FYI:Nidec spinpoint SATA 160 gb still @ Microcenter,Bay Area

[pufftissue]

In case anyone of you guys found yourself as hard-pressed to find the Samsung spintpoing 160 gb SATA with nidec motors:

Microcenter in Santa Clara still has these, 7 of them left. You have to ask the salesman to go in the back to get them, b/c there are none on display. Ask for SKU: 556431. They are $99.99. Don't forget to buy a serial ata cable, as they are the OEM version and come with a power cable to the power supply, but no SATA cable. The remaining 7 I am not sure if they are nidec, but everyone I saw on display of all varieties were all nidec except one jvc unit, for what it's worth.

They have ultra dma spinpoint drives on display that are refurbished. Almost every single one that I saw on display, though not SATA, were nidec motors. Only saw 1 jvc vs like 10 nidec.

You pay a tiny bit more, but it's been worth it to make sure that I know I'm getting a nidec.

[pufftissue]

Well, I have installed the spintpoint with nidec motor, and YEAH, it's very quiet. I've definitely got other parts--i.e., everything, that's louder than this hard drive.

[jrodman]

Just today I went to the Micro Center off of 101 beteween Lawrence and Great america (I assume the one you're referring to). They had 80, 120, and 160 in both parallel and serial ATA.

Tom Smith was very friendly and happy to show me the right motor.. I guess I could have just found it myself in the clear cases, but since he asked and people had talked about them being "in the back", I explained. They seem familiar with this kind of customer question by now, and perhaps are seeking them out from Samsung.

It would be really great if our preferential buying had some kind of market power to encourage Nidec and also JVC to innovate in the arena of silence.

[ilh]

The Microcenter in Cambridge, MA got a batch of 40ish Nidec 1614Cs in a few weeks ago, and they likely still have some. They seemed to keep them in the back somewhere. On the shelf they only had JVC 1614Ns.

[Marxx]

I just picked up a 160gb sata samsung with a nidec motor from the santa clara microcenter. I installed it in my slk3000b, i am kind of dissappointed in its noise level while seeking/writing. It is just as loud as my 4 year old maxtor drive. I think i am going to return it, i was expecting a much quieter drive, my cousin has the same case as mine and has a 80gb western digital sata drive the black colored ones, and his hard drive is extremely silent, i think i'm going to pick one of those up. It seems like more and more people are having better luck with the new western digital and maxtor drives than samsung and seagate drives. That seems crazy. Well, i hope i get a good western digital drive......

[Laurent]

I bought 2 extra 160GB SATA at the Santa Clara MicroCenter to put them in RAID 5 with my other 2 P80s.

The whine is very subdued. The seeks can be noisy, but if:
- suspended or put on grommets (like on my ARM Systems/Evercase case) and
- AAM fully enabled (use the Hitachi utility),

they are VERY quiet.

I can have my 4 P80s seeking away at a high worload and not noticing it.

Laurent

[cmh]

The Cambridge, MA, Microcenter still has a good number (> 10) of the OEM-packaged SP1604Ns on the shelves for $90. It looked like a pretty even mix of Nidecs and JVCs. I didn't see any of the SATA drives on the shelf, but they might have some in back.

[niels007]

No matter how silent the harddisk is, you're not enjoying it unless you suspend it! I have a ATA133 Samsung 160GB Nidec which has a bit of vibration and audible seek noises, until I softly suspended it, truly transforming it into a nearly noiseless thing..