3.5" vs. 2.5" for HTPC

sdheda · Post by **sdheda** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 1:52 pm

I am in the process of building a HTPC, and I am stuck on the HDD to buy. I want it to be as silent as possible (of course), so I was thinking about buying a notebook HDD and softmounting it in my NSK2480.

My criteria is 7200rpm with 16mb of cache, and a price tag of less than $100.

Am I correct in thinking that a laptop drive will be more silent than a desktop drive? Would I just be better of buying a larger 3.5" HDD for this price?

Thanks.

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 1:55 pm

Do you have a fileserver, or do you plan on saving media files on the HTPC?

KlaymenDK · Post by **KlaymenDK** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 2:26 pm

sdheda wrote:Am I correct in thinking that a laptop drive will be more silent than a desktop drive?

Well, depends. Generally the clickety-clackety seeking sounds are softer in the smaller drives (because the moving parts are obviously smaller), but the overall drive noise is not necessarily lower. Some are, some aren't. You can get some really low-noise 3-inchers, and quite noisy 2-inchers as well. But power and heat should be less of an issue with the smaller drives (performance too, perhaps

).

sdheda wrote:Would I just be better of buying a larger 3.5" HDD for this price?

For a given price? Yes. Always.

If you can spare the room, I'd guess a quiet 3" drive would be your best bet if you take price into account. However, few HTPC cases offer suspended mounting; to make room for that kind of silencing you'd need to shrink to 2.5".

Sadly, it's still tremendously difficult to find sound (pun intended) reviews of these small drives. (Hint hint, spcr!

)

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:04 pm

I'm using a not-terribly-quiet WD3200AAKS (two platter version) in my HTPC, and from the distance we sit away from the system, seeks are almost unnoticable. I'm using the NSK2480 case, and the drives are simply screwed into the rubber mounting system in the case. I'd suggest something like the WD GP drives if you're completely paranoid about noise, or the new WD3200AAKS or WD6400AAKS drives.

sdheda · Post by **sdheda** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:19 pm

Wibla wrote:Do you have a fileserver, or do you plan on saving media files on the HTPC?

I have a fileserver, and I will not record anything on the HTPC.

sdheda · Post by **sdheda** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:45 pm

Nick Geraedts wrote:I'd suggest something like the WD GP drives if you're completely paranoid about noise, or the new WD3200AAKS or WD6400AAKS drives.

I was thinking about getting the 500GB WD GP drive, but I am concerned about speed. Would it be fast enough?

I was also considering the WD6400AAKS, but I don't need something that large.

Just wish the Samsung SSD's were cheaper.

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:58 pm

You're not gonna save anything on the HTPC?

Get a 2.5" SATA drive or a SSD, dont bother with a 3.5"

You need like 10GB tops for the system anyway.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:18 pm

i agree. If your not going to record anything on it you wont need anything more than MAYBE 10gb for the OS and some apps. The only thing that really takes up a lot of space are video's, and to a lesser degree a large amount of applications all installed at once.

So in the abscence of those 2 scenarios, get a small 32gb SLC SSD drive for ultimate silence. A DATA (samsung clone) 32gb SLC SSD

If $300 is too much for you, next best thing would be a 2.5" HDD like this: Samsung M6 320gb

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 10:05 pm

The WD GP drives are plenty fast for every day tasks. I doubt that you'd seriously notice any speed difference for basic HTPC tasks when comparing a standard 7200RPM drive to the GP drives.

sdheda · Post by **sdheda** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:18 am

SSD is too expensive at the moment. However, you are right, SSD is the best option.

I guess my real question is, what is the difference in terms of seek noise between the 3.5" WD6400AAKS and 2.5" WD3200BEKT? They seem to be similar if AAM is turned on in the WD6400AAKS.

BTW, do laptop drives use any special connectors?

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:56 am

They both use standard SATA connections.

IMO, 2.5" drives are just in a complete other league of silence. Some people say they can barely hear a difference, but its always very clear to me. So i guess its somewhat subjective based on who you talk to.

Some of the things that i really like about 2.5" drives: they never overheat, even with no airflow whatsoever in the middle of summer when your A/C goes out. So you never have to worry about data loss because your drive got too hot. They have virtually no vibrations so you never have to worry about noise induced by vibrations through the case, even if you hard mount them. 3.5" drives you basically must suspend/decouple/dampen to make them quiet which can be difficult in small cases.

Really the only reason to use 3.5" drives is if you need that much storage. If your good with less than 300gb, then go with a 2.5" drive.

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:09 pm

@Aris - I'll have to agree, and disagree at the same time. Yes, I could probably notice the difference if my HTPC was using a 2.5" drive, but then again, you're usually sitting across the room while the system is in use. Take any decently built HTPC case and put it 6 ft away from you. The difference in noise from a quiet 3.5" drive (such as the GP drives) and a notebook drive is next to nill. To add to the mix - if you're using the HTPC, you won't be noticing the noise of the drive over the show/movie that you're watching.

sdheda · Post by **sdheda** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 6:19 pm

In my previous HTPC, I used a Seagate drive and it was too loud. I want to avoid that this time.

The Patriot PE32GS25SSDR (MLC) seems to have good reviews. From the reviews it does not appear to suffer from the freezing plaguing the OCZ drives.

Do you think I would be able to install Vista on it? Keep in mind that I won't use it to store any media files or record TV.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:45 am

sdheda wrote:In my previous HTPC, I used a Seagate drive and it was too loud. I want to avoid that this time.

The Patriot PE32GS25SSDR (MLC) seems to have good reviews. From the reviews it does not appear to suffer from the freezing plaguing the OCZ drives.

Do you think I would be able to install Vista on it? Keep in mind that I won't use it to store any media files or record TV.

All current MLC based technology SSD drives are identicle. They are all samsung clones and use the exact same faulty controller from JMicron with no cache. They will all suffer from the same studder that the OCZ drives do.

The only exception is the upcomming Intel MLC drive which uses an intel controller with 256kb of sram cache to sequence random data.

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 10:25 am

Why do you need blazing fast performance from the SSD drive? Seagates are horribly loud (have been for a long time), but the WD GP drives are very quiet, especially when put in a decent case (either with rubber grommets or suspended). When looking at a $/GB ratio as well as noise - you really can't go wrong.

I've got 10 of the drives in one of my systems - and it's still reasonably quiet.

sdheda · Post by **sdheda** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:49 pm

Aris, Nick thanks for the input.

I think I will buy the WD 640GB; the $/GB seems to be the best. Also, I can always turn AAM on.

sdheda · Post by **sdheda** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 12:56 pm

I was about to jump on the WD 640GB drive when I saw a good price on a Seagate 2.5" 320GB drive.

How quiet are Seagate's notebook drives? Are they as bad as their desktop drives?

mrzed · Post by **mrzed** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:27 pm

Can't comment on that particular drive. I can say though that almost any 5400rpm 2.5" drive will be quieter than all but maybe the green power 3.5" drives. The lower power consumption doesn't hurt either. Unless you need the space, cost/Gb is irrelevant.

I'm a big advocate of moving to 2.5" drives for everything but bulk storage. The entire industry is moving that way sooner or later, why not be on the leading edge - isn't that where us folks nerdy enough to be posting on tech forums are supposed to be?

sdheda · Post by **sdheda** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 1:19 pm

Can anyone recommend a good 2.5" 7200rpm HDD that is silent. Does it matter what brand I buy?

sdheda · Post by **sdheda** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:59 pm

Are 7200rpm 2.5" drives louder than 5400rpm 2.5"? Would it be noticeable if they were both soft mounted?

Cirkus · Post by **Cirkus** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:47 am

Generally speaking 7200 rpm drives are louder than 5400 rpm drives. There might be exceptions but without reviews with comparisons and actual user experiences it is hard to find the really silent 7200 rpm drives.

I purchased a 5400 rpm 2.5" drive today, Western Digital WD3200BEVT. It has 320GB capacity using 2 platters which means it has 160GB/platter which is a very high density. That should make it fast. According to reviews it has about the same speed as the previous generation 7200 rpm models. I haven't tested the performance of the drive yet.

WD3200BEVT Temperature
After running a full hard drive test for about 2 hours, the drive temperature is around 40 C. I think this is very good. When the hard drive test was finished the temperature decreased within a few minutes with around 5 C. The hard drive is put outside my computer in the free air on a paper brochure, without any fan or other ventilation.

WD3200BEVT Noise
The noise level of the hard drive is very low compared to most 3.5" drives. There is of course some idle noise. There is also some kind of faint rattling noise that can be heard if I listen carefully. Overall though the noise is low. If I put my hand on the drive a lot of the idle noise goes away. It is the same with another 2.5" drive I have. I believe the noise that goes away can be caused by vibrations/resonance in the case of the drive. I have not decided if I will try to get rid of this noise by putting some dampening material on the drive itself or if I will put it in a 2.5" Scythe Quiet Drive.
Seek noise: I have not yet installed Windows Vista on the drive. I know from experience that the seek noise caused by random disk access by Windows Vista can be quite irritating. I have yet to find out how the WD3200BEVT performs in this area.

What I think is nice with a 2.5" drive and especially a 5400 rpm drive, is that it doesn't get hot and that it is small enough to mount in a 3.5" drive cage in an HDD Silencer like Scythe Quiet Drive 2.5" if I want it to be event more silent. I have tried to use two different 3.5" drives as system drives for Windows Vista but they have been too noisy.

Cirkus

sdheda · Post by **sdheda** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 4:00 pm

I went ahead and ordered a 2.5" 7200rpm drive (Seagate ST9320421AS). I will try to post some of my observation when I get it.

Cirkus · Post by **Cirkus** » Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:19 pm

I have now installed Windows Vista on my new 2.5" 5400 RPM drive (WD3200BEVT). The seek noise of this drive is very low compared to the 3.5" 5400 RPM WD GP drive I used as system drive before. The drive is currently hard-mounted without any noise dampening material and I consider keeping it that way. Sure the drive can be heard but the overall noise level is very low.

Regarding speed it feels ok. I think Windows booted faster on the 7200 RPM 3.5" I had in my computer first but the 2.5" drive feels fast enough.

Cirkus

3.5" vs. 2.5" for HTPC

3.5" vs. 2.5" for HTPC

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