Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB SATA (WD3200JD) ?

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 9:06 am

Ok, I've been sitting on the fence for past months with my storage upgrade. I've been running Samsung 160GB discs and pretty happy with them, but I'm finally running out of space (I shoot a lot of pics and most of my new cds get transferred to HD for playback when I work).

I've pretty much decided against Maxtor DiamondMax 10, because of the failure reports (at storagereview forums) along with service technician comments.

Maxtor Maxline III does seem more sturdy, but also noiser.

Hitachi... not for me. Miaowww.

So, Samsung 250GB is still not out and I don't have much time to wait anymore.

So, I've decided to order a couple of these and take a risk:

Western Digital Caviar SE (WD3200JD) SATA.

They're not native SATA.

They are not the fastest discs.

However, all non-silence related reviews say that they are the quietest discs (and coolest) running tested in a loong time (Tom's, CustomPC, Maximum PC). Or more accurately, that's the verdict for the PATA version, which should be the same as the SATA is running with a bridge chip.

So, anybody actually have these already?

Comments on idle and seek noise?

Heat?

AAM settings?

If not, guess I'll be the first guinea pig :)

regards,
halcyon

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 10:42 am

I have two 160 GB WD drives with the new FDB. I do not have AAM enabled since I cannot hear them seek unless I get my ear closer than 1 foot with case open, so I see no reason to enable it. I do have them soft mounted with the following method:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=10450
which obviously helps.

If you get one manufactured in 2005, it will have the FDB's. One nice thing about the WD retail packs is that you see the drive label through the clear plastic packaging and see the manufacturing date. I bought mine direct from WD, but they were OEM versions.

If you do buy the retail packs (instead of bare OEM drives) then I believe they come with WD SecureConnect SATA cables, which are supposed to be higher quality than most. But they block the SATA power connector and you have to use the standard Molex power connectors (WD drives have both).

piotrgurin · Post by **piotrgurin** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 11:47 am

Are you refering to the RAID EDITION drives.

They are rated on WD site to hvae lower noise than the JD drives.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 11:53 am

piotrgurin wrote:Are you refering to the RAID EDITION drives.

They are rated on WD site to hvae lower noise than the JD drives.

If you are asking me, no I did not get the RAID Edition drives. After talking to WD support and extensively browsing their website, I am convinced that some of the specs on the website are not accurate (not completely updated for the switch to FLD on all their drives by the end of 2004).

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 8:56 pm

WD3200JD is Special Edition (I'm not ordering Raid Edition as I won't be using them in raid).

WD3200JD has reduced acoustics and temps according to WD.

All the reviews (now four of them) state the same, although offer no hard measurement data.

Also, these are all manufactured 2005, as the drive has just come out, so I hope they would all have fluid bearings.

I'll soon see/hear it though :)

manalainen · Post by **manalainen** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 10:42 pm

Halcy,

just checking, weren´t you from Finland (murobbs etc.)? Where did you order those drives from, price?

I´m planning on buying a couple of these for my next upgrade, currently I have a couple of 7200.7 Barracuda SATA´s, the offline scanning is starting to get mighty irritating.

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:03 am

I ordered from Mikromaja (www.mikromaja.fi). The cheapest price I could find without resorting to Central European stores.

I dont know the delivery time yet, but I'm guessing it'll take at least a week.

We'll see and I'll report more here when I get them.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 3:45 pm

halcyon wrote:Ok, I've been sitting on the fence for past months with my storage upgrade. I've been running Samsung 160GB discs and pretty happy with them, but I'm finally running out of space (I shoot a lot of pics and most of my new cds get transferred to HD for playback when I work).

I've pretty much decided against Maxtor DiamondMax 10, because of the failure reports (at storagereview forums) along with service technician comments.

Maxtor Maxline III does seem more sturdy, but also noiser.

Hitachi... not for me. Miaowww.

So, Samsung 250GB is still not out and I don't have much time to wait anymore.

So, I've decided to order a couple of these and take a risk:

Western Digital Caviar SE (WD3200JD) SATA.

They're not native SATA.

They are not the fastest discs.

However, all non-silence related reviews say that they are the quietest discs (and coolest) running tested in a loong time (Tom's, CustomPC, Maximum PC). Or more accurately, that's the verdict for the PATA version, which should be the same as the SATA is running with a bridge chip.

So, anybody actually have these already?

Comments on idle and seek noise?

Heat?

AAM settings?

If not, guess I'll be the first guinea pig

regards,
halcyon

I have a Western Digital 320GB Caviar on EAR Grommets with AAM enabled and seeks are almost inaudible. It replaced my noisy 200GB Caviar and 36.7GB Raptor hard drives and made a HUGE difference in noise output.

Right now my fans are noisiest things in my PC. Going into Standby mode (which spins down the hard drive) doesn't make a significant difference in noise (it does make a difference through). If I could run everything cooled so the only noise source was the hard drive, I'd be in 7th heaven (until I grow to hate the slight noise the hard drive makes).

mdubrow · Post by **mdubrow** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:52 am

I have the IDE version of this disk drive, and while the idle is pleasingly quiet, seeks are definitely audible from up to 4 feet away. I would like to enable AAM on this drive, but I'm not sure how. Western Digital specifically states on their website that they do not provide software to change AAM settings--even though their drives are AAM enabled!

I have read of others using Hitachi drive tools to change AAM settings, but when I try to run the Hitachi tools my computer freezes (this happens when the tools are scanning my IDE connections). Any other alternatives?

Thanks!

SpHeRe31459 · Post by **SpHeRe31459** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 1:10 pm

Try WinAAM mentioned here:
http://forums.storagereview.net/index.p ... ode=linear

People seem to have sucess with enabling AAM on their WD drives with it.

mdubrow · Post by **mdubrow** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 1:43 pm

Thanks, SpHeRe314159! I will try it out as soon as I get home!

mdubrow · Post by **mdubrow** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:16 am

Woohoo, I succeeded in quieting the WD3200JB (IDE version) using WinAAM, and now this drive just quietly fades into the background. (Wish I could say the same about the fan that's part of the AMD 64 retail package.)

manalainen · Post by **manalainen** » Mon May 16, 2005 12:12 am

Bumbittitybump!

So, any news/updates about them WD3200JD´s?

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Tue May 17, 2005 12:45 am

I have 2 x 3200WD running now in my rig with AAM on (128 from WinAAM).

They are relatively quiet, esp. for their size/number of platters.

However, due to my problems with my new rig (it's not silent enough for me yet), I'm hesitant to do actual head-to-head subjective comparisons against my 2 x 160GB Samsung P80 (Nidec motors).

All I can say at this point is that when finally suspended (soon), I don't think I'll have a lot to complain at the size they offer.

They stay relatively cool as well, which is good.

Sorry I can't offer you more accurate info than that at this point.

I'll post more when (not very soon) I have time to re-rig my PSU, CPU, VGA and case cooling to such levels that I can comfortably say more accurate subjective findings about these drives :)

Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB SATA (WD3200JD) ?

Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB SATA (WD3200JD) ?

Re: Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB SATA (WD3200JD) ?

Enabling AAM?

WinAAM Worked!