Recommendation for quiet SATA combo drive

sgtsmith · Post by **sgtsmith** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 5:16 pm

My IDE Lite-on DVD burner is beginning to fail sporadically, so it's time for a replacement. Could you give me some suggestions for a quiet SATA replacement. Thanks.

mcv · Post by **mcv** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 1:20 pm

I'm getting the impression there's very little information on quiet optical drives on SPCR. No official recommendations, and not a lot of traffic on the forum. I'm also looking for a good yet quiet optical drive.

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 2:06 pm

There's little to be said about the acoustics of optical drives: The main factor is the drive speed. Slow it down with software (from 52x 40x or whatever), and it'll be a lot quieter. Other than that, avoid using them as much as possible.

Some are smoother than others. I've had good luck with BenQ, LG, Samsung, Asus... but most seem decently smooth anyway.

Conroy · Post by **Conroy** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:32 pm

Asus claims to have noise/vibration reduction technology, that I've seen called Quietrack, DDSSII (double dynamic suspension system), AVRS (auto vibration reducing system), and AFFM (airflow field modification).

I have no idea how well these work, or how all these different things are related, or if all manufacturers actually have something similar. On their site they advertise their 18x drive with DDSSII and their 20x drive with AVRS.

I think Quietrack is actually a marketing term consisting of a combination of DDSSII AND AFFM

sgtsmith · Post by **sgtsmith** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 5:19 pm

Thank you for your replies. Slowing the drive speed has always been my method in the past and looks as though it will be for now as well. I just hadn't purchased a drive in a while and thought it would be worthwhile to check. I may give the Asus drive a try and report back if I can discern any difference from the norm.

Conroy · Post by **Conroy** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 7:19 pm

Well, after having it for a week, I can't say I can see much special about the Asus 20x drive that I got.

Its noise seems about average for an optical drive to me..

C. Zoui · Post by **C. Zoui** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 10:59 am

Conroy wrote:Well, after having it for a week, I can't say I can see much special about the Asus 20x drive that I got.

Its noise seems about average for an optical drive to me..

Have you ever owned a Lite-On drive?

Conroy · Post by **Conroy** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:58 am

C. Zoui wrote:Have you ever owned a Lite-On drive?

Not that I can remember.. If I have, it would have been a very long time ago. The last drive I bought was a Toshiba 16x dvd-rom 5 years ago that was pretty noisy.

C. Zoui · Post by **C. Zoui** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:28 pm

The reason I asked is because I've used Lite-On burners exclusively for the past half-decade or so, but only because of price and writing performance. I recently ordered a new Samsung SATA burner because I needed an interface upgrade (the IDE-SATA converter was too large for my case), and I expect it to be quieter in at least one respect than both my Lite-On CD writer and my Lite-On DVD writer. Why? Because I'm having trouble imaging anything louder.

If I lived in Kansas, I'd think there was a tornado comin' every time I popped in a disc.

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:58 pm

I had two Pioneer Combo drives but a while ago I bought a Lite-On one, becouse of SATA and fancy silver color.

Well, all I can say is: this is the loudest piece of hardware I ever owned. Tornado? Well, tornado is nothing compared to Lite-On.

sun.moon · Post by **sun.moon** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:21 pm

I've also had a Lite-On DVD burner for quite some time. I just ordered the new 20x Lite-On SATA DVD burner for a new system I'll be putting together as soon as the E8400 is released in Germany. (Grrrrr!*!*!* what's taking so long!?!?)

Before chosing the Lite-On I read a recent review in the German ct' computer magazine. They performed a test of several different burners, including the Samsung. The Lite-On performed the best with writing performance on CDs and DVDs and reading CD-ROMs. There were some other features were the Samsung performed better, can't remember though, since they were not important to me. As far as noise is concerned, don't know yet. Hopefully quieter than my old one. But on the other hand, noise is not a key criteria why I chose my burner...

-sun.moon

C. Zoui · Post by **C. Zoui** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 2:10 pm

I went straight to cdfreaks and looked at their Top 5 recommendations. My drive is the Samsung SH-S203B. I'll let you all know how it sounds.

defaultluser · Post by **defaultluser** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:36 pm

I own one of the Asus drives with QuietTrack, and I have to say: it is much quieter than my old optical drive. But that's not saying much, because it's still loud on seeks.

An improvement, but in reality nothing amazing. You will still have to use drivespeed controls and put up with 16-24x speeds if you want silent seeking.

C. Zoui · Post by **C. Zoui** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:37 pm

I listened to the Lite-On SOHW-1639S and the Samsung SH-203B out of my new case, as seen below:

When ejecting and retracting, the Lite-On clearly had the louder, higher-pitched, and whinnier sound. It really punctured the tranquility of the room. The Samsung, while generally lower-pitched and less-aggressive sounding, was still by no means quiet while ejecting and retracting the tray.

When loading up a Memtest86+ v1.70 CD upon boot, the spin-up on the Lite-On was both much more pronounced and continued for a longer period of time. The spin-up noise character of Lite-On was more of a building cyclone roar, while the spin-up noise of the Samsung was more of a guttural beep-boop that switched to a low-pitched grumble relatively quickly.

The Samsung, however, has more vibration. This might make things noisier when it is actually placed in the case.

I did not test the drives for noise while burning.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 4:21 pm

Personally I've played with the optiarc 7170, liteon 20x, and Samsung 203b recently. I found the 203b was definitely the least annoying sounding at full spin. However really the only way to make an optical quiet is to lower the spin rate to 4x or 8x in software.

eddd · Post by **eddd** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 2:09 pm

I'm also looking for something quiet for my HTPC. I don't mind reducing the drive speed but does this affect DVD playback at all? I only use it for movie viewing. Can anyone recommend software that will do this (ideally for Linux)?

Chris Beard · Post by **Chris Beard** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 3:50 am

I use deamontools and a generic free iso burner. That way I only have to leave the computer alone for the time it takes to make some tea and I can just mount the CD/DVD image.

As hard drives are so big these days (I only have a small 80gb raid array) it means you can get away with it more often than not.