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Seagate still the quiet leader?

Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 9:06 pm
by SnowPunk98
When I last built a good desktop Seagate was normally the least noisy drive, I love their drives regardless. Is this still the case, what is the standard quiet drive for a SATA drive?

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:10 am
by Nick Geraedts
Check out SPCR's Recommended Hard drive list. In terms of desktop drives, the quietest drives you'll find without breaking the bank are the Western Digital GP drives. Some people might claim that the 5400RPM rotational speed of the drives is a major flaw, but in most real-world scenarios, you probably won't notice the difference.

If you read my signature, you'll notice I'm running 10 of them in my server. ;)

Re: Seagate still the quiet leader?

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 4:53 am
by QuietOC
SnowPunk98 wrote:When I last built a good desktop Seagate was normally the least noisy drive, I love their drives regardless. Is this still the case, what is the standard quiet drive for a SATA drive?
Seagate has generally had the noisiest 3.5" drives recently. Currently the WD Green Power/Velociraptor/AAKS, Hitachi P7K500, Samsung F1/S250 are the best.

Ranking best to worst:

Speed: VelociRaptor, F1/AAKS, S250, P7K500, WD GP
Noise: WD GP/VelociRaptor, P7K500, F1/AAKS/S250

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 7:44 am
by jhhoffma
Stay away from Seagate and Maxtor (now made by Seagate), they are not among the quietest drives. I have an older 300GB Maxtor (actually Seagate 7200.11-series) that is not intrusively loud, but it has the idle clicking most note with this drive series. My WD5000KS is much quieter.

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:29 pm
by SnowPunk98
I have an 80GB Seagate Barracuda IV model ST380021A sitting here doing nothing but I would like a SATA drive to get some more speed. How is this drive in terms of quietness?

Which of these two would you guys pick

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148138
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136074

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:57 pm
by Vicotnik
SnowPunk98 wrote:Which of these two would you guys pick
Since one of them is a Seagate, the choice is not that hard is it?

Seagate was great once, the Barracuda IV is legendary. The first silent HDD imo. But I think Barracuda V was the last one Seagate had that was good, and that was how long ago?

Stay away from Seagate already! :twisted: :wink:

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:10 pm
by tuz
Yes, I have a new Seagate HD, a 500GB 7200.11. Unfortunately even when suspension mounted in an Antec Solo I can still hear the seeks, although its far quieter compared to when it was hard mounted in my old case. In the past Seagate used to be quiet, but no more. Also I can't find any way to enable AAM to quieten down the seeks, though it seems like most other brands can do this. I think I'd go for a WD or Samsung if I was to buy another HD now.

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:27 pm
by Vicotnik
Due to patent issues Seagate HDDs lack AAM capabilities.

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:11 pm
by Kaleid
So they're not allowed to use AAM which is commonly used. So why can't they make something similar on their own?

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:02 am
by jhhoffma
Kaleid wrote:So they're not allowed to use AAM which is commonly used. So why can't they make something similar on their own?
Due to patent issues...

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:36 am
by SnowPunk98
So is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136074 a quiet one or do I have to get a specific model?

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:24 am
by QuietOC
SnowPunk98 wrote:So is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136074 a quiet one or do I have to get a specific model?
There is a review of that model here.