3.5" Seagate vs Samsung 80GB, which is quieter?

intx · Post by **intx** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 2:22 pm

Between Seagate's 80GB and Samsung's 80GB, which do you find is quieter?

Also, between Seagate's 7200.7/7200.9 or SATA/PATA?

What about Seagate's PATA vs SATA?

I assume the 7200.9 should be quieter, because of fewer platters, but is it?

amjedm · Post by **amjedm** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 2:39 pm

I bought a Samsung SATA 2 80GB HD about three months ago. It had a Nidec motor but was noisey compared to the Barracudas I have.

Managed to get rid of it.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:27 pm

Greetings,

While the Barracuda Seagates were very quiet, the newer 7200.7's onward are not as quiet. Each generation seems to be slightly noisier at idle, much noisier for seeks, and they run a lot warmer, too.

In general, the Samsung P80, and even the P120 are quieter than the newer Seagates, especially on seeks, and they are much cooler running as well.

Varun · Post by **Varun** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 8:43 pm

The Samsungs are great. One thing though is that AAM is not enabled by default so once you set that to QUIET then the drive is one of the best for noise.

amjedm · Post by **amjedm** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 12:07 am

Varun wrote:The Samsungs are great. One thing though is that AAM is not enabled by default so once you set that to QUIET then the drive is one of the best for noise.

I should have kept the drive then. Only problem was I didn't have a setup and still don't. Waiting for S939 prices to hit rock bottom.

Mikael · Post by **Mikael** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:57 am

I recently aquired an 80GB 7200.9 PATA. Initially, it was a huge disappointment. The seeks weren't particularly loud, even when the drive was hard-mounted to the case, but the whine was unbearable. Although I didn't believe it would help, I ended up suspending the drive up-side-down on foam on the bottom of the 5.25" cage. This little mod turned out to be hugely successful. Not only are the seeks so low that they aren't noticed, but the whine was lowered to a point where I don't hear it unless I really try. The computer is very quiet overall, so this is not just a case of fans drowning the drive noise.

I might also add that I have a few 40GB 7200.7 PATA drives. Those are definitely more quiet than the 7200.9 drive. They have approximately the same noise characteristics when screwed directly to the case as the 7200.9 has when suspended. The suspended 7200.9 might be slightly less noisy, but it's close anyway.

It might also be of interest to note that the performance of the 7200.9 drive is considerably better than the older 7200.7.

This 7200.9 drive runs fairly cool too. I currently have it in a case with no ventilation except for the low RPM fan in the PSU. Room temp is slightly higher than normal around here (24C) and the case temp is reported at 38C. The CPU has been full loading for an hour and the drive temp (which should be considered idle temp) is 43C. The highest I've seen so far is 46C, but that was with an unusually high room temp of 28C. I might also add that the drive ran much cooler when it was mounted to the case. I believe the difference was 4-5C.

Le_Gritche · Post by **Le_Gritche** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 5:16 am

intx wrote:Between Seagate's 80GB and Samsung's 80GB, which do you find is quieter?

Also, between Seagate's 7200.7/7200.9 or SATA/PATA?

What about Seagate's PATA vs SATA?

I assume the 7200.9 should be quieter, because of fewer platters, but is it?

Seagate's 7200.7 PATA have quieter seek noise than in SATA flavour : both have officially no AAM, but in reality the PATA are set for quietness whereas the SATA are set for performance.
I have no idea if that's still the case with 7200.9 models. (judging from SPCR's review, the Seagate's SATA 7200.9 and 7200.10 still exhibit horrible seek noises)

I suggest you read the following SPCR articles :
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (page2)
- Single Disc 3.5" HDDs, Round One: Seagate & Hitachi
- 160G/8mb-cache Faceoff: Samsung vs. Seagate (page 3)
- Samsung P120 200 + 250 GB Hard Drive
and finally Recommended Hard Drives (especially the retired HDD part all the way down on the page)

I'm very happy with my suspended 7200.7 PATA (except that it recently butchered one of my partition).

If you are not the article-reading type, I see 3 possibilities :
- Seagate 7200.7 PATA
- Samsung if you want a SATA HDD (not necessarely 80Gb, as single platter drives are now bigger)
- laptop HDD, as you want only 80Go (if you are ready to fork the additional cash for the near silence but lower performance it will bring)

intx · Post by **intx** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 6:59 am

I read seagate has 160gb platters (thus using only one for 80/160gb drives), but all lower capacity samsung drives use two platters. Are Samsung drives still quieter than Seagates, even though they use two platters for 80GB/160GB versions?

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:30 pm

The 80GB Samsung P80 is a single platter drive, in the single disc review, linked in the post by Le_Gritche, you can read how the 160GB Seagate drive compares to the Samsung P80.

3.5" Seagate vs Samsung 80GB, which is quieter?

3.5" Seagate vs Samsung 80GB, which is quieter?

Re: 3.5" Seagate vs Samsung 80GB, which is quieter?