What harddrive for HTPC

morten · Post by **morten** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 7:21 pm

Hi all.
I am lokking for a silent harddisk, but have been out of the silence game for a while, and need a recommedation for a good one ( min. 150 GB to max 500 GB). What would you chose.
Morten.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 6:17 am

I don't really have any experience with any other modern drives, but 640GB WD Caviar Blue works for me in my HTPC. And gaming rig. And Windows Home Server.

Nice and quiet, plenty fast enough, affordable enough, modern design (not like how WD has gone back and slapped Green/Blue/Black on all the old drives--I'm sure they didn't bother re-designing their 80GB models or anything).

That's my vote anyway.

morten · Post by **morten** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 8:58 am

I have read from others that these are good. So what one would you buy.
Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB SATA 3.0Gbps (3.5")
Seagate Momentus 5400.6 250GB 5400rpm (2.5")
HITACHI Travelstar 5K500.B 250GB 5400rpm (2.5")
Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (2.5")

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:49 pm

Well, the later 3 are all laptop drives, so they should consume less power and most likely be as quiet if not more than the Blue. And there's sample variance to consider, some have reported with multiple drives there being differences (you figure different plants, and evolution of the maunfacturing process, a bean counter thinking it's good to save a nickel when it completely changes the drive, etc) between their drives. In the 3.5" drive range I would think a Blue or Green model would be good, you could check into the late model Seagates SPCR just tested, I think the 500GB model just tested as one of the best yet.

All in all...it's a bit of a crapshoot sometimes

I would go desktop model to get myself better performance myself though.

morten · Post by **morten** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:03 pm

Yes the WD Scorpio Blue 500GB WD5000BEVT get a good review. So itÂ´s down to it and the Seagate Momentus 5400.6 250GB 5400rpm (2.5"). I think i will go for the Momentus, unless someone says that somethink else is better.

whiic · Post by **whiic** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:25 pm

Lol at recommendations:
7200rpm desktops and 5400rpm laptops mixed. Where's the middle ground?

Oh yeah, one 7200rpm laptop too. Why pay extra when you can get same performance with smaller price or higher capacity with 5400rpm desktop?

If you need capacity, Greenpower or Ecogreen is the way to go.
If you have a separate home server, 5400rpm laptop is the way to go.

7200rpm desktop isn't good for silencing anymore, since better alternatives have emerged... or should I say "returned". Probably emerged, since for the first time, low-rpm drives are actually equipped with state of the art bearings that don't make a whining noise.

7200rpm laptops have always been quite an idiotic thing for desktop computers: pay extra to get small and quiet, and pay further extra to make it noisier (yet not quite as good as desktop drives). Only good for performance oriented laptops. Even then, SSD would be superior.

morten · Post by **morten** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 6:21 pm

I am gonna go for the Seagate Momentus 5400.6 500GB ST9500325ASG. I have read good thinks about it.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 10:37 am

I'd recommend against it, just based on my history with Segates. I have several 2.5" and 3.5" HDDs that are in a pile. Most are broken. The vast majority are Segates (particularly the 2.5s). The WD's I have are all still in use. Never had a single WD drive fail on me...EVER.

Maxtor, Seagate, and Fujitsu drives populate my trash pile, and now that I think about it, why am I keeping them around? To the recycling!!!

Just bought a 320GB Scorpio Blue. I like it very much. Inaudible, especially at HTPC distances (2m or more).

morten · Post by **morten** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:03 pm

Well my second choice is a WD SCORPIO BLUE 500GB ( WD Scorpio
WD5000BEVT ) On paper it is just as good. So why not.