New Samsungs no longer quiet

Poodle · Post by **Poodle** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 11:07 pm

Feels like my intuition was correct then...

I was very tempted like a year ago by the Samsungs. But I didn't fall for it. Wd should have something for all the drives I've bought from them that haven't failed on me (eg. Not one in 15-20 years) and generally have given me impeccable perfomance.

The Wds can give some vibration but that's easy to fix. Might not be as quiet as the good Samsungs (if your are lucky to get one that is). But to my experience they don't start behaving dodgy all of a sudden and don't need any cherry picking. Wd also has the fastest 3,5" sata drives on the planet.

When you think of it: When is Spcr going to stop having reference products that need cherry picking? (Panaflo, Samsung etc)

The cudas was damn quiet but I had two that failed one me.

Until we get proper Flash drives I'm Wd all the way. Nothing beats quality...

Didn't mean to rub your noses in your problems, it's just that I'm a bit fascinated how products with quality issues sometimes can get so recommend.

Sorry about typos and grammar. Long, loooong night at work. Now to bed...

(Multipost not my fault though!)

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 8:30 am

Hello,

I bought a couple of the PATA 300GB Samsungs (HD300LD) at CompUSA last Saturday (they were only $100 each!) and the one that I have installed is pretty quiet -- not quite as quiet as the older ones, but certainly not "noisy".

They are labeled clearly as Samsung's, in blue retail boxes, btw. Inside, along with an 80-wire IDE cable, and a simple "instruction" sheet, is the HD in the familiar dimpled plastic clamshell.

[Edit: one of these has a fair bit of vibration, which can cause the 4252 case to "hum", but the other is much better.]

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 9:00 am

I installed a 250 GB IDE Samsung for a friend a couple of weeks ago.
It was pretty low noise if you're asking me, not disturbing in any way, but I have to admit that I didn't listen to it that much. On the other hand, if it would been a noisy sample I'd have heard it after 1 second.

Teffy · Post by **Teffy** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:02 pm

Large sample variance, what a pain.

Is a noisy Samsung sample still more quiet than, say, a Hitachi? I want a drive that is about 250G, and I plan to put it in an Antec P180 case. If I am not confident that buying a Samsung will buy quiet, then I will go for performance. Please advise...

Thanks,
Teffy

Gordoco · Post by **Gordoco** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 8:58 am

I just built a system in a P180 case with a Samsung 250GB SP2504C. I'm very pleased with the noise level of the hard drive. I don't notice the drive idle noise at all. Seek noise is acceptably quiet for me - while running a defrag, I can't hear the seek noise at 1 meter with the case door shut.

I'm happy with the idle level of this system as a whole but it might be a bit noisy for some of the SPCR purists. I will be replacing the stock cooling of the GPU and probably CPU sometime, as the system is too noisy under load (gaming), but I decided to start with stock to see how it performed.

Athlon 64 X2 4200+ stock HSF
Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe
EVGA 7900GT-SG stock HSF
Seasonic S12-500
Samsung SP2504C
Antec P180 with 2 triflows at low speed, 1 Nexus@12V

Csoszi · Post by **Csoszi** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 4:36 am

I bought a Western Digital WD3200KS last week, and this device put all my Samsungs (SP2504C Nidec, SP2514N Nidec, SP1614C Nidec, SP1614N JVC) to shame in terms of idle noise: the WD is extremely quiet! When AAM is enabled, seek noise is comparable to or even lower than that of the P120 family.
So I don't really understand the hype about Samsungs here in SPCR; I admit the one platter Nidec P80-s are quiet (I used to have an SP0802N and was pleased with it), but the quietness of rest of the the Samsung product line is doubtful IMHO.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 4:55 am

Csoszi wrote:I bought a Western Digital WD3200KS last week, and this device put all my Samsungs (SP2504C Nidec, SP2514N Nidec, SP1614C Nidec, SP1614N JVC) to shame in terms of idle noise: the WD is extremely quiet!

Now we get to hype the WDs... Hopefully they won't all start grinding away anytime soon.

Glad to hear that the WD3200KS is also quiet. I'll have to think about upgrading to one as my WD2500KS is a little low on free space.

wwenze · Post by **wwenze** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 6:00 am

I'm sure I got a very bad sample of an SP2514N Nidec but didn't remember this thread until now. Idle noise is acceptable, not silent but not obvious. But seek is terribly terrible - no difference between placing it on foam, suspending it and holding it in my hand; the loudest part is airborne and even with a case cover and an LCD screen between the HDD and me 1m away I can still clearly hear it.

DM+8, Cuda IV, U6, possibly even the PATA versions of current Barracudas are all softer.

But that might be because of the different noise floors during subjective testing and that my hearing has improved. I'm going to hook up my o' Cuda IV for side-by-side comparsion.

Update: No need for a side-by-side comparison, the Cuda IV was placed in a Metal Gear Box enclosure and put on top of the system with foam as support, and the seek is half as loud as the SP2514N. Can't say anything about idle, because I have't ran the Cuda IV for half a year and wierd noises were coming out of it. (cries)
So what I said above (on which HDD seeks softer) is all correct.

ch33 · Post by **ch33** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:52 pm

My 120GB and 160GB Samsungs now whine. Fantastic. Even the 250GB is quieter. I'm calling them to get them replaced tomorrow. Goodbye Samsung. Hello WD SE16's!

alfred · Post by **alfred** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 1:54 am

Maybe I was quite lucky but I haven't found any significant idle- nor AAMseek- level noise differences between my 6 P120 (4 SP2514N and 2 SP2504C); they were bought in 3 different stores, one at a time, throughout the last 2 years, and only two of them show a similar manufacturing date. Two of these 6 drives are in everyday use since more than a year; no evolution observed in sound levels nor performance. Any significant (let's say >1 dB/A) change in idle noise would be easily noticed as each P120 sits in its own PC with no other HDD.

Scoobsheister · Post by **Scoobsheister** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:28 pm

I just took delivery of a 2504C on Monday and after getting set up i'm experiencing a pulsing vibration coming from my machine (media centre on wooden desk) which i think i've pretty much narrowed down to this drive. I've already been into the drive and turned on AAC to quiet but this seems to have made very little difference.
Due to the case the drive is mounted vertically but it is mounted with washers on one end and a foam type pad on the other. Is this drive from a bad batch?
I'm really disappointed with it, I have an 1614N IDE drive in my PC aswell and it is near silent in comparison.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:50 pm

Scoobsheister wrote:I just took delivery of a 2504C on Monday and after getting set up i'm experiencing a pulsing vibration... Any ideas?

There have been a number of reports of pulsing vibration here at SPCR in recent months. A common element is the presence of more than one HDD. The reasoning seems to be "I had one HDD and it didn't pulse, then I added this new HDD and now it pulses so it must be the new drive's fault". And indeed it may be the new drive's fault.

However, it may be an interaction between two HDDs. The most obvious way is that each HDD is vibrating the thin sheet metal of the case, at very slightly different (rotational) frequencies, and that what you are hearing is a beat note.

Would it be possible to run the new drive with the old drive disconnected? If not, would it be possible to run the computer with one drive - preferably the new one - well isolated on some thick foam or a thick folded towel - anything that would prevent any possibility of shaking the sheet metal - and see what happens.

It would be very interesting if it turns out that the problem is indeed isolated to one HDD (the new one), acting alone. I have no idea what would cause such a thing.

Scoobsheister · Post by **Scoobsheister** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 4:51 am

a lot of the noise was coming through the vibrations getting to the desk so some foam under the feet seems to have helped that significantly. (before it was actually noisier than my stock Intel heatsink)

There is still a pulsing sensation and the thing to do would be to isolate the drive, however due to the plush fitting of the hard drives in the drive cage i don't see how it would be possible to elastically suspend them. I do have a foam sheet between the drive cage and case but this doesn't seem to have helped any.

It does seem to be the interaction rather than the one drive as when i disconnected the other drive the problem seemed to go away, however i am unwilling to run on just the one hard drive.

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 10:20 pm

My 400GB T133 Samsung P-ATA was extremely vibrating and thus impossible to quiet (even with AAM on) unless one fully decouples it:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... 8&start=30