Quiet Hard Drives?

[toecheese]

I've ordered my mobo and case- and now it is time for the guts. I'm waiting to see if Intel's price cuts will make AMD lower their prices- should know this week. As far as RAM, I seem to have better luck waiting for one of the weekend sales and buying it then.

But- hard drives. Since I'm trying to be quiet- not silent, mind you- but just quiet- I want a HDD which shouldn't be the loudest thing in my case. I see Western Digital SE drives and Seagate claim to be the quietest.

Anyone have any experience or recommendation? I'm not looking for enclosures, as the case I have (NSK2400) has a separate compartment for the drives as well as flexible grommets to keep vibration down- I'm just looking for out of the box which drive makes less noise.

[Scott@RT]

The Western Digital Caviar SE and Seagate drives are indeed typically the quietest, though I think there may be some others on the market these days that are at least as good . . . I just haven't really kept up with what's the latest on this (I'm still using EIDE drives in my DAW, though I'm really needing a CPU upgrade, and it's getting harder to find MOBO upgrades that give me both enough PCI slots and IDE ports, etc.). But I digress . . .

I've used both the WD and Seagate drives in my DAW for years, and have made that choice for two reasons: (1) they have typically been the quietest drives on the market at any given time, and (2) they have proven reliable over the years, with a lower failure rate than many other brands of hard drive. These drives are extremely popular with pro recording studios for these reasons. The last thing you want is for a drive to fail in the middle of a session, and to lose the most inspired take of your artist's song.

I have a small project studio here, with no separate control room. My computer sits out in the open right here next to my desk. Antek case, no particular additional isolation scheme for the HDs, and I don't hear them, even while running a very high track count (including if I'm running a 48 track mix, and I mute my speakers).

Further, when I'm recording here with very sensitive microphones and preamps, etc., it is often only a few feet away from the computer. The last thing I worry about with my system is picking up hard drive noise. If I'm listening on headphones, I'm more likely to notice faint sounds of kids playing in the playground a few blocks away than to notice hard drive noise (either of which would only be noticeable in a moment of silence in the music). Actually, the loudest thing on my computer (other than the CD/DVD drive) is the stock Antec PSU, when the fan kicks in -- though even that is actually very quiet, and I have more issues with background noise in my place (loft apt here in NYC -- I haven't built an isolated room for my studio). The other fans, heatsinks, etc. are Zalman stuff, so I don't get noise from them.

When the WD Caviar SE drives came out, they were a *little* bit faster than the Seagate drives, but the Seagate drives were just a *little* bit quieter than the WD drives. But, to be honest, the noise levels are quiet enough for my purposes it's not really noticeable. Might be a little more noticeable if I had a completely soundproof studio and had a lower noise floor.

So . . . in sum, either of those would be a good choice for HTPC purposes.

[Karl_in_Chicago]

If the ultimate arbiter is noise factor than I would choose the WD over the Seagate. Current Seagate offerings aren't as quiet as some of the older models were (they aren't screaming 15K RPM FC loud by any means, though). WD has really gotten their later offerings down quite a bit.

To get some info/feedback from folks that are fairly anal about noise in PC's you might want to visit http://www.silentpcreview.com/ . I've been planning out a new build myself and I like to alternate between there and the Xtreme Systems forums, where each group has pretty much diametrically opposed missions - quiet at all costs vs. performance at all costs. Helps me find which components will give me the best performance and result in the least amount of noise.

[Danny]

I liked the performance of the Samsung hard drives noise wise.

[Karl_in_Chicago]

Danny wrote:

I liked the performance of the Samsung hard drives noise wise.

Agreed - but for whatever reason they have trailed a good deal behind the market in releasing equivalent capacity drives.

[toecheese]

I went to silentpc review and they had a great writeup on the newer WD500G drive, saying it was the quietest desktop drive they'd tested.

However, that capacity is still pretty expensive, so I went cheap with a Seagate 160, Sata3 that is on sale at Compusa for $40.

[Scott@RT]

Sweet! Great price! I'm tempted to grab one or two of those myself, as I'm going to be building a new DAW soon.

[toecheese]

They also have a 320G for $90...

[Andrew Pratt]

You can't go wrong with Seagate drives...esp at that price!

[toecheese]

That seagate IS QUIET (far more so than those caps!). I'm loving it. The case with silicone mounts for the drives certainly help.

[buggers]

Seagates have a better Warranty.

[John Simpson]

Certainly, I *wouldn't* go for any of the Raptor range. They may be the fastest non-SCSI drives (I have two 80GB Raptors in this PC), but the rattle and whine is pretty daunting, even in a solid Lian-Li case.

[MatrixDweller]

You can download hard drive S.M.A.R.T. software that can tweak the performance/noise level. Higher performance = higher noise level. I have done this on my hard drive to see what it was all about. The one I used was made by Hitachi and I have a Maxtor hard drive. At max performance you can here the drive pipping while it's seeking data. Take it down a notch, and sacrifice a bit of speed, and the drive becomes silent. You can find the "Feature Tool" here: http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

You can also buy hard drive enclosures that fit in the 5 1/4 inch bay and help cool and quite the drive.

Another option is to buy some mass loaded vinyl and line your case with it to sound proof it.

[bob1029]

John Simpson wrote:

Certainly, I *wouldn't* go for any of the Raptor range. They may be the fastest non-SCSI drives (I have two 80GB Raptors in this PC), but the rattle and whine is pretty daunting, even in a solid Lian-Li case.

Im not sure about that statement... I also have 2x 74GB raptors (raid-0 256k stripe) in my case. Although my case is not a lightweight aluminum case. It weighs about 45lbs, AND the drives are kept in 5.25" heatsinking enclosures, so that may contribute to the quiet. The only time I hear them is when im read/writing from Windows system files, or from programs/games I have installed. All my music is stored on much quieter maxtor hard drives, so I rarely deal with loud seek noises while listening and browsing the collection.

As far as super-quiet drives go, I think seagate and samsung (spinpoint series) are exceptionally quiet and reliable drives.

[nova]

Take this with a grain of salt , but I have used almost every HDD out there. My favorite, until about 14 years ago, was Seagate. Was,....funny, it was the only HDD that every really died on me. Have not used one since. Switched to Western Digital in the early 90's and that's the only brand I have purchased since. Dunno if they are the quietest,....they are quiet, but I do feel they are the most reliable. And that tops quiet in my book any day.

[eugovector]

I have a Seagate in an Antec P180b with the silicon grommets, and it's very quiet. However, Silentpcrevew, mentioned several times, is a great resource in this area.

Conventional wisdom has it, that if you want real quiet but aren't crazy enough to go SSD yet, take a notebook drive and suspend it in elastic bands. More expensive than a 3.5", but extremely quiet.

[toecheese]

After my HTPC Seagate, I went with triple 320s for a RAID5 array for my main box. Quiet enough, but one of them clicks- yet still works fine as far as I can tell.