Fast, quiet 150gb Hard Drive? Suggestions on RAM for EP45?

[womble]

Any suggestions on a fast but also quiet 150gb Hard Drive?
Also, I was thinking of getting the Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS4, any suggestions on what 4GB RAM i should get?

[Cerb]

Any suggestions on a fast but also quiet 150gb Hard Drive?

Velociraptor.
Not up for that kind of expense? Then, think 2.5", or think big.
The Seagate Momentus is a good choice, for 2.5"
The Scorpio (non-black) might be, but I don't want to give it too much credit, since the official noise specs differ a good bit for 2-platter models (my soon-to-be-retired main drive is a 80GB Scorpio Blue).

At 3.5", the best quiet performer would be the Western Digital GP 1TB, if you get the new rev. Next to that would be a Samsung F1 (big) or their 500GB...or one of WD's 320GB/platter drives (Caviar SE 320GB and 640GB).
Both the Samsung F1s and non-GP WDs (but only the 320 models) offer excellent performance, as well as at least decent acoustics (I've not handled the 640GB, but everybody here likes it). The 640GB model is also at a great GB/$ spot, right now.
The 250GB platter WD GP drives do feel slow (or, at least, my 750GB does), matching up well to benchmarks you may find.

Do you have a specific drive it needs to outperform, in speed or quietness?

[QuietOC]

At 3.5", the best quiet performer would be the Western Digital GP 1TB, if you get the new rev. Next to that would be a Samsung F1 (big) or their 500GB...or one of WD's 320GB/platter drives (Caviar SE 320GB and 640GB).

The F1 and new WD3200AAKS and WD6400AAKS are hardly the quietest 3.5" drives. All the Hitachi P7K500s (250 to 500GB) are quieter than those and faster than the WD GPs. Samsungs 250GB single platter (S250) HD250HJ slots between the new AAKS and the P7K500s as far as performance/noise and is also worth a look.

I made the mistake of selling my WD6400AAKS -- a few month old $120 drive was only worth $65, and about what I sold my old 2 platter WD3200AAKS for back in February. Crazy!

[Cerb]

I thought the 320GB (only one sample) was adequately quiet, and felt quite snappy--a good balance. If the Hitachi P drives are even quieter without a performance sacrifice, I might have to make up an excuse to use one in something , to hear for myself. It could also be just what the OP wants, since he wants one that's fast, too.

If not for the fast bit, I would have recommended avoiding any 3.5". The storage and speed is great with any 3.5", but Seagate's and WD's 2.5" drives are wonderful for no-fuss quiet drives, IME.

I find the noise character of the Samsung 250GB/platter HD drives to be little too sharp/irritating, personally. Also, the vibration varies greatly per sample, more or less ruling out hard-mounting, or stock grommet mounting (my last Solo build used one, and I could clearly feel it through the case), IMO. When they were new, nobody had 3.5" competition, they'd already killed off the P80, and T166s were becoming rare.

Over-using ", but..." variants, because the internet does not require good editing,
cerbie

[womble]

thanks for the advice. I think ill go for the 150GB Velociraptor 3.5"
Still not sure what 4GB RAM to get for a Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS4?

[FartingBob]

The velociraptor is a 2.5" drive, not 3.5. Also, it really depends on what you need your HDD for mainly. It would be cheaper to buy high capacity 3.5 drives that run nearly (or in some places faster) as fast as the velociraptor drive. Of course there are some cases where the fast access times make a bigger difference than others, but having used it i really cant tell the difference 90% of the time.
As for the RAM, any DDR2 sticks will do as long as they are from a name brand, dont bother paying much more for low latency sticks, there is no real difference outside of benchmarks. The board you asked about supports 1066, so i would recommend getting that as long as its not much more than 800mhz RAM.

[womble]

thanks i have sorted out what i'm going to get now.