Quiet Hard Drive Showdown: Samsung vs. Seagate

[echo1434]

Okay, one of my Seagate Barracuda SATA 160's just died on me. I've tried everything — it's a goner. There are two candidates to replace it right now:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200 GB
Samsung SpinPoint P120 200 GB (or 250 GB if I can find one)

I guess I have several questions:

1) What is the true acoustic difference between these? The Seagate web site as well as a support representative both claim the 160 and 200 GB models are identical in noise... and I'm content with the level of my current Seagate, which I have in a Smart Drive enclosure. Is it possible that a non-enclosed Samsung is still quieter? And regardless of the decibel rating, does one have a more "pleasant" tone than the other? My Seagate definitely had no whine, just a bit of a ticking and spinning sound — not really noticeable unless you are focusing on it.

2) Is there a difference in performance? I see the Samsung has a rated seek time of 8.9 ms vs. that of Seagate at 8.5 ms. I'm not sure which "modes" these refer to, but I did some heavy video capturing with my Seagate, and it just barely got the job done sometimes. I've read one review that claims the Samsung actually has better throughput, so again I need some advice.

3) I've heard so many mixed reviews about the reliablility of all brands, so I'm looking for fresh opinions. I've always heard Seagate talked up a lot, but this one only lasted me a year, so that didn't impress me much... Also had a Samsung SpinPoint 160 before that, and it died in a week!

I'm actually planning to replace both of my current Seagates with a matching pair of the above drives, to get more disk space and hopefully prolong the life of my system. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[sthayashi]

I don't have the P120, but were it to have a similar noise signature as its predecessors (as reviews seems to indicate), it would be much quieter in general than the 7200.7, which I'm not terribly happy with, even though it sits on foam in my closet. It can tick when at idle, the seek noise is just plain loud.

I certainly can't compare the 2 with respect to video capture since my drives sit on the other end of a USB2 enclosure.

If you have drives dying on you, maybe you should examine how well they're cooled. What is the SMART Temperature reading on them? Regardless, I wouldn't worry too much about reliability between the companies. All my drives from both companies have been more or less reliable. I've lost one Samsung once, but I have more Samsung drives than I do Seagate ones.

[perplex]

i get the impression that if you want quiet you must go for a 2.5" drive or atlest suspend a 3.5" and/or enclosure