Hi everyone,
I need a big, as quiet as possible, 3,5" drive of 1TB for storing media and resources (mainly mp3, some video in mpeg4 + fonts and more)...
I'm confused about the WD-greens, since there are 3 versions (with 16,32,64MB of cache and the bigger the cache the lower the cost!).
Then there's the Samsung Ecogreen HD105SI...
I'm talking about overall noise (the one you would hear while watchin media or while the pc is just downloading)
I think the vibration should not be too relevant if putting it in a good case or inside a dock like this one IB-390StUSD-B (am I right?)
Can you help me? Please... I think this could be useful to many...
1TB most silent drive?
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faugusztin
- Posts: 450
- Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2010 2:47 am
- Location: Bratislava, Slovak Republic
My answers may be not entirelly correct for your question, but i hope they help.
So:
1) WD10EADS - i have 4 of them, if you hear anything then it is usually the platters.
2) WD10EARS - i have two WD20EARS, they have a noise similar to the WD10EADS (read minimal). Do not forget that EARS drives have a very aggressive sleep feature, which makes drive sleep after few seconds. On other side, AFAIK these drives are rated for 300k load/unload cycles.
3) Samsung EcoGreen - i'm unsure if they fixed it in F3, but my F2 1,5TB (HD154UI) has a terrible start sound. My drive is OK, but they use the staged start feature, which means the drive usually make 3-6 "clicks" before it really starts. It's not extremly noisy, but you can hear the drive at the start.
4) Seagate 1TB LP (ST31000520AS) - acceptable, but in my case this drive is a bit more noisy than the WD10EADS, probably because it is running at 5900 RPM instead of the usual 5400RPM.
If i would have to choose, i would take EADS or EARS drives, and then configure the sleep cycles to something reasonable - i have set all my drives to sleep after 1 hour since last access. Sleeping drive is allways less noisy than any running drive.
PS: Didn't noticed the WD10EACS - if the drive is new, then it is same as WD10EADS (3 platters), if not, then you can run into a 4 platter drive (which is not good since more noise and worse performance).
So:
1) WD10EADS - i have 4 of them, if you hear anything then it is usually the platters.
2) WD10EARS - i have two WD20EARS, they have a noise similar to the WD10EADS (read minimal). Do not forget that EARS drives have a very aggressive sleep feature, which makes drive sleep after few seconds. On other side, AFAIK these drives are rated for 300k load/unload cycles.
3) Samsung EcoGreen - i'm unsure if they fixed it in F3, but my F2 1,5TB (HD154UI) has a terrible start sound. My drive is OK, but they use the staged start feature, which means the drive usually make 3-6 "clicks" before it really starts. It's not extremly noisy, but you can hear the drive at the start.
4) Seagate 1TB LP (ST31000520AS) - acceptable, but in my case this drive is a bit more noisy than the WD10EADS, probably because it is running at 5900 RPM instead of the usual 5400RPM.
If i would have to choose, i would take EADS or EARS drives, and then configure the sleep cycles to something reasonable - i have set all my drives to sleep after 1 hour since last access. Sleeping drive is allways less noisy than any running drive.
PS: Didn't noticed the WD10EACS - if the drive is new, then it is same as WD10EADS (3 platters), if not, then you can run into a 4 platter drive (which is not good since more noise and worse performance).
your answers are definitely useful! Thanks...faugusztin wrote:My answers may be not entirelly correct for your question, but i hope they help.
I'm not native english and I don't understand what you mean.. Do you mean: if you hear some noise, it's just the "rotational" one... so no clicks or anything else? And so this is why you recommend this drive?So:
1) WD10EADS - i have 4 of them, if you hear anything then it is usually the platters.
How did you do that?2) WD10EARS - i have two WD20EARS, they have a noise similar to the WD10EADS (read minimal). Do not forget that EARS drives have a very aggressive sleep feature, which makes drive sleep after few seconds. On other side, AFAIK these drives are rated for 300k load/unload cycles.About this, maybe it's completely off-topic, but I'd like to understand a bit more... Do you think the sleep policy of these drives being kinda "too" aggressive for a medium use or what?[quote/]
3) Samsung EcoGreen - i'm unsure if they fixed it in F3, but my F2 1,5TB (HD154UI) has a terrible start sound. My drive is OK, but they use the staged start feature, which means the drive usually make 3-6 "clicks" before it really starts. It's not extremly noisy, but you can hear the drive at the start.
4) Seagate 1TB LP (ST31000520AS) - acceptable, but in my case this drive is a bit more noisy than the WD10EADS, probably because it is running at 5900 RPM instead of the usual 5400RPM.
If i would have to choose, i would take EADS or EARS drives, and then configure the sleep cycles to something reasonable - i have set all my drives to sleep after 1 hour since last access. Sleeping drive is allways less noisy than any running drive.
Thanks a lot in advance...
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faugusztin
- Posts: 450
- Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2010 2:47 am
- Location: Bratislava, Slovak Republic
1. Yes, the only noise i hear is the rotational noise of platters, and only when i'm close to the drives.
2. If i read correctly, these drives have sleep after 8 seconds from last use. But maybe those statements were incorrect, i don't know as i turned any sleep off right after i got the drives.
3. hdparm or other software for setting disk parameters.
Of course with 8 drives in my PC, some sound escapes event the case like Fractal Design Define R2 - most of the sound is impossible to hear durring day, but durring night i can unfortunately hear even the most silent fan, most silent drive - and that's why i turn off 7 of 8 drives when i go to sleep, as they won't get used until next morning anyway .
2. If i read correctly, these drives have sleep after 8 seconds from last use. But maybe those statements were incorrect, i don't know as i turned any sleep off right after i got the drives.
3. hdparm or other software for setting disk parameters.
Of course with 8 drives in my PC, some sound escapes event the case like Fractal Design Define R2 - most of the sound is impossible to hear durring day, but durring night i can unfortunately hear even the most silent fan, most silent drive - and that's why i turn off 7 of 8 drives when i go to sleep, as they won't get used until next morning anyway
."Sleep" is not a correct term. Sleep = HDD is spun down and interface is disabled from receiving commands. HDD becomes unresponsive until hardware reset is performed... rebooting the computer is necessary to access the HDD again.
Because of this "sleep" is never used for power saving. The proper spindown power saving is called "stand-by": platters spun down but interface remains powered and continues to listen for commands that might require it to spin-up the platter again. No separate "spin-up" command is required: any data request will cause it to spin-up and OS doesn't even have to know whether HDD is in operational mode or in stand-by. (5-20 second delay from data request to actually performing the command. Expect system to freeze but only temporarily (no bluescreen, etc.))
WD's 8 second power saving mode is not "sleep" and not even "stand-by". It's just head stack unload (platters remain spinning). It like an intermediary state between stand-by and operational mode. Expect a less than 1 second delay when requesting data from HDD with unloaded heads. Hitachi specs delay at 0.7 seconds when unloaded - I don't know what WD's specs are. Same technology but depending on implementation, one might be faster than other.
____
As for Greenpowers...
1st gen (4 platter): WD10EACS-00ZJB0 (16MB cache)
2st gen (3 platter): WD10EACS-00D6B0 (16MB cache)
2st gen (3 platter): WD10EADS-??????? (32MB cache)
3rd gen (2 platter): WD10EACS-??????? (16MB cache) (*)
3rd gen (2 platter): WD10EADS-??????? (32MB cache)
4th gen (2 platter): WD10EARS-??????? (64MB cache)
So, EACS is present in first two generations. EADS is present in 2nd and 3rd.
[EDIT: I checked WDs site and it appear 16MB still hasn't gone anywhere. It's still in line-up. Maybe that means WD10EACS exists in 3 generations of WD... or maybe they still manufacture 333MB/platter 2nd generation drives solely for the purpose of making 16MB drives... but I don't think so.]
Note: 4th has same density as 3rd. I just made it a separate generation in that list because it has a drastically different logical structure: 4096 byte sectors instead of 512 byte which is used by EVERY other HDD on the market. Not compatible with Windows XP and older.
WD10EACS are either old stock (3-platter) or very old stock (4-platter) as current product line-up doesn't contain 16MB cache variant.
WD10EADS are either current generation (2-platter) or old stock (3-platter).
WD10EARS are all new stock (2-platter).
___
Samsung F2 Ecogreen
they all use only 2 platters for 1TB capacity so there's no gamble. There's also no compatibility issues with Win XP. They also work well with RAID arrays (unlike WDs).
There's very little room for improvement in Ecogreen's acoustics. Seek noise is a bit rough. No... actually it's quite bad. But it's idle noise is smooth and very low, quite comparable to some laptop HDDs.
If you require quietness during downloading (low I/O rate unless you have a superfast Internet connection) and during media playback (sequential reading), seek noise shouldn't be a problem.
I don't have experience of 2-platter WDs (only 4 and 3 -platter ones) so quietest 3.5" HDD I have are Ecogreen F2. Considering that noise difference between 4 and 3 -platter models weren't that big, I would suspect that WD wouldn't scale to as low idle noise as 2-platter Samsung is but that's just extrapolation and unreliable guesswork.
Still, my recommendation goes for Samsung.
Because of this "sleep" is never used for power saving. The proper spindown power saving is called "stand-by": platters spun down but interface remains powered and continues to listen for commands that might require it to spin-up the platter again. No separate "spin-up" command is required: any data request will cause it to spin-up and OS doesn't even have to know whether HDD is in operational mode or in stand-by. (5-20 second delay from data request to actually performing the command. Expect system to freeze but only temporarily (no bluescreen, etc.))
WD's 8 second power saving mode is not "sleep" and not even "stand-by". It's just head stack unload (platters remain spinning). It like an intermediary state between stand-by and operational mode. Expect a less than 1 second delay when requesting data from HDD with unloaded heads. Hitachi specs delay at 0.7 seconds when unloaded - I don't know what WD's specs are. Same technology but depending on implementation, one might be faster than other.
____
As for Greenpowers...
1st gen (4 platter): WD10EACS-00ZJB0 (16MB cache)
2st gen (3 platter): WD10EACS-00D6B0 (16MB cache)
2st gen (3 platter): WD10EADS-??????? (32MB cache)
3rd gen (2 platter): WD10EACS-??????? (16MB cache) (*)
3rd gen (2 platter): WD10EADS-??????? (32MB cache)
4th gen (2 platter): WD10EARS-??????? (64MB cache)
So, EACS is present in first two generations. EADS is present in 2nd and 3rd.
[EDIT: I checked WDs site and it appear 16MB still hasn't gone anywhere. It's still in line-up. Maybe that means WD10EACS exists in 3 generations of WD... or maybe they still manufacture 333MB/platter 2nd generation drives solely for the purpose of making 16MB drives... but I don't think so.]
Note: 4th has same density as 3rd. I just made it a separate generation in that list because it has a drastically different logical structure: 4096 byte sectors instead of 512 byte which is used by EVERY other HDD on the market. Not compatible with Windows XP and older.
WD10EACS are either old stock (3-platter) or very old stock (4-platter) as current product line-up doesn't contain 16MB cache variant.
WD10EADS are either current generation (2-platter) or old stock (3-platter).
WD10EARS are all new stock (2-platter).
___
Samsung F2 Ecogreen
they all use only 2 platters for 1TB capacity so there's no gamble. There's also no compatibility issues with Win XP. They also work well with RAID arrays (unlike WDs).
There's very little room for improvement in Ecogreen's acoustics. Seek noise is a bit rough. No... actually it's quite bad. But it's idle noise is smooth and very low, quite comparable to some laptop HDDs.
If you require quietness during downloading (low I/O rate unless you have a superfast Internet connection) and during media playback (sequential reading), seek noise shouldn't be a problem.
I don't have experience of 2-platter WDs (only 4 and 3 -platter ones) so quietest 3.5" HDD I have are Ecogreen F2. Considering that noise difference between 4 and 3 -platter models weren't that big, I would suspect that WD wouldn't scale to as low idle noise as 2-platter Samsung is but that's just extrapolation and unreliable guesswork.
Still, my recommendation goes for Samsung.
That last sentence it's a bit of an overstatement. Internally the EARS has 4096 byte sectors but it still reports 512 bytes to the software and can be used with any OS (including Windows XP and older) without any incompatibility. The only downside is that it will be slower when writing if you don't properly align the partitions (which isn't difficult at all - WD offers an utility to do this and there are also partitioning programs that support aligning).whiic wrote: Note: 4th has same density as 3rd. I just made it a separate generation in that list because it has a drastically different logical structure: 4096 byte sectors instead of 512 byte which is used by EVERY other HDD on the market. Not compatible with Windows XP and older.
Samsung EcoGreens are very quiet in idle but have a pretty harsh and loud seek (and AAM doesn't help much); WD GreenPowers are about as quiet in idle but have a soft seek which you can lower to imperceptible levels if you set AAM to quiet.
WD has a bad habit of changing the platter density without changing the model number, but you can find a good reference (if you know the whole model number) here:
http://yertech.blogspot.com/2009/08/35- ... -list.html
WD Align utility only operates based on whilelisting. I.e it has to recognize the drive as 4096 bytes/sector drive before allowing aligning. Aligning shouldn't hurt (even though there would be no benefit from it either) when done to 512 bytes/sector HDD. This means that WD Align has a weak link on the comprehensiveness of it's white list....if you don't properly align the partitions (which isn't difficult at all - WD offers an utility to do this and there are also partitioning programs that support aligning).
What is certain is that it refuses to align 512 B/sector HDDs regardless of manufacturer. I don't think it'll align SSDs either even though aligning them would be very beneficial. And if you have an old version of WD Align, it will refuse to align WD 4096 B/sector HDDs introduced after the release of that WD Align utility you are using.
Why on earth does it have to use a f'ing whitelist? Aligning is purely software solution that moves partitions so that their starting sector has an LBA that is divisible by 8 (8 x 512 = 4096) and because of that, could be done to any storage device: HDD, SSD or RAID array.
So why whitelist? For liability reasons? Shouldn't Microsoft remove partitioning and formatting utilities from their OSes based on avoiding liability as well, then? I hate when hardware manufacturers don't have even the basic trust on customers capability to make decisions. Seagate's lack of AAM support, most HDD manufacturer's lack of spindown timer support... heck WD20EADS "supports" AAM but is BROKEN. Luckily it's pretty quiet in as it is.
I just don't trust WD Align. With it, you just have to trust the utility knows how to make the right decision... considering WD doesn't publish which drives are 512 and which are 4096. The WD20EARS being 4096 was information released during presentation of 4096 sector format - it's not mentioned in the specs. We know WD20EARS being 4096 ONLY because it's the FIRST one to have it. For other models, WD won't tell us. Which leads to conclusion that someone has to reverse-engineer, hack and rape WD Align utility to:
1) make it run without whitelist
2) to extract the whitelist to be used as such so we can know which have 4096 B sectors and which do not.
1) can be solved with some third party alignment utility. Considering third party utilities don't use whitelists, they would be far superior to WD Align (which is quite a bloatware too for such simple tool). Aligning after all has absolutely nothing to do with physical medium.
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faugusztin
- Posts: 450
- Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2010 2:47 am
- Location: Bratislava, Slovak Republic
If you or anyone doesn't trust WD align, you still have choices.
How about using a Windows 7 beta/RC/final media to do the partitioning part of install process and then put Windows XP on correctly alligned partitions ? How about using some Live Linux CD to make correctly alligned partitions ?
Anyway, the whole aligning debate is a bit off the way until ficod says he uses Windows XP or older OS.
How about using a Windows 7 beta/RC/final media to do the partitioning part of install process and then put Windows XP on correctly alligned partitions ? How about using some Live Linux CD to make correctly alligned partitions ?
Anyway, the whole aligning debate is a bit off the way until ficod says he uses Windows XP or older OS.
It'd still be offtopic to how noisy it is.Anyway, the whole aligning debate is a bit off the way until ficod says he uses Windows XP or older OS.
On the other hand, even if it is offtopic, it's still a matter of importance to anyone who considers such a drive with non-512 byte sectors.
Also,
"offtopic unless OP says he'll use WinXP or older"
versus
"offtopic if OP doesn't specifically say he'll use Vista or newer"
isn't as obvious as it seems.
WinXP is OLD but AFAIK it's still the most common OS. Win7 is no doubt superior but whether it's worthy of paying for the upgrade is whole another thing.
Is there any freeware runs-on-Windows partitioning utilities that can make properly aligned partitions on ANY drive (non-WD or SSD)? It doesn't need to have formatting tools (NTFS support is scarce because of it being Microsoft specific), partitioning alone is enough (as you can switch to Window's Disk Management after partitions are created).
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faugusztin
- Posts: 450
- Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2010 2:47 am
- Location: Bratislava, Slovak Republic
Diskpart. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929491
Thanks a lot for your help... In a couple of weks I have to choose between samsung ecogreen and wd green...
Is that correct?
speed? samsung wins
noise? wd green wins
vibration? samsung wins
annoyances? are there any problems left WD with park features and so on?
PS: I'll be using Ubuntu and/or windows7
t h a n k s again...
Is that correct?
speed? samsung wins
noise? wd green wins
vibration? samsung wins
annoyances? are there any problems left WD with park features and so on?
PS: I'll be using Ubuntu and/or windows7
t h a n k s again...
I'd probably list it as:ficod wrote: Is that correct?
speed? samsung wins
noise? wd green wins
vibration? samsung wins
annoyances? are there any problems left WD with park features and so on?
speed? A tie. No clear winner.
idle noise? Samsung wins
seek noise? WD Green wins
vibration? High sample variance. A matter of luck.
annoyances? Samsung wins because it lacks them. WD has RAID incompatibility and the non-configurable unload feature.
Does this also apply to 1,5 TB hard drives? WD15EARS and HD154UI in particular.whiic wrote: I'd probably list it as:
speed? A tie. No clear winner.
idle noise? Samsung wins
seek noise? WD Green wins
vibration? High sample variance. A matter of luck.
annoyances? Samsung wins because it lacks them. WD has RAID incompatibility and the non-configurable unload feature.
Between these drives:
Samsung F3
Samsung F2
Seagate 5900.12 LP
all 1TB the F2 is easily the quietest of them all. And it works very well inside a Scythe Quietdrive unlike the F3 which vibrates too much making the quiet drive actually amplifying the read and writes. Terrible. Soft mounted of course.
Second is the LP, which also works well in the quiet drive (I don't tighten the screws completely since this reduces vibrational energy and thus limits the generated sound).
F2 receives a clear recommendation from me.
Samsung F3
Samsung F2
Seagate 5900.12 LP
all 1TB the F2 is easily the quietest of them all. And it works very well inside a Scythe Quietdrive unlike the F3 which vibrates too much making the quiet drive actually amplifying the read and writes. Terrible. Soft mounted of course.
Second is the LP, which also works well in the quiet drive (I don't tighten the screws completely since this reduces vibrational energy and thus limits the generated sound).
F2 receives a clear recommendation from me.
It would be interesting if these threads would merge here... isn't it?
viewtopic.php?t=59269
I started the topic with 3,5" drives in my mind.. but wouldn't it be useful to many of us to have a detailed and open discussion about GETTING 1TB SILENT STORAGE?
viewtopic.php?t=59269
I started the topic with 3,5" drives in my mind.. but wouldn't it be useful to many of us to have a detailed and open discussion about GETTING 1TB SILENT STORAGE?
RaptorX - WD10EALS Caviar Blue 1TB
faugusztin - WD10EADS / WD10EARS [WD10EARS are all new stock (2-platter).]
whiic - Samsung F2 Ecogreen HD102SI
Out of these 3, what would be quietest for an FTP Server that is constantly reading/writing?
I currently have a 500 GB WD Green and Blue. I think the Blue is too loud, so will be taking that out of my PC when I have time.
Someone said the seek is louder on Samsung, so WD 1 TB Green?
faugusztin - WD10EADS / WD10EARS [WD10EARS are all new stock (2-platter).]
whiic - Samsung F2 Ecogreen HD102SI
Out of these 3, what would be quietest for an FTP Server that is constantly reading/writing?
I currently have a 500 GB WD Green and Blue. I think the Blue is too loud, so will be taking that out of my PC when I have time.
Someone said the seek is louder on Samsung, so WD 1 TB Green?
viewtopic.php?p=509498#509498 suggests the WD15EARS is more noisy than the WD15EADS, perhaps this is the same for all EARS vs EADS? (WD10EADS is rather more expensive than WD10EARS).
article1061-page3.html review of a 2TB EcoGreen F3 drive shows it as more noisy than the 500GB EcoGreen F2. Should that just be attributed to the higher capacity, or are the F2 drives quieter than the F3 drives in general?
article1061-page3.html review of a 2TB EcoGreen F3 drive shows it as more noisy than the 500GB EcoGreen F2. Should that just be attributed to the higher capacity, or are the F2 drives quieter than the F3 drives in general?
