quiet but the pitch makes it a anoying noise.

pyogenes · Post by **pyogenes** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 5:22 pm

The high pitch whine from the Seagate 7200.10 drives me crazy. I seriously doubt it's above the frequency that only younger people can hear it because I (29 yrs old) can hear it loud and clear with the P180B door closed from 10+ feet away. That's assuming minimal ambient noise.

I'm still trying to decide if I should buy a Scythe Quiet Drive or just get a new hard drive altogether (no idea what I'll do with the 2 brand new 7200.10s.....)

mfczap · Post by **mfczap** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 5:42 pm

I have a pair of Seagate 7200.10 - 320GB w/ 16MB cache (SATA 3.0) in a Lian-Li 6077 case. They're pretty quiet, cost about $95 each at Newegg and come with a 5 year warranty.

MC FLMJIG · Post by **MC FLMJIG** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 9:09 pm

pyogenes wrote:The high pitch whine from the Seagate 7200.10 drives me crazy. I seriously doubt it's above the frequency that only younger people can hear it because I (29 yrs old) can hear it loud and clear with the P180B door closed from 10+ feet away. That's assuming minimal ambient noise.

I'm still trying to decide if I should buy a Scythe Quiet Drive or just get a new hard drive altogether (no idea what I'll do with the 2 brand new 7200.10s.....)

I thought it was just me... I know old thread... I feel sane now.

Tamas · Post by **Tamas** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 10:38 pm

whiic wrote:
It's true though, that neither Hitachi or Seagate are as quiet as WDs and Samsungs are. Hitachi is probably closer to silence but still far away from a silencers goal. Hitachis do support AAM while Seagate doesn't, so at least there's hope (with decoupling, enclosing and other means of silencing).

If we compare the resonance a Hitachi T7K500 320GB drive with 2 platters (160GB/platter) there is a higher chance that Hitachi outperforms Seagate/Samsung/WD drives. This is also an important noise parameter for me.

I've written chance because resonance is not a constant parameter it's vary even from drive to drive. So we can only say that for example a Samsung drive has higher chance to resonate than a Hitachi with the same platter amount.

If we compare the seek noise in default WD&Samsung are the quietest. Hitachi's default setting is a very fast around 13ms seektime, but with an acoustic management tool it's easy to make it quiet.
If we compare the idle noise I think Hitachi/Samsung/WD's are almost the same.

Temperature:
An old Hitachi 250GB 7K250 & WD SE16 has around the same temperature. Samsung T133 is a very bad performer 6-10 (idle/load) celsius warmer than WD&Hitachi.

mond · Post by **mond** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 12:43 am

consider the maxtor diamondmax 10 as well, I foundit on level with the T133.

Tamas · Post by **Tamas** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:39 am

I've bouht 3 Hitachi T7K500 320GB 16MB cache SATA2 (2 platter) hard disks in the past month.

Idle noise is very smooth.
Resonance is very low all of them, the drive not heats up -> very low power consumption.
At default the seek noise is very loud, but when you enable acoustic management it's will be way smoother and the seek performance stays around 13,1-13,2ms and the overall speed of the drive is very fast.
If you want, you can modify the default acoustic management setting to a higher level, and the seek noise will be disappear, but this cause noticable performance loss.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

To sum up I can only recommend these drives.

winguy · Post by **winguy** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:08 am

Tamas wrote:but when you enable acoustic management it's will be way smoother and the seek performance stays around 13,1-13,2ms

No the seek times do not stay at those values after enabling AAM. Its around 17+ to 18+.

Tamas · Post by **Tamas** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 5:11 am

winguy wrote:
Tamas wrote:but when you enable acoustic management it's will be way smoother and the seek performance stays around 13,1-13,2ms
No the seek times do not stay at those values after enabling AAM. Its around 17+ to 18+.

Yes it stays there. In the Hitachi Feature Tool you have a scale where you can adjust the acoustic management settings.
The 17-18ms what you said is the seek time when acoustic management is on the maximum level.

Acoustic Management Enabled in the Hitachi Feature Tool, "Balanced Performance And Volume", the difference is clearly audible compared to acoustic management disabled option: http://www.ntamas.webzona.hu/Hitachiam.jpg

I've been using all of my Hitachi drives with these settings for years, without any performance or noise problem.

lechuck · Post by **lechuck** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 9:32 pm

pyogenes wrote:The high pitch whine from the Seagate 7200.10 drives me crazy. I seriously doubt it's above the frequency that only younger people can hear it because I (29 yrs old) can hear it loud and clear with the P180B door closed from 10+ feet away. That's assuming minimal ambient noise.

I'm still trying to decide if I should buy a Scythe Quiet Drive or just get a new hard drive altogether (no idea what I'll do with the 2 brand new 7200.10s.....)

You got the one with the loud motor. I had 3 Seagates and one were anoying while the other two were fine. Look what type of motor it has and replace it... (HDD that is, not motor). I have my two Seagates in Scythe Quiet Drive and finally I'm happy.

Stay away from Samsungs as they are not worth the silent PCs, louder than Seagates with silent motor. You can find info about this here on forum.

whiic wrote: It's true though, that neither Hitachi or Seagate are as quiet as WDs and Samsungs are....

NOT TRUE AT ALL! It's too much diference from sample to sample.

sputnik99 · Post by **sputnik99** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 9:55 am

I just picked up a Samsung HD300LJ, it has the Nidec motor and 3 platters, however, it is so much quieter than the Seagate 7200.9 250G (2 platters).

The Seagate had a whine that was driving me nuts and the seeks are extremely loud. It is now in an external enclosure. The Samsung is in my X-Qpack mATX setup on my desktop, less than 5 feet away from me and I barely hear it when its idle.[/quote]

pyogenes · Post by **pyogenes** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:15 pm

lechuck wrote:
pyogenes wrote:The high pitch whine from the Seagate 7200.10 drives me crazy. I seriously doubt it's above the frequency that only younger people can hear it because I (29 yrs old) can hear it loud and clear with the P180B door closed from 10+ feet away. That's assuming minimal ambient noise.

I'm still trying to decide if I should buy a Scythe Quiet Drive or just get a new hard drive altogether (no idea what I'll do with the 2 brand new 7200.10s.....)

You got the one with the loud motor. I had 3 Seagates and one were anoying while the other two were fine. Look what type of motor it has and replace it... (HDD that is, not motor). I have my two Seagates in Scythe Quiet Drive and finally I'm happy.

It was two different drives with the whining, plus plenty of others report the exact same problem. Statistically speaking that means if the whine is due to a bad part (which I don't think it is - more like poor design), then quality control is very poor for these drives.

So either the drive is is poorly designed and whines, or there's bad quality control. Either way, two good reasons to avoid them altogether and just get a different model drive.

lechuck · Post by **lechuck** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 11:52 am

@pyogenes: But did they bouth had the same motor?

I did buy a Samsung HDD - SPCR favorite at that time, and was
very dissapointed in terms of idle noise and vibrations... Sold it.

I think it's useless to talk about silent HDD - as they don't exist.
You need to try them, as it's too much diference from sample to
sample. But for Seagates I can say that if you get this motor:
http://www.engit.com.au/Silent.jpg
there is good chance that it does not have high-pich whine and
if you get this one:
http://www.engit.com.au/Not-Silent.jpg
... run away!

I can confirm this - thested on Seagates made in China, Thiland, etc.

Maybe I was just lucky?

student · Post by **student** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:23 pm

don't forget to elastic suspend it, put it into a acoustic damping case and stick it on the next rocket to the moon. You will need the vacuum of space to ensure real silence.

nici · Post by **nici** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:59 pm

I doubt HDDs work in a vacuum, the heads would probably crash or something.