Quietest 5400rpm IDE HD?

[rockhard]

Im looking for a really quiet IDE HD for my bedrooms resident headless server.
The current HD is an old 7200rpm IBM DPTA372050 and the sound of the motor is starting to get to me.
Ive tried a Maxtor D540X with the Accoustic management set to quiet to reduce the seek noise, but the sound of the disk rotating is still noticeable
If anyone can recommend me a 5400rpm IDE HD that is silent in seeks and rotational noise, cool operating so as not to heat up my case be much appreciated.

rockhard =)

 

[rockhard]

Hehe, guess i should use search first
The Baracuda IV seems to be the kiddy on the block for low noise
Would you guys say this HD is quieter than the 5400rpm drives?
Was wondering if Fujitsu do a Fluid bearing HD that might be more suitable (low heat)?
I'll go peruse Fujitsu's webby.

 

[novice]

I have heard that the Fujitsu drives are very quiet, but then crawling makes a lot less noise than running! Kind of like the statement that Pentium 4 processors run much cooler than AMD Athlons, but then it only makes sense since speed creates heat and slowing down a processor is the quickest way to cool it off!
Chuck

 

[Silver222]

My friend, you need a Seagate. The Barracuda IV is silent. Seriously. You will not hear it over your power supply fan. And you don't have to settle for a slow 5400RPM drive.

They are kinda like the 60mm delta fans in reverse. No one ever believes how loud they are until they have one. The Barracuda IV is sort of the same way. Dead silent.

 

[rockhard]

Heh, i cant hear my PSU fan - seriously My PSU unit has a Panaflo fan in it and the rig is made up of a Tualatin CPU and 100mhz SDRam so the current draw is negligable on the PSU's 350 watt capability resulting in the PSU fan hardly running at all
Even the ultra quiet Sunon Heatsink Fan is running at 7 volts so it makes NO noise at all.
If the HD makes ANY noise i will hear it
Do you guys reckon the Baracuda IV will live up to my expectations in light of the above?

 

[Silver222]

Like I said, unless you haven't heard one, you won't really be able to figure out how quiet it is

 

[Ionizer86]

Here's a vote for Maxtor 34098H4!

The only time I've heard it EVER was when I had my case open, and I was booting my comp. Other than that, I never hear it. Even before I got my new *cough* noisy PSU, it was silent. And my HSF is a quiet 32dB one that came on top of my Taisol. No northbridge fan either. And this was before I got my GTS-V which has an inaudible little fan on it.

 

[rockhard]

thanx Silver Guess i'll just have to find somewhere with a no quibble returns policy and give one a try


<< And my HSF is a quiet 32dB >>


Hmmm? I too have a Taisol in one of my downstairs rigs - it aint that quiet
If you guys could hear how quiet my rig is you would be surprised, really.
My IBM GXP is letting it down
Total silence is my quest - maybe if all else fails i'll have to look into them quiet HD enclosures.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Try padding the inside of your case with sound absorbing studio foam and sticking rubber bands between every drive and it's cage. Also use rubber washers for every screw on the case and throw a rug under the cpu. That should help too. hehe

 

[Becks2k]

yea 32dba = loud

<20 = quiet

storagereview.com when you ewre a member had sound tests... the cudaIV was the quietest harddrive by far. If you don't need mad storage don't get the 80gig. It has more platters and thus will make more heat. If you get one with only 1 platter maybe you can even put it in a silentdrive thing.

Another way to quiet the drive if its too hot for the silent drive, or youd on't like the idea of it running 40C all the time...

Somesite, if i remember it i'll give link, had a home-made harddrive cooler/silencer. It was 2 pieces of alluminum on the top and bottom and cork around the sides. The aluminum stopped any vibrations and kept the drive cool.

www.onlinemetals.com or www.online-metals.com whatever it is sells plates

get 1/2" thick 5" x 7" plate maybe? well 2 of them. Then you just gotta drill holes in the 4 corners nad find a bolt at the hardware store to put them together.

 

[Becks2k]

btw... my setup is 2 panaflo la1's 7ved in
1 la1 on the pal8045
1 la1 in the powersupply (antec 400w pp412x)
and 2 la1s out in the bad 12v

a 80gig cudaIV
and a 40gig maxtor (an older model)


My problem is the maxtor is so damn loud it drowns out any other noise... I can unplug the la1s in and out and can't tell a difference... soon as I have extra money i'll have to replace that pos 40gig drive.

I don't know how much quieter a cudaIV will be than your current drive, but it is the quietest i've heard.. I think the quietest setup right now is a cudaIV nad a drive silencer of some type.. theres nothing after that... except no harddrive nad boot off nic type setup


BTW www.plycon.com also sells a harddrive silencer type thing from www.noisecontrol.de... the rubberband thing. I don't know how that compares to that other silencedrive thing that makes your harddrive run way hot (/me no like that idea) or to the aluminum plate setup but if your too lazy to make one... the plycon one is probably the best bet.

 

[rockhard]

cheers for your help guys
I had a ring round today and persuaded a store to do the no quible return thing so i can try powering it up in my case to see what the rotational noise is like - if i not likey and dont partition up the HD they will do an exchange i guess
Was wondering if using rubber bands between HD and mount may cause the heads to have to work harder and thus slow down HD's performance? - would it be bad for the HD's health to do this sort of thing?

Ive tried the network boot thing before and 12.5MB/s 100 Base TX offers wasnt quite what i had in mind as i like my rigs to be snappy - If only 1000 Base TX Ethernet was cheaper and i had a 64 bit PCI slot in my Server - could do all my puters diskless

Again thanx for your help and advice, appreciated,

rockhard =)

 

[Becks2k]

Some review tested the harddrive speed in and out of the noisecontrol.de rubberband thing... it was a few percent slower in it than mounted normaly. It wasn't slower enough to really affect overall system performance at all though. I don't remember what they said about if its bad for the drive.

I'm not sure how much the drive would be effected if you used your own rubberbands and they weren't as tight as the noisecontrol's setup, I've seen some people do that tho. I don't think it can be good for the drive.

 

[Budman]

Samsung drives are silent,even in heavy seeks you cant tell it's working unless you look at the hd light.

I had 2 of them i a Raid 0 config a while back & they were dead silent.




<< The V20400's quiet operation cannot be overemphasized. Even when running the seek-intensive IOMeter suite, Samsung's drive was inaudible over the testbed's PC Power & Cooling Silencer power supply when listening from a distance of just one meter. Low idle and seek noises make the V20400 the quietest drive that we've yet reviewed here at SR. As difficult as it seems, Samsung reduced noise levels down a notch below that emitted by its older drive as well as ultra-quiet units from Quantum and Fujitsu. The drive becomes just slightly warm to the touch even after extensive use in our smallish testbed case. >>





Storage review Samsung SpinPoint V20400

 

[Auric]

Seek noise ain't the problem though, it's the motor.

rockhard, let us know how the Baracuda IV is.

 

[bearmeat]

samsung ownz joo! blahhhh blahhh arfghgghgh ugh.....................

 

[rockhard]

No probs Auric - I'll post in this thread when it arrives for you

Thanks, regards,

rockhard =)

 

[Snapster]

Wouldn't something like this be more suited? At least you wouldn't have to sacrifice speed, let alone have to buy a new hd!

 

[rockhard]

Ive had a look at those enclosures before but have been wary of the temperatures you get in them with very little airflow inside the case?
My current main rig's IDE HD's run at about 45C which is well within specs for the drives, but if i were to pop it in an enclosure i bet you would be getting close to the max for a typical IDE HD which is 55C IIRC.
I value my data so am hoping that i can find a HD that will be quiet without wrapping it in a jacket so to speak.
I do backup my data but am too lazy to have the worry of restoring a broken drive.
Ive had to do this with multiple IBM GXP's - I dont fancy going down that fiasco again
If i have to try an enclosure its going to be a last resort - i reckon id rather try going Network boot if thats the case and see if i can pick up some 1000 Base TX cards at a reasonable price

 

[Latts]

<< My friend, you need a Seagate. The Barracuda IV is silent. Seriously. You will not hear it over your power supply fan. And you don't have to settle for a slow 5400RPM drive.
>>



I agree.

 

[Becks2k]

"<< The V20400's quiet operation cannot be overemphasized. Even when running the seek-intensive IOMeter suite, Samsung's drive was inaudible over the testbed's PC Power & Cooling Silencer power supply when listening from a distance of just one meter. Low idle and seek noises make the V20400 the quietest drive that we've yet reviewed here at SR. As difficult as it seems, Samsung reduced noise levels down a notch below that emitted by its older drive as well as ultra-quiet units from Quantum and Fujitsu. The drive becomes just slightly warm to the touch even after extensive use in our smallish testbed case. >>
"

They came out before the cudaIV... read the cudaIV's review... something like "quietest operation perhaps only matched by the samsung" For some reason I can't find the sound tests they did, but the cudaIV was the quietest they tested(maybe they didn't do the samsung tho there was ~20 drives at least). Seagate claims 20dba idleing btw.