I've got a 200GB version of one of these (8mb cache) and they do run hot, the smart monitoring is about 6C higher than my 200gb seagate 7200.7's but it feels much hotter to the touch. they aren't that loud really, seek noises are very quiet when AAM is set to the quietest mode, but it does hum a bit...

I have a 200gb Maxtor Plus10 in my media box. At first I was very disapointed with the noise, seeks sounded really crunchy. Turning the AAM setting to it's lowest solved this, it's just about audible now but not intrusive. It does hum though, more so than my seagate 7200.7's though they seek louder....

I've not read anything about this before so I thought I would share my experience. I've been building a HTPC based around the asus pundit and a Celeron D 320 Currently I'm working on getting it as quiet as possible and so I wanted the cpu running as cool as possible The pundit has no over/under cloc...

Hauppage nova-t's don't fit in the pundit I'm afraid, they are slightly too big, less than a mm but they don't fit. I had to bend the side casing and kind of rounden it to get it in which would be a problem unless you plan on laying it flt like i do.