[Survey] Most Silent (Recent/New) 3.5" Drive 300-400GB

biatche · Post by **biatche** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 12:09 am

Right now, I have about 6 250GB 7200.9 Seagate Drives and during the time I decided to purchase them, I felt Seagate drives are the most reliable and also silent (older models). I'm getting increasingly annoyed over the seeks right now. Are there any reliable drives right now comparable to Seagate? I've never had a dead Seagate drive.

Based on experience, Maxtor is the worst when it comes to reliability. WD (Non-Raptors) comes second.. I've seen too many dead WD drives so WD is a No Go.

That leaves Samsung and Hitachi, right? I don't think Hitachi is that reliable, right?

So what about Samsung drives, are they quiet and reliable? Anyone mind sharing their bad experiences with Samsung?

I've owned a Samsung 20GB, and it burns, it gets really hot. Too hot. How are the newer models, how silent are they really?

I believe Reliability comes first before silence too. Yeah please share your knowledge and experiences please, thanks!

Longwalker · Post by **Longwalker** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:27 am

When it comes to reliability, I think the warranty periods speak for themselves. Samsung and Hitachi only offer three year warranties. Seagate drives all have five year warranties--if they made unreliable drives, it would cost them a lot of money in warantee replacements.

My inclination is to buy Seagate and put up with the noise.

zhai · Post by **zhai** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 4:45 am

I just bought a samsung HD401LJ 400gb T133, based on the opinion that it's among the 400gb+ disks with the nicest idle noise. I've also put it in a scythe quiet drive enclosure. It's pretty quiet, though it's still more noisy than my s12-430 and case fans. It's also put in the bottom back of my case on some foam (very little air flow on it).

Idle temp is abour 30 deg celsius, haven't tested load. But I have a feeling load temp wouldn't go over 40 if I put it in front of a case fan, even though it's in the SQD enclosure.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 2:32 am

I've had a Western and a couple of Maxtors crap out after just a year. My Quantum still runs fine,so does a small older Seagate. Samsung has gained a nice rep for quiet.

jackal2513 · Post by **jackal2513** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 2:36 am

after many disk failures over teh years i would only ever buy Seagate

shame because i have a 500gb and a 400gb currently and they are both so noisy, making an inteminable whooshing sound

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:04 am

What price to pay for silence? IMHO.....find the most quiet drive available, and back-up all the data. Gives you the most quiet setup, without worrying too much about reliability.

If you have numerous drives to worry about, I'd be inclined to put reliability first, noise second. But this is SPCR......right?

biatche · Post by **biatche** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 3:09 pm

ok, we hear all the bad stuff bout WD and Maxtor... but no one got any complaints on the Samsungs? So have they been reliable then. hmm

Arvo · Post by **Arvo** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 3:30 pm

There's one estonian forum, where is collected much data about various hardware, including HDD info (reliability, links etc) (in estonian of course

).

Little (badly) translated quote from there:

ACTUAL RELIABILITY

Reliability indices (Drive is more reliable than NN% of others) of popular (but not produced anymore) HDD models from over 44000 HDD usage statistics:

IDE(ATA/SATA) drives:
1. 90% - SEAGATE Barracuda V
2. 85% - SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.7
3. 84% - WD Raptor GD/36GB
4. 82% - SEAGATE Barracuda IV
5. 77% - WD Raptor GD/74GB
6. 71% - WD Caviar SE(JB)/40-80-120GB
7. 50% - HITACHI DeskStar 7K250
8. 39% - SAMSUNG SpinPoint P80
9. 24% - MAXTOR DiamondMax +9
10. 20% - MAXTOR DiamondMax +8

SCSI drives:
1. 97% - SEAGATE Cheetah 15K.3
2. 94% - SEAGATE Cheetah X15-36LP
3. 76% - MAXTOR Atlas 10K IV
4. 68% - SEAGATE Cheetah 10K.6
5. 62% - MAXTOR Atlas 10K III
6. 13% - IBM UltraStar 36LZX

Actual reliability of IDE(ATA/SATA) HDD, currently in production (in parenthesises are year and quarter of production start):

1. Excellent reliability:
SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.10 320GB (2006-2)
SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.9 160GB,80GB (2005-3)
WD Raptor WDxxxxADFD 36GB,74GB,150GB (2006-1)
WD Caviar WD3200xx 320GB (2005-1)
WD Caviar WD800xx 80GB (mod2005-3)
HITACHI DeskStar T7K250 250GB (2005-2)

2. Good reliability:
WD Caviar WD2500xx 250GB (mod2005-2)
SAMSUNG SpinPoint P120 250GB (2005-2)
SAMSUNG SpinPoint P80SD 80GB,160GB (2005-2)
HITACHI DeskStar 7K80 80GB (2004-4)
WD Caviar WD1600xx 160GB (mod2005-3)

3. Average reliability:
SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.9 200GB,250GB,300GB,400GB,500GB (2005-4)
SEAGATE NearLine NL35 250GB,400GB,500GB (2005-3)
WD Caviar WD3000xx 300GB (2005-2)
WD Caviar WD4000xx 400GB (2005-3)
WD Caviar WD5000xx 500GB (2006-1)
HITACHI DeskStar 7K400 400GB (2004-2)
HITACHI DeskStar 7K500 500GB (2005-3)
HITACHI DeskStar T7K250 160GB (2005-2)

4. Bad reliability:
SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.8 200GB,250GB,300GB,400GB (2004-4)
MAXTOR MaXLine III 250GB,300GB (2004-3)
MAXTOR DiamondMax 10 80GB,120GB,160GB,200GB,250GB,300GB (2004-3)

Unfortunately there are no newer drives present in these lists

But you can get general picture.

From personal experience - I've seen lot of failed Maxtors last year, no other 80GB+ hard disks.

Famous IBM DeskStar series drives are all dead already

Forumlurker · Post by **Forumlurker** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 7:00 pm

Famous IBM DeskStar series drives are all dead already

Nope mine is still runing fine.

Well my problem is that the power conector if faulty. Wigle it a litle bit and it starts. And dont touch it and it is fine.

Aparantly the problem was heat, from what I did read. Dont know dont care. it works.

stevea · Post by **stevea** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 8:09 pm

This is a useful site,
http://forums.storagereview.net/

And if you signup and enter your disk data you get access to the database.

My reading and experience is that all drive manufacturers have had reliability problems. I had a Seagate 160GB SATA go bad on me 2 months ago, but the drive had been spinning continuously for 3 years and was still under warrantee - gotta love the warrantee. Despite this, I'd put Seagate near the top and WD near the bottom.

I wouldn't write off Hitachi because of the IBM laptop drive fiasco - otherwise they have an excellent record. Seagate seems to come out tops on performance and reliability - they seem to have more advanced seek algorithms derived from their extensive server market experience. Samsung has a solid record, but then again they don't have the number of years of history as a Seagate of Maxtor or WD.

Some drive have a quiet mode than can be enabled with a disk utility from the mfgr. Some Seagate SATAs will do this, tho' there is a performance penalty.

I agree w/ the comment that warrantee length is a indication of quality. Also note the prices for comparable drives - there is a reason the premium mgrs can charge $10-$20 more for their drives. Still these are only secondary indicators.

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 8:36 pm

Longwalker wrote:Seagate drives all have five year warranties--if they made unreliable drives, it would cost them a lot of money in warantee replacements.

Don't be fooled by marketing. Seagate is counting on people who think like this to buy their drives solely based on the warranty to offset (and probably outweigh) the cost of actually providing the warranty. It doesn't make the drive any more reliable and it's a poor excuse to put up with noise/heat.

Chris Chan · Post by **Chris Chan** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:30 am

Interesting reliability data. I have had two WD fail on me due to overheating or short-circuiting, but that was my fault. I've never had another WD drive go south.

biatche · Post by **biatche** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 8:37 am

SP2504C, HD401LJ, HD501LJ

these are the samsung models i can get at my place, any comments?

heck I have lotsa 7200.9 and its listed under avg reliability...... damn should i replace them with .10 or wait for .11 :/

i think i should get a samsung drive for downloads, so i don't hear annoying loud seeks while i sleep

spookmineer · Post by **spookmineer** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 6:42 pm

I've had a Maxtor 60GB (DiamondMax Plus D740X - 6L060J3) since 2001 (main drive), and a WD 120 GB (Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB - 32EVA0) since about 3 years. Both are still working in good order.
Maybe the conditions in which they have to operate have a big effect on their reliability.