im looking for a fanless 3.5 7200rpm external harddrive.
ive assembled a anclosure with ide drive in the past and was not too impressed as the thing would turn on/off randomly (probably overheating) so i ended up just putting the drive inside a desktop.
id like to try a pre-made product, perhaps someting like the Seagate FreeAgent ?
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde ... &langid=EN
any experience with that unit? is it quiet?
ofcourse this could be a 2.5 external drive as long as its 7200rpm (although i have never been able to come across a external 2.5 7200 rpm unit
quiet external enclosure/drive
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Why does it have to be 7200rpm? Since you'd be using it through USB2.0 you'd be limited to ~30 MB/s regardless what HDD is inside. Or are you seeking an "eSATA" enclosure? Probably none available in 2.5" form factor as USB supplies +5V power and 2.5" USB enclosures need no external power brick... unlike 3.5" USB enclosures, 3.5" eSATA enclosures, 3.5" FireWire enclosures ...and 2.5" eSATA enclosures (if they existed but I doubt about that).
You suspect the turning on/off was due to overheating yet you absolutely insist on 7200rpm drive? Why? Do you desperately want the same thing to occur with your new drive?
WD Greenpower uses half the amount of energy, thus runs at half the temperature delta (HDD to air) while offering the highest capacity available currently. Only other 3.5 inch drives that currently are even close to it's power consumption would be certain 1-platter drives such as 7K80.
2.5" would use less power than WD GP but they also are smaller and their enclosures are smaller. They have less heat dissipating area and I'd feel extremely uncomfortable setting laptop enclosures sitting on their sides to maximize cooling. With 3.5" enclosures this isn't a problem as most enclosures come with a stand to make it more stable. If you go for 2.5", go for 5400rpm and choose the model carefully so that you don't need the Y-shaped USB cable to draw power from two ports. If you choose a power hungry 2.5 incher and your motherboard is only borderline up to specs, you may even run into trouble WITH the Y-cable. If you would need power from 3 or more ports, you're screwed, as while there's Y-cables I don't think there's USB cables that split into three ports to suck power.
Do yourself a favour... forget 7200rpm, regardless whether you go for 2.5" or 3.5". So far 5400rpm 3.5" was out of the question (as the only models spinning that slow were living fossils, real Coelacaths, with ball-bearings). WD GP changed that, offered top-notch areal densities, unload technology, competitive amount of cache, perpendicular recording and what is most important to us silencers: fluid dynamic bearings.
Unless you intend to run some database kinda thingy from your USB HDD, you don't need high rpm and low random access time. And if you think you might actually want to set up a high-end server that reads data from external USB drive... get some medication.
You suspect the turning on/off was due to overheating yet you absolutely insist on 7200rpm drive? Why? Do you desperately want the same thing to occur with your new drive?
WD Greenpower uses half the amount of energy, thus runs at half the temperature delta (HDD to air) while offering the highest capacity available currently. Only other 3.5 inch drives that currently are even close to it's power consumption would be certain 1-platter drives such as 7K80.
2.5" would use less power than WD GP but they also are smaller and their enclosures are smaller. They have less heat dissipating area and I'd feel extremely uncomfortable setting laptop enclosures sitting on their sides to maximize cooling. With 3.5" enclosures this isn't a problem as most enclosures come with a stand to make it more stable. If you go for 2.5", go for 5400rpm and choose the model carefully so that you don't need the Y-shaped USB cable to draw power from two ports. If you choose a power hungry 2.5 incher and your motherboard is only borderline up to specs, you may even run into trouble WITH the Y-cable. If you would need power from 3 or more ports, you're screwed, as while there's Y-cables I don't think there's USB cables that split into three ports to suck power.
Do yourself a favour... forget 7200rpm, regardless whether you go for 2.5" or 3.5". So far 5400rpm 3.5" was out of the question (as the only models spinning that slow were living fossils, real Coelacaths, with ball-bearings). WD GP changed that, offered top-notch areal densities, unload technology, competitive amount of cache, perpendicular recording and what is most important to us silencers: fluid dynamic bearings.
Unless you intend to run some database kinda thingy from your USB HDD, you don't need high rpm and low random access time. And if you think you might actually want to set up a high-end server that reads data from external USB drive... get some medication.
why do so many people need to respond to a question with a question?whiic wrote:Why does it have to be 7200rpm?
(imagine you go to a store and say youre looking for a certain product, and the guy ask you why you need it)
i was hoping that i wouldn't need to explain WHY i would like a 7200rpm drive, but since you insist that the only reason for one is "to run some database kinda thingy from your USB HDD" then i will tell you that i need really fast seek times and transfer speed because the drive will be used for streaming audio samples into a laptop used for live performance and making electronic music on the fly
also for some reason you chose to base your entire post on the last phrase of my post that it could be a 2.5".... which is really irrelevant to the main point and thread title; which is "quiet external enclosure/drive"
and yes eSATA is my preferred interface choice
"and yes eSATA is my preferred interface choice"
Why didn't you state in the original post? There's nothing funny about using a 7200rpm drive with eSATA or internally (since when it comes to performance degradation, there really is none).
And mention 2.5" 7200rpm drives could suffice, even with their lower STR and higher random access time compared to 3.5" 7200rpm drives. Even WD GP is most likely superior performancewise to these expensive 7200rpm 2.5 inchers.
Here's a link to a relevant comparison
7K200 and Momentus 7200.2 are the newest 7200rpm 2.5 inchers reviewed by them and included in the comparison. Notice how they get beaten (with a giand dildo) by WD GP despite it's lower spin rate. You should be looking at High-End DriveMark 2006 score as that's closest to stuff like streaming high bitrate audio.
"StorageReview uses the following tests to assess non-server use:
StorageReview.com Office DriveMark 2006- A capture of VeriTest's Business Winstone 2004 suite. Applications include Microsoft's Office XP (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, and Project), Internet Explorer 6.0, Symantec Antivirus 2002 and Winzip 9.0 executed in a lightly-multitasked manner.
StorageReview.com High-End DriveMark 2006- A capture of VeriTest's Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 suite. Applications include Adobe Photoshop v7.01, Adobe Premiere v6.5, Macromedia Director MX v9.0, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX v6.1, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9.0, Newtek Lightwave 3D 7.5b, and Steinberg Wavelab 4.0f run in a lightly-multitasked manner."
And believe me, your access patterns aren't randomized by streaming life audio. And even if it were (which it isn't) 5400rpm Greenpower would still beat the crap out of 7200rpm 2.5 inchers! See the actual scores. They don't lie.
Barracuda ES.2 (= 7200.11) is there to prove that 5400rpm 3.5" isn't necessarily even worse than 7200rpm 3.5" drive. Also notice 8.4 watt power consumption during idling... compare that to 7.9 watts on 5-platter monster 7K1000 which is typically considered hot as hell (*).
(*) But most likely attributed to prejudice more than actual tests - people just like to assume 5 platter drives from manufacturer A must be hotter than 3 or 4 platter drive from manufacturer B. Likewise, 10000rpm Raptors are considered hot as hell as well, but real power consumption measurements show it draws no more power than average mid-to-high-capacity drive (but Raptor does offer less capacity than them).
Talking about prejudice, do you really think rpm (+ lantency + seek time) are most important factors to performance? See this table.
Where's that significant difference you should see in favour of Raptor due to much lower random access time? It's only noticeable in Multi-User Suite.
I would not consider
- 7200rpm 3.5" via USB (because they offer very little more than quieter 5400rpm 3.5" or 5200rpm 2.5")
- 7200rpm 2.5" via... anything (for performance, any 3.5" could beat it)
- 5400rpm 2.5" via eSATA (because the only reason to go for 2.5" is convenience and using an external power brick certainly isn't that - also eSATA ports aren't as commonplace as USB ports)
What I would recommend are
- 7200rpm 3.5" incher via eSATA <-- for performance
- 5400rpm 3.5" incher via eSATA or USB <-- for low-cost, high capacity, quiet mass-storage
- 5400rpm 2.5" incher via USB <-- for easiness of use and minimal noise output
Why didn't you state in the original post? There's nothing funny about using a 7200rpm drive with eSATA or internally (since when it comes to performance degradation, there really is none).
And mention 2.5" 7200rpm drives could suffice, even with their lower STR and higher random access time compared to 3.5" 7200rpm drives. Even WD GP is most likely superior performancewise to these expensive 7200rpm 2.5 inchers.
Here's a link to a relevant comparison
7K200 and Momentus 7200.2 are the newest 7200rpm 2.5 inchers reviewed by them and included in the comparison. Notice how they get beaten (with a giand dildo) by WD GP despite it's lower spin rate. You should be looking at High-End DriveMark 2006 score as that's closest to stuff like streaming high bitrate audio.
"StorageReview uses the following tests to assess non-server use:
StorageReview.com Office DriveMark 2006- A capture of VeriTest's Business Winstone 2004 suite. Applications include Microsoft's Office XP (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, and Project), Internet Explorer 6.0, Symantec Antivirus 2002 and Winzip 9.0 executed in a lightly-multitasked manner.
StorageReview.com High-End DriveMark 2006- A capture of VeriTest's Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 suite. Applications include Adobe Photoshop v7.01, Adobe Premiere v6.5, Macromedia Director MX v9.0, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX v6.1, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9.0, Newtek Lightwave 3D 7.5b, and Steinberg Wavelab 4.0f run in a lightly-multitasked manner."
And believe me, your access patterns aren't randomized by streaming life audio. And even if it were (which it isn't) 5400rpm Greenpower would still beat the crap out of 7200rpm 2.5 inchers! See the actual scores. They don't lie.
Barracuda ES.2 (= 7200.11) is there to prove that 5400rpm 3.5" isn't necessarily even worse than 7200rpm 3.5" drive. Also notice 8.4 watt power consumption during idling... compare that to 7.9 watts on 5-platter monster 7K1000 which is typically considered hot as hell (*).
(*) But most likely attributed to prejudice more than actual tests - people just like to assume 5 platter drives from manufacturer A must be hotter than 3 or 4 platter drive from manufacturer B. Likewise, 10000rpm Raptors are considered hot as hell as well, but real power consumption measurements show it draws no more power than average mid-to-high-capacity drive (but Raptor does offer less capacity than them).
Talking about prejudice, do you really think rpm (+ lantency + seek time) are most important factors to performance? See this table.
Where's that significant difference you should see in favour of Raptor due to much lower random access time? It's only noticeable in Multi-User Suite.
I would not consider
- 7200rpm 3.5" via USB (because they offer very little more than quieter 5400rpm 3.5" or 5200rpm 2.5")
- 7200rpm 2.5" via... anything (for performance, any 3.5" could beat it)
- 5400rpm 2.5" via eSATA (because the only reason to go for 2.5" is convenience and using an external power brick certainly isn't that - also eSATA ports aren't as commonplace as USB ports)
What I would recommend are
- 7200rpm 3.5" incher via eSATA <-- for performance
- 5400rpm 3.5" incher via eSATA or USB <-- for low-cost, high capacity, quiet mass-storage
- 5400rpm 2.5" incher via USB <-- for easiness of use and minimal noise output
i appreciate the time you put into your reply.
it seems you are a big fan of the WD GP, and i have no doubt that it will smoke any 2.5 7200rpm unit.
but what actual external drive out there do you think has the best performance-to-silence ratio?
is there an external drive you would recommend?
or do you think that it is best to buy the enclosure and drive seperately?
it seems you are a big fan of the WD GP, and i have no doubt that it will smoke any 2.5 7200rpm unit.
but what actual external drive out there do you think has the best performance-to-silence ratio?
is there an external drive you would recommend?
or do you think that it is best to buy the enclosure and drive seperately?
Hexen,
when buying a ready combo of external enclosure and drive, you can never be sure what model drive you will get. Many manufacturers can and do change the drive contained, without any change in specs or model number.
Hence you play silence crapshoot :)
That's why it is always good to buy drive and container separately, imho.
As a case, you might consider the Antec MX-1 reviewed at SPCR:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article728-page3.html
Unfortunately I don't know of a good recent up-to-date round up of external enclosures.
when buying a ready combo of external enclosure and drive, you can never be sure what model drive you will get. Many manufacturers can and do change the drive contained, without any change in specs or model number.
Hence you play silence crapshoot :)
That's why it is always good to buy drive and container separately, imho.
As a case, you might consider the Antec MX-1 reviewed at SPCR:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article728-page3.html
Unfortunately I don't know of a good recent up-to-date round up of external enclosures.
Like halcyon said. If you buy a prebuilt external solution, you'll get what they want to give you (typically capacity being the only attribute that can be predicted).
If you buy a WD, the only way to ensure you get 5400rpm unit inside would be to buy 1000GB and make sure it doesn't have two 500-giggers inside (but usually the size of enclosure gives up the fact whether it has one or two inside).
Seagate/Maxtor externals have Seagate drives inside. I'd prefer WD for lower noise but I'd also prefer buying a third-party enclosure. You'd get longer warranty for the HDD (typically 3 years) but shorter warranty for the enclosure (typically 6 months) instead of having both with 1 or 2 year warranty. Also, with pre-built, opening the enclosure voids warranty on both enclosure and HDD inside. DIY solutions permit opening the enclosure in case you need to perform some data recovery or whatever the purpose... maybe you want just to set AAM to different mode. (If you use eSATA, you should be able to configure AAM without removing the HDD from enclosure but USB doesn't support these ATA features (no SMART diagnostics, no self-test scans, no changing AAM or APM or spindown counter).
I'm not familiar with any enclosures that are aimed for quiet enthusiasts. I do have enclosures and while they are all passively cooled (no fans) most of them don't attenuate the noise that much. I have experience only on
Maxtor Onetouch (1st generation)
Mapower Warps 3.5" enclosure USB2.0
Mapower Warps 2.5" enclosure USB2.0
Fantec 3.5" enclosure USB2.0 + eSATA
Onetouch:
one piece aluminum cast, retractable metal sled where HDD is screwed in, rubbery pieces to attenuate vibration and cushioning external shocks
+ no vibration induced noise from the enclosure itself (if I place on hard surface, the surface may create a humming noise)
+ rubbery pieces may protect the drive by increasing non-operational shock tolerance
- thermal conduction from HDD to sled then from sled to enclosure itself is rather poor. Contact surfaces are small and air inside the enclosure acts as thermal insulation. HDD temperatures up to 30 deg C above ambient.
- soft feet needs to be added for the vertical stand in order to prevent extra noise
LEDs: two blue LEDs (not overly bright ones). Both on = power on, idle. Both blinking in the same rythm = enclosure power on, HDD spun down for power saving. Lit LED alternates from top to bottom = HDD access.
Mapower Warps 3.5"
aluminum enclosure consisting of two separate sidecasts shaped into cooling fins, top cover and bottom cover, HDD tray and front grille
+ enclosure looks nice (a matter of opinion, though)
+ enclosures of this kind are very stackable and sidecasts are designed for horizontal operation. (Vertical stand is included, though)
+ vertical stand has rubbery feet
- enclosure rattles with HDD vibration. Requires a bit tweaking to prevent top cover from rattling against sidecasts or front grille from rattling against covers and sidecasts
- front grille lets airborne acoustics escape the enclosure un-attenuated
- there's ~0.5 to 1cm of free space (=air =insulation) between HDD and enclosure sidecasts and top cover. The only part HDD tray is in direct contact with is bottom cover and it only touches it on an area of few square millimeters. (Screws used for attaching HDD to tray touch the bottom cover.) Surprizingly it still manages to cool HDDs better than Onetouch. Temperature delta around up to 20 deg C.
Temperature deltas are measured with Maxtor DM+9 250GB (3-platter) or 7K400 (5-platter) which both consume around 9 watts when idle.
LED: one super-bright blue. Constantly on = power on, idle. LED is unlit when HDD is accessed. Rapid blinking.
Mapower Warps 2.5" is much better designed than it's big brother. There's practically no free space insulating HDD from enclosure. HDD is in direct contact with both top and bottom cover. While it's not in contact with sidecasts (which still include cooling fins, more like for appearance rather than function) there's only a few mm of clearance and heat get transfered from top and bottom cover to sidecasts as well. But even this enclosure may rattle... while top cover can no longer rattle since it's in contact with HDD and pressed to it tightly, the front grille has about 1mm of free play. Rattling is easy to prevent by sticking small pieces of folded paper between either grille and top cover or grille and bottom cover.
LED: like with 3.5" variant.
Fantec 3.5" (LD-H35US2). I'm not sure if it's good for a silencer but it sure has been designed for pretty much best imaginable passive cooling. It's two piece cast (unlike Onetouches one-piece or Mapowers four-piece) and a plastic HDD tray. Don't worry about it as it doesn't rely on plastic tray to conduct heat. The top cover of the enclosure acts as a big contact surface against the HDD so enclosure itself is pretty much the same temperature as HDD itself. This allows a lower temperature delta. This enclosure works only with regular sized 3.5" HDDs, not with ultra-low-profile because otherwise top cover can't make contact with HDD. From the looks of it, I believe it doesn't cause vibration induced noise (plastic tray is softer than metal and two-piece cast can be tightened to each other, unlike with Warps where top cover is too thin and will only bend and rattle more if overtightened). I haven't verified it as I have only tried Samsung P80 in it ... and I mean a (rare) low-vibration sample of that model. Other enclosures were PATA and most of my HDDs are PATA. It also has a vertical stand with a foamy pieces on the side that makes contact with enclosure... Most likely they will reduce vibration transmitted to desk the enclosure is standing on.
LED colours: blue = power on. red = HDD access. Typically HDD access cause the ring around the button to blink in various shades of pink (blue+red).
I believe Fantec is could be capable to cool 7200rpm HDDs as well, even at highest capacities. It will no doubt run a tad warm but within specs, and it will make more noise than 5400rpm drive.
If you buy a WD, the only way to ensure you get 5400rpm unit inside would be to buy 1000GB and make sure it doesn't have two 500-giggers inside (but usually the size of enclosure gives up the fact whether it has one or two inside).
Seagate/Maxtor externals have Seagate drives inside. I'd prefer WD for lower noise but I'd also prefer buying a third-party enclosure. You'd get longer warranty for the HDD (typically 3 years) but shorter warranty for the enclosure (typically 6 months) instead of having both with 1 or 2 year warranty. Also, with pre-built, opening the enclosure voids warranty on both enclosure and HDD inside. DIY solutions permit opening the enclosure in case you need to perform some data recovery or whatever the purpose... maybe you want just to set AAM to different mode. (If you use eSATA, you should be able to configure AAM without removing the HDD from enclosure but USB doesn't support these ATA features (no SMART diagnostics, no self-test scans, no changing AAM or APM or spindown counter).
I'm not familiar with any enclosures that are aimed for quiet enthusiasts. I do have enclosures and while they are all passively cooled (no fans) most of them don't attenuate the noise that much. I have experience only on
Maxtor Onetouch (1st generation)
Mapower Warps 3.5" enclosure USB2.0
Mapower Warps 2.5" enclosure USB2.0
Fantec 3.5" enclosure USB2.0 + eSATA
Onetouch:
one piece aluminum cast, retractable metal sled where HDD is screwed in, rubbery pieces to attenuate vibration and cushioning external shocks
+ no vibration induced noise from the enclosure itself (if I place on hard surface, the surface may create a humming noise)
+ rubbery pieces may protect the drive by increasing non-operational shock tolerance
- thermal conduction from HDD to sled then from sled to enclosure itself is rather poor. Contact surfaces are small and air inside the enclosure acts as thermal insulation. HDD temperatures up to 30 deg C above ambient.
- soft feet needs to be added for the vertical stand in order to prevent extra noise
LEDs: two blue LEDs (not overly bright ones). Both on = power on, idle. Both blinking in the same rythm = enclosure power on, HDD spun down for power saving. Lit LED alternates from top to bottom = HDD access.
Mapower Warps 3.5"
aluminum enclosure consisting of two separate sidecasts shaped into cooling fins, top cover and bottom cover, HDD tray and front grille
+ enclosure looks nice (a matter of opinion, though)
+ enclosures of this kind are very stackable and sidecasts are designed for horizontal operation. (Vertical stand is included, though)
+ vertical stand has rubbery feet
- enclosure rattles with HDD vibration. Requires a bit tweaking to prevent top cover from rattling against sidecasts or front grille from rattling against covers and sidecasts
- front grille lets airborne acoustics escape the enclosure un-attenuated
- there's ~0.5 to 1cm of free space (=air =insulation) between HDD and enclosure sidecasts and top cover. The only part HDD tray is in direct contact with is bottom cover and it only touches it on an area of few square millimeters. (Screws used for attaching HDD to tray touch the bottom cover.) Surprizingly it still manages to cool HDDs better than Onetouch. Temperature delta around up to 20 deg C.
Temperature deltas are measured with Maxtor DM+9 250GB (3-platter) or 7K400 (5-platter) which both consume around 9 watts when idle.
LED: one super-bright blue. Constantly on = power on, idle. LED is unlit when HDD is accessed. Rapid blinking.
Mapower Warps 2.5" is much better designed than it's big brother. There's practically no free space insulating HDD from enclosure. HDD is in direct contact with both top and bottom cover. While it's not in contact with sidecasts (which still include cooling fins, more like for appearance rather than function) there's only a few mm of clearance and heat get transfered from top and bottom cover to sidecasts as well. But even this enclosure may rattle... while top cover can no longer rattle since it's in contact with HDD and pressed to it tightly, the front grille has about 1mm of free play. Rattling is easy to prevent by sticking small pieces of folded paper between either grille and top cover or grille and bottom cover.
LED: like with 3.5" variant.
Fantec 3.5" (LD-H35US2). I'm not sure if it's good for a silencer but it sure has been designed for pretty much best imaginable passive cooling. It's two piece cast (unlike Onetouches one-piece or Mapowers four-piece) and a plastic HDD tray. Don't worry about it as it doesn't rely on plastic tray to conduct heat. The top cover of the enclosure acts as a big contact surface against the HDD so enclosure itself is pretty much the same temperature as HDD itself. This allows a lower temperature delta. This enclosure works only with regular sized 3.5" HDDs, not with ultra-low-profile because otherwise top cover can't make contact with HDD. From the looks of it, I believe it doesn't cause vibration induced noise (plastic tray is softer than metal and two-piece cast can be tightened to each other, unlike with Warps where top cover is too thin and will only bend and rattle more if overtightened). I haven't verified it as I have only tried Samsung P80 in it ... and I mean a (rare) low-vibration sample of that model. Other enclosures were PATA and most of my HDDs are PATA. It also has a vertical stand with a foamy pieces on the side that makes contact with enclosure... Most likely they will reduce vibration transmitted to desk the enclosure is standing on.
LED colours: blue = power on. red = HDD access. Typically HDD access cause the ring around the button to blink in various shades of pink (blue+red).
I believe Fantec is could be capable to cool 7200rpm HDDs as well, even at highest capacities. It will no doubt run a tad warm but within specs, and it will make more noise than 5400rpm drive.