Are laptop drives quieter than desktop ones? I am considering getting a laptop drive (and the appropriate adaptor) for my bedroom PC, which is nearly silent except for the drone of the hard drive. Since this machine is left on 24 hours, that drone is very irritating when trying to sleep.
-ZA
Laptop drives quieter than desktop ones?
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laptop drives run at a lower speed, typically 4200rpm. That probably accounts for a good deal of its silence. You can try out a desktop 5400rpm drive and see if it is quieter.
You should note that laptop drives are notoriously slow, you will take a huge performance penalty with that. I think anandtech did a few tests on laptops, switching around HDs to see how much impact it really has. I believe it was something in the order of 20-30% on a P4. catastrophic.
Perhaps the best thing to do is to purchase a barracuda IV, transfer your data, and sell your old drive. Youll end up spending less than purchasing a laptop drive, plus you wont cripple your machine.
You should note that laptop drives are notoriously slow, you will take a huge performance penalty with that. I think anandtech did a few tests on laptops, switching around HDs to see how much impact it really has. I believe it was something in the order of 20-30% on a P4. catastrophic.
Perhaps the best thing to do is to purchase a barracuda IV, transfer your data, and sell your old drive. Youll end up spending less than purchasing a laptop drive, plus you wont cripple your machine.
Laptop drives are quieter than the desktop versions, most laptop drives spin at 5400 or less, if the Hard Drive is giving u noise problems why don't u try setting windows to spin the drive down when it's idle or u can build a Silent drive enclosure like Mike's Drive Sandwich
http://www.silentpcreview.com/modules.p ... d=8&page=1
and doing this will be cheaper to
http://www.silentpcreview.com/modules.p ... d=8&page=1
and doing this will be cheaper to
Speed isn't really a concern on this machine (it's really just used to play mp3s off a server on the network, and besides it's running a C3-750, which is probably the slowest component). I was thinking about running it diskless with Linux but didn't want to deal with the configuration (and the headache of running ethernet to the bedroom, since network booting doesn't seem to be supported off of HPNA cards), so was going to just stick a used or refurb 4000 RPM laptop drive (like a 4 GB hitachi that teamexcess.com has for $35) on it.
Any comments on that drive? I have a Silentdrive in the living room, and it works fairly well, but it's almost the same price as this hdd, so I dunno which to choose.
-ZA
Any comments on that drive? I have a Silentdrive in the living room, and it works fairly well, but it's almost the same price as this hdd, so I dunno which to choose.
-ZA
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MikeC
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If you haven't actually tried a single-platter Seagate Barracuda decoupled from the case by suspending it or sitting it on a soft piece of foam, then you don't know how quiet a desktop drive can be. In a long discussion on another forum about notebooks drives vs. the cuda 4, the general consensus was that the cuda is quieter.
I have hands-on experience with 2 notebooks, which although quieter than typical desktops, have drives that are clearly audible almost all the time, certainly whenever they are accessed. They're slow 4200 rpms. The decoupled single-platter cudas in my systems are basically inaudible all the time.
I have hands-on experience with 2 notebooks, which although quieter than typical desktops, have drives that are clearly audible almost all the time, certainly whenever they are accessed. They're slow 4200 rpms. The decoupled single-platter cudas in my systems are basically inaudible all the time.
'many' laptop drives can be quite noisy - especially if they are used/old. We have lots of laptop drives at work that become very noisy, presumably because they run extremely hot, and get much abuse (vibration while spinning, etc).
But I just came across the hitachi DK23DA-20 20 gig, which ships with the Dell latitude C610 (and many others, I'm sure). It was real, real quiet in a laptop, so I just did a test - bought one of those $9 adapters and put it in my already silent-modified Desktop (quality fans running slow, etc). It's real quiet, but the access noise is very high pitch and driving me nuts! About every 30 secs I hear a 'click/clunk' when the PC is idle and I just hate it! (just posted to this forum to see if anyone can remember how to disable this access, but that's another topic). I'm probably going to put back my cruddy old maxtor (which is mounted in a novibes mount). The barracuda in my 'main' system is much, much quieter.
It IS real nice and small, though - looks cute in that big case! DTEMP tells me it's running at a steady 40 degrees F, which is tolerable.
But I just came across the hitachi DK23DA-20 20 gig, which ships with the Dell latitude C610 (and many others, I'm sure). It was real, real quiet in a laptop, so I just did a test - bought one of those $9 adapters and put it in my already silent-modified Desktop (quality fans running slow, etc). It's real quiet, but the access noise is very high pitch and driving me nuts! About every 30 secs I hear a 'click/clunk' when the PC is idle and I just hate it! (just posted to this forum to see if anyone can remember how to disable this access, but that's another topic). I'm probably going to put back my cruddy old maxtor (which is mounted in a novibes mount). The barracuda in my 'main' system is much, much quieter.
It IS real nice and small, though - looks cute in that big case! DTEMP tells me it's running at a steady 40 degrees F, which is tolerable.