"Cool" new WD drive (sorry, bad pun)

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:57 am

Just surfing around this morning and came across this. Although I highly doubt their claims of "nearly silent", I thought it was interesting that these are the coolest-running drives they've ever had, beating the 7200.7 by 4 degrees and everything else by 7-8. Might be useful for those who are suspending drives and having trouble with them overheating because of it.

P.S. first post

Lifecycle · Post by **Lifecycle** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 7:17 am

Welcome to SPCR Green Shoes!

Although WD and other manufacturers like Maxtor have traditionally made SPCRer's shudder at the thought of the noise level of their drives, it's clear that they are now putting in more effort to producer quieter (if not silent) units. They're still playing catch-up, but the gap is narrowing.

I'd love to see Mike review a few of the newer models, including this one and the Maxtor Diamondmax10, as while the older Samsungs are great quiet drives, they are getting a bit long in the tooth now (says the man with a Barracuda IV!

) and there are more and more higher capacity FDB drives coming on the market (I'm assuming this new WD is also FDB).

BTW: Tom's Hardware is something of a forum favourite sitting duck around here - I'm not getting drawn into discussing the relative merits/demerits of various hardware sites though (I know, DYOR etc.)

Bitter Jitter · Post by **Bitter Jitter** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 7:33 am

It would be nice to have a bit more choice. Surely if Samsung could be bothered to put the R&D to get good quiet technology, then the others should be able to?
I realise that the others tend to concentrate on speed and capacity above acoustics but still.

Barracuda IV ........ that’s steam powered isn't it Lifecycle?

It maybe old but it still hasn’t really been topped yet.

Lifecycle · Post by **Lifecycle** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 8:04 am

Barracuda IV ........ that’s steam powered isn't it Lifecycle?

A golden oldie

I just keep putting coal in the back and she keeps ticking along, nice, smooth and quiet

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 9:18 am

Thanks for the warm welcome

It would indeed be nice to see a bit more competition along the silent front...although I agree that things are improving. In the past I've had about the same luck with Western Digital as others did with the deathstars, but recently I tried them again and the quality (if not the noise) is getting much better.

Didn't realise THG was a black sheep around here . . .

good to know!

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:09 am

Good find! Even though it is Tom's HW, it's still the first reviewish of sorts :)

I dug up some more info:

- 3 platters of 106.7 GB
- energy consumption down from 12.8 W in r/w (WD2500JB) to 9.5W (WD3200JB)*
- acoustics down from 34d/36dBA (idle/seek, WD2500JB) to 28/33dBA (idle/seek, WD3200JB)*

* figures are from Maxtor's own marketing literature. Take them for what you will. Still, they appear to be indicating at least a slight reduction in temps/noise.

I'm going to consider this as an alternative to Maxline III, if I a good review pops up.

The competition for the least noisy and least hot 300GB modern SATA drive is slowly building up.

MikeC, how are your connections to Maxtor and WD? <hint, hint> :)

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 3:38 pm

I desperately need to reduce the # of drives in my HTPC and I am "stuck" at 3x160gb with the Samsung Spinpoints. I wonder if this drive is truly as quiet as a spinpoint?

http://www4.tomshardware.com/storage/20 ... jb-07.html

Indeed, it looks like Western Digital can keep its promises regarding this drive. During our tests, it's operating temperature never exceeded 45°C, which is a new record for a desktop drive of the 7,200 rpm class. The WD3200JB was almost inaudible during operation, and only made itself heard under very heavy loads. However, the sound level can be reduced even further by switching to a less aggressive access mode. As far as ergonomics are concerned, the WD3200JB thus definitely raises the bar a good deal.

We need a guinea pig..

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 3:44 pm

FWIW there does appear to be a semi-direct correlation between heat and noise per StorageReview:

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/2 ... 14C_6.html

I am encouraged by the low temperature readings, which are a lot less subjective than the sound observations.