WD5000KS vs WD5000AAKS

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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MoJo
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Location: UK

Post by MoJo » Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:22 am

I don't think anyone has actually put them together and done any measurements.

I have both, and the KS is quieter. However, it seems that some AAKS are worse than others, and there is no way to know which one I have.

JacksonDane
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Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:42 pm

Post by JacksonDane » Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:06 pm

My AAKS idles loudly (seek noise is very quiet with AAM on), it's suspended in the lower chamber of a P182 and I can hear it from 10 feet away. I've decided to keep it though because the performance is great, I have the parts for an alleycat enclosure coming Monday.

MoJo
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Location: UK

Post by MoJo » Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:23 pm

That was pretty much my experience with the AAKS. It's fast but idle whoosh is relatively loud, much louder than the KS. I thought it was a fan making the noise at first actually. That's exactly what it sounds like - a quiet but not silent fan.

Meowbay
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Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:17 pm

Post by Meowbay » Sat Mar 29, 2008 10:22 am

MoJo wrote:That was pretty much my experience with the AAKS. It's fast but idle whoosh is relatively loud, much louder than the KS. I thought it was a fan making the noise at first actually. That's exactly what it sounds like - a quiet but not silent fan.
Still this is really strange, because mine are 3 (yes 3 of them) AAKS in one case (an old Chieftec Dragon) and I barely hear them from 1 meter distance, idle. They are mounted with Nexus cooling strips.

I'm in Europe by the way, maybe they export different versions? I didn't even know there was a KS before I got these. And to be honest, I very much doubt they would be quieter than the 3 AAKS I have in use now.

MoJo
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Location: UK

Post by MoJo » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:08 pm

I too am in Europe :)

I think a lot of it boils down to what you consider "quiet". Mine are not by any means loud, just not as quiet as the KS.

Since calibrated low level sound meters are so expensive, it's very hard for people on SPCR's forums to make accurate comparisons with each other.

Meowbay
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Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:17 pm

Post by Meowbay » Wed Jun 11, 2008 9:23 am

MoJo wrote:I too am in Europe :)

I think a lot of it boils down to what you consider "quiet". Mine are not by any means loud, just not as quiet as the KS.

Since calibrated low level sound meters are so expensive, it's very hard for people on SPCR's forums to make accurate comparisons with each other.
Well, I'm an audio engineer myself (among others) so to me "quiet" is pretty darn noise-free.

Until someone reliably measures them next to each other, I'm not one to believe your statements on this.

Terje
Posts: 86
Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2004 4:50 am

AAKS is the silent one ;)

Post by Terje » Wed Jun 18, 2008 9:42 am

I had a 3 disk raid 5 and a 2 disk raid 1. All KS drives.

Over time I killed a connector on one KS drive while pulling out the disk tray and 2 has failed, so I have gradually replaced all the disks in the raid 5 with AAKS.

The raid 1 I have changed into 2 1TB GP drives.

That is, I have had a good chance to compare KS and AAKS. I don't have instruments, but I have had them on my desk side by side.

The difference has been very very small in my case with the AAKS being just a tiny bit better than the KS, but they are both very quiet 7200 rpm drives.

The GP is of course in a different class. Noticably more silent.

I run all drives with AAM enabled.

I am not too impressed with the reliability of the KS. I have seen 3 of them fail in 2 years out of 6 drives in total.

So far, no AAKS drive failing (oldest is about 1 year I think... Just after the AAKS got on the market anyway) which looks good.

I would not be surprised if some people get samples which has different noise characteristics than mine. Variations are not that uncommon, so with the little difference I see on my drives I would just go for the AAKS since its newer and has "better" spec on paper, but I would not bet that a random AAKS sample is more silent than another random KS sample.

Badluck
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Location: Poland

Post by Badluck » Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:01 am

I would like to share some of my experience with AAKS series. Please note, that I'll be comparing noise with case open and in a very quiet room.

My 320 GB AAKS (I can't tell which series it is exactly because I don't want to take the drive out of the case, but It's like maybe 1,5y old) makes only a slight fan-like noise which can barely be heard. Seeking can be clearly heard though.

My first 5000AAKS, bough like 6 moths ago (AS8 written on top of the drive) is louder than the 320GB one. At night it's fan-like humming can be irritating and I prefer to shut the drive down for the night. During the day the humming noise almost blends with the environment.

My second 5000AAKS, bough few days ago (ASY on top of the drive) is really noisy. I think I may have gotten a faulty drive, because in addition to normal fan-like humming (to which I got used to) it has a high pitch noise, almost like a dental bur working in the next room. This high sound is very irritating, I can hear it on almost subliminal level ;) Maybe they really changed the motor. What do you guys think?

Compared to my old Seagate 7200.10 these drives are really quiet! When working on my computer at night, I can hear the noise of 7200.10 from the room across the flat.

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