samsung 5400rpm ecogreen drive is a HDD but very quiet, and as its cooler lends itself well to sitting in a HD silent enclosure so you can get virtual silence there. SSD is of course much faster though so they drop in price I will get a cheap one perhaps 80gb, to put OS and programs on, then use the...

katana man's findings are consistent with what I had been suspecting for a while, it does seem like filters and fan grills increase resistance and so mean more noise and less airflow. Im not sure I agree with teh 'all or nothign' approach though, I dont reckon the basic screw on fan guards do any ha...