Does The WD2500KS = WD5000KS as far as noise goes?

outoftune · Post by **outoftune** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 4:11 pm

some searchin on the forum showed that people seem to like this drive, and i know the 500gb version is amazing.

does the 250gb have the same noise performance as the 500gb? the specs on the site appear to say so. anyone compared them?

alfred · Post by **alfred** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 10:20 pm

My WD3200KS (manufactured 06/2006) doesn't seem to be near as quiet as the WD5000KS reviewed by SPCR (see my posts history for more details) so I guess the WD5000KS may have a specific design making it quieter than lower-capacity KS models.

SBD · Post by **SBD** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:52 am

Was waiting to see if someone with direct experience could answer you, first. From what I've read in reviews on the web, like the comparison over at Storage Review, the 2500KS is quieter than the 3200KS, but not as quiet as the 5000KS. I know some people may question absolute dB numbers in other reviews, but the delta seems consistent.

hsinhow · Post by **hsinhow** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 10:44 am

I have both 2500KS and 5000KS in my system. They are quiet but acoustic characteristics are different somehow...

Between them, 5000KS has more vibration (even on a Antec Sonata II) and more low frequency hum during idle (may due to vibration?). 2500KS is better in terms of vibration and idle noise. Their seek noise are about the same.

Performance-wise, 5000KS is better than 2500KS. Benchmarks show ~10Mb/s (sandra) or 2Mb/s (PC mark) improvement on 5000KS.

outoftune · Post by **outoftune** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:44 pm

hsinhow wrote:I have both 2500KS and 5000KS in my system. They are quiet but acoustic characteristics are different somehow...

Between them, 5000KS has more vibration (even on a Antec Sonata II) and more low frequency hum during idle (may due to vibration?). 2500KS is better in terms of vibration and idle noise. Their seek noise are about the sam.

are you implying that the 2500ks is even quieter than the 5000ks or they are the same, minus the vibration.

Mikael · Post by **Mikael** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 6:49 am

I have the 2500KS and it has no discernable idle noise, even when mounted in a near silent machine (the system is more or less inaudible from a meter away). It also doesn't seem to vibrate much. Although the idle noise characteristics are very good, but the seeks are clearly audible. This is when soft mounted using the Antec P150's rubber bands. There is a very, very large difference in seek noise compared to my Seagate 7200.9 80GB IDE, which has nearly inaudible seeks (from a meter, or so) when soft mounted.

Luckily, I'm not bothered be audible seeks, since the drive idles most of the time anyway. And, as said, this drive is very impressive at idle.

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 7:27 am

Heh, sample variance :)

I have 2 x WD3200KS and they are not suspension mounted, but AAM is on.

They are fairly quiet. Not quite Samsung P80 range, but fairly ok.

Now I also bought 2 x WD5000KS in addition to the existing WD3200KS'.

The resulting quartet of four drives is not very quiet any more.

I could say it's the WD5000KS fault (and in fact, for seeks, it imho is exactly that). At least with the specimens I have.

Still, overall it boils down to, imho, sample variance, mounting, noise tolerance and amount of drives. With the first two being more important than we often account for when comparing drives.

That's my two cents worth. YMMV, of course.