Liquid baring or not?

Mmad · Post by **Mmad** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 11:41 am

I just wondered if you guys had any experience with the liquid baring maxtor drives. A friend of mine told me they are inaudiable.

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 1:19 pm

I find the 40 GB DM+8 in my e-mail/browser system quite silent. I have run Maxtor's AMSet utilityto cut the seek noise and it is mounted on aluminum channel stock sitting at the bottom of a microATX case on dense foam. Others here say their (larger) Diamond Max +9s are also silent. Others say they are noisy.

Halcyon posted some data from C't about relative HDD noise.

It depends on what you want. The new Samsung drives have a reputation for being the best. But a Maxtor 80GB/8Meg drive for $55 or so after rebate from Staples or another big box store is a nice price. Building a $800 - $1000 system go with the Samsungs. Look for a thread about Minimizing Seek Noise in WD & Maxtor drives a week or two back.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 8:05 am

JimK wrote:I find the 40 GB DM+8 in my e-mail/browser system quite silent.

How hot it's running? I've seen few of these in work, and they seem to be over 40°C when hard-mounted to the case. I can only imagine the temps if the drive is sitting on a foam.

Cheers,

Jan

Mati · Post by **Mati** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 8:42 am

Jan Kivar wrote:
JimK wrote:I find the 40 GB DM+8 in my e-mail/browser system quite silent.
How hot it's running? I've seen few of these in work, and they seem to be over 40°C when hard-mounted to the case. I can only imagine the temps if the drive is sitting on a foam.

Cheers,

Jan

My old 30GB Diamondmax8+ was about 30~35C when hard-mounted and went up to 49C on foam with case temps about 25~32C. This was without any active cooling, just a large open hole below the HDD where a stamped fan grill used to be.

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 1:25 pm

Jan Kivar wrote:
JimK wrote:I find the 40 GB DM+8 in my e-mail/browser system quite silent.
How hot it's running? I've seen few of these in work, and they seem to be over 40°C when hard-mounted to the case. I can only imagine the temps if the drive is sitting on a foam.

Right now DTemp says 25 C. But that is with the 5V 80mm L1A blowing on it

Yes, it was running about 40 - 43 C without a fan so, being burned once, I decided to buy some "insurance." The aluminum channel stock works as a HS and holds it up off the foam to allow air to pass below and above the drive.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:15 am

JimK wrote:Right now DTemp says 25 C. But that is with the 5V 80mm L1A blowing on it Yes, it was running about 40 - 43 C without a fan so, being burned once, I decided to buy some "insurance." The aluminum channel stock works as a HS and holds it up off the foam to allow air to pass below and above the drive.

That sounds cool. Was 40-43°C with or without the stocks?

Cheers,

Jan

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 5:55 pm

Jan Kivar wrote: That sounds cool. Was 40-43°C with or without the stocks?

The first attempt was with some steel 5.25" -> 3.5" drive adaptors holding it up. I don't know if the aluminum is any cooler but it is a much neater setup and not nearly as wide as the earlier one as it now sits below the drive.

Devilsown · Post by **Devilsown** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 2:28 am

I own a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 40 GB with liquid bearing, and i must say it's pretty quiet! However, i am not considering it for my next pc (which has to be extremely quiet!), because you hear it seek.

Besides that, temperature tools measure it to be 60 degrees!!! Which i think is very weird, because it feels hardly warm when touching it (i use no foam or whatever and the case temp is around 21 degrees).

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 7:11 am

Devilsown,

Have you run Maxtor's AMSet utility? It usually does a good job of reducing seek noise.

As far as the temps go, how is it mounted? If you don't have metal to metal mounting (noise transfer) the temps will climb. That's why you see so many systems here with active cooling of the HDDs which are isolated from the case because of the noise issues. Low speed Panaflo fans at 5v are popular for this task as you just need a bit of airflow.

Devilsown · Post by **Devilsown** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 12:16 pm

JimK wrote:Devilsown,

Have you run Maxtor's AMSet utility? It usually does a good job of reducing seek noise.

As far as the temps go, how is it mounted? If you don't have metal to metal mounting (noise transfer) the temps will climb. That's why you see so many systems here with active cooling of the HDDs which are isolated from the case because of the noise issues. Low speed Panaflo fans at 5v are popular for this task as you just need a bit of airflow.

Thanks for the tool. However, i'm not too worried about this old P2 400 since it is far from silent, and the fans make more noice than my harddisk does.

I'm getting a complete new system soon though, which will be quiet.

About the harddisk; it's normally mounted, nothing special done to it (which means metal to metal), so i don't understand why it's so hot.
The one i had before this one was exactly the same, though without liquid bearing, and it died on my within a month.

This one is almost 2 years old though.