Most quiet HDD - concerns! (about 7200.11, T166, WD GP..)

[sofamensch]

Well there ary plenty informations, and also plenty of threads, (like "What are the currently quietest HD's) in this forum.

But still - after 2 bought HDD's i am not pleased.

Before I start, i am using a completely silent system. No fans at all. Not in the PSU, not for the CPU (Scythe Ninja), and everything working just fine, because the case is partly open and just a dust-mesh. Works fine at very low temps.
Since everything is absolutely silent, the HDD sound is the last opponent to defeat.

At first I bought a Samsung T166 with 500GB. It was announced the award winner in the german chip magacine, and that was a good reason to buy. But i RMA'd it the first day because it was vibrating, and getting awfully hot. I read that some HDD's of this series do vibrate and some don't, so i didnt want to play poker again. Then...

i replaced it with a Seagate 7200.11 500GB Model. Said to be very silent and i thought that the extra money would be worth it.
Now i am sitting here with its well documented SEEK Noise, which i hear all the time for some reason, since it is beeing accessed all the time. Stupid Windows. Ubuntu is slighty better with that. And AAM is not available. I thought it wouldnot make any difference. Well i guess it does.

Now I sit here, again have been googling and reading for hours. The next Step would be a Western Digital Green Power with 500 or 750 Gb. It is the leader in the line-up on SPCR, and i stopped caring about performance issues. But when you read the reviews on NewEgg you find quite a bunch of people complaining about Dead Drives, or many defective Sectors on their new WD, with overally not the best opinion on WD.

Now i am torn apart. Go again for the T166, stay with the 7200.11, go Green Power?
(Note that SSD is way to expensive *g*)

Thanks for your advice. I hope that this thread helps all the people looking for the MOST SILENT hdd..

[FartingBob]

Have you tried one of the silencing HDD enclosures? Some are better for cooling, some for silencing. Id recommend leaving it outside the main case to help keep it cool. If you put the enclosure on carpet on a piece of foam it'll eliminate any possible vibration noise still remaining.
The WD GP is the quietest 3.5" around at the moment so yes if you are intent on getting a new drive thats ideal.
The 3rd option is to use 2.5" notebook drives. Much quieter and cooler.

[sofamensch]

Well i guess you are right. I am to lazy to RMA. But i suggest anyone to get a drive with AAM if they want to go silent..

I will build myself something for the current HDD i guess, a cage or sth.

[bendit]

next time do the opposite of your first instinct.

you will have a very tough time finding a quieter 3.5 drive than GP.

[Tomson]

I just got 3 x 500GB WD GP drives, they replaced my three Seagate drives from different series. Well, the difference is just ... AMAZING!

As Seagates are one of the loudest drives and WD GP the most quiet one ...
Music to my ears ... hehe

So with WD GP you can't go wrong. And there is no quieter drive than that.

Oh, and in practice, there is no difference in performanse. Well, at least I can't see any ...

[sofamensch]

Well.. but as said i heard some bad things about WD. Bad customer support, bad QA (many defective HDD's, some won't even power on the first use, you can read that it this online shop newegg i guess)

And in some other Link on SPCR i found a link that tells me that the 7200.11 and the GP have just about the same noise leve!?
(See here: http://techreport.com/articles.x/13440/14 )

Additionally: Rather GP or Re2-GP? Second one seems to better performing but louder

Your last words?

[QuietOC]

And in some other Link on SPCR i found a link that tells me that the 7200.11 and the GP have just about the same noise leve!?
(See here: http://techreport.com/articles.x/13440/14 )

TechReport is good for many things, noise measurement is not one of them.

The GP is a 5400rpm drive. If you can live with that, it is a nice drive. I'm not so sure it is the quietest 3.5" drive, but it is darn near close to being so. I have more often seen Seagates placing near the loudest end of the scale recently.

FWIW: All drives have problems, mostly user caused--cheap insurance is to buy a brand new one every year or more often.

Happy owner of a quiet Hitachi P7K500.

[Rewdoalb]

From what I hear, the GP drives are not only the quietest, they are also the coolest available 3.5" drives, which would be very beneficial in a fan-less case.

[yuzgen]

From what I hear, the GP drives are not only the quietest, they are also the coolest available 3.5" drives, which would be very beneficial in a fan-less case.

True. I used many 3.5" HDD's in 14-15 years time. WD10EACS is the quietest and coolest one I've ever bought. I've been using a WD1200BEVS 2.5" drive as a primary HDD for some time. Will use it in its external enclosure again. Because I installed a WD10EACS and no point in using a 2.5" drive in my desktop anymore. I can hear the seeks from the GP drive unlike 1200BEVS but GP's idle noise is better than Scorpio. Pretty ironic. I'll tweak AAM values of the GP and try to get rid of the seek noise.

PS: My desktop has only one noise source except my HDD's and DVD burner... A 430W Coolermaster PSU's fan, which is very silent so I can hear anything.

Edit: On a Gigabyte GA-945GCM-S2L mobo, successfully set the AAM of WD10EACS to the minimum value with Hitachi Feature Tool. Also set the AAM of my WD7500AAKS. The noise difference is worth losing a little performance IMO.