Suggestions on the quietest SATA drive I can get for ~$50-60

SnowPunk98 · Post by **SnowPunk98** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:53 pm

I am currently using a 2.5" 80GB Hitachi SATA drive and can hardly ever hear it which I like. I need more storage space though, but I don't need anything more than 300, anything more is nice.

Can anyone recommend something that is going to very quiet like this 2.5" drive for around $50-60?

DonQ · Post by **DonQ** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 5:50 am

SnowPunk98 wrote:I am currently using a 2.5" 80GB Hitachi SATA drive and can hardly ever hear it which I like. I need more storage space though, but I don't need anything more than 300, anything more is nice.

Can anyone recommend something that is going to very quiet like this 2.5" drive for around $50-60?

My suggestion is to check out http://www.newegg.com. I have been shopping there for years and never had a problem. I saw a WD 500 GB for $65 including shipping. Good luck.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 7:48 am

SnowPunk98 wrote:Can anyone recommend something that is going to very quiet like this 2.5" drive for around $50-60?

My last 500 GB P7K700 was in that price range.

3.5" SATA Drives, quietest to loudest (and slowest to fastest)

500 GB Western Digital WD5000AACS $65
250 GB Hitachi P7K500 $63
500 GB Hitachi P7K500 $70
250 GB Samsung S250 HD250HJ $56
320 GB Western Digital WD3200AAKS $60
320 GB Samsung F1 HD322HJ $64

The 250 GB WD2500AAJS $50 and WD2500AAKS $55 are neither as quiet nor as fast as anything above, but are decent enough for outdated drives.

Highly recommend spending a little more ($75) for a 640 GB WD6400AAKS if you want speed or a WD6400AACS for quiet capacity.

Probably most 2.5" 5400 rpm drives in the 80 to 160 GB range.

SnowPunk98 · Post by **SnowPunk98** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 9:29 am

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:06 am

The WD6400AAKS is $69.99 with free shipping.
The 500GB Samsung F1 is $64.99 with free shipping.
The 500GB P7K500 is $59.99 with free shipping.

SnowPunk98 · Post by **SnowPunk98** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:17 am

I just bought the P7K500 that you linked, hopefully its fast and quiet. Do you know if this is a single platter model?

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:28 am

SnowPunk98 wrote:I just bought the P7K500 that you linked, hopefully its fast and quiet. Do you know if this is a single platter model?

No, its definitely 2 platter. I have 2 of them (bought several months apart), and they are the quietest drives I've owned (I haven't owned the 5400rpm drives.) They have a fairly slow 18ms access time, but are plenty fast for sustained transfers.

Moon GT · Post by **Moon GT** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:15 am

SnowPunk98 wrote:I just bought the P7K500 that you linked, hopefully its fast and quiet. Do you know if this is a single platter model?

Only the 250Gb version is single platter.

SnowPunk98 · Post by **SnowPunk98** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:55 pm

So multiple platters will make it louder correct? or what pros/cons does the numbers of platters have?

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:15 pm

SnowPunk98 wrote:So multiple platters will make it louder correct? or what pros/cons does the numbers of platters have?

Not really, the single platter drives seem to be lower quality, so while they should be better they are actually worse (check out SPCR's WD3200AAKS review.)

2-platter 3.5" drives always seem to the best.

My single platter Samsung S250 is fine, but it might be the exception, and the 2 platter P7K500 is quieter.

SnowPunk98 · Post by **SnowPunk98** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:20 pm

Nice, hopefully I will be happy with the drive, time to sell the 80GB 2.5" SATA drive.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:23 pm

SnowPunk98 wrote:Nice, hopefully I will be happy with the drive, time to sell the 80GB 2.5" SATA drive.

Too bad, they seem to worthless right now (I am selling one too.) Might actually make sense to keep it a couple of years and wait until people want to buy them for data recovery.

SnowPunk98 · Post by **SnowPunk98** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:02 pm

They seem to go for $50 new on newegg last I looked, what have you been trying to sell yours for. Mines a Hitachi 7200RPM SATA.

Moon GT · Post by **Moon GT** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:19 pm

QuietOC wrote: Not really, the single platter drives seem to be lower quality, so while they should be better they are actually worse (check out SPCR's WD3200AAKS review.)

2-platter 3.5" drives always seem to the best.

My single platter Samsung S250 is fine, but it might be the exception, and the 2 platter P7K500 is quieter.

This is interesting... I was going to go for the single platter Hitachi on the grounds that it consumes less power than the two platter versions, and I'm never going to use more than 250Gb in my entire life (or not in the next five years at least...) If that version isn't so reliable, it might just change my decision.

This WD drive has a single 320Gb platter. Most of the complaints about the Samsung F1 drives seem to be the ones with 334Gb platters. Looks like reliability reduces with the capacity of the platters. Maybe not. I'm speculating. BUT a higher data density is intuitively (to me) a risk.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:33 pm

Moon GT wrote:This is interesting... I was going to go for the single platter Hitachi on the grounds that it consumes less power than the two platter versions, and I'm never going to use more than 250Gb in my entire life (or not in the next five years at least...) If that version isn't so reliable, it might just change my decision.

The 250GB Hitachi P7K500 might be fine. So far it is only 320GB WD that we know has issues.

SnowPunk98 · Post by **SnowPunk98** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 1:17 pm

So this drive is pretty quiet, I cant hear read/write but I hear like more humm from my system.

Esben · Post by **Esben** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:34 am

I'll vote for the Green 640 GB. It replaced my T7K500 320 GB drive, and noise levels improved a lot!

Suggestions on the quietest SATA drive I can get for ~$50-60

Suggestions on the quietest SATA drive I can get for ~$50-60

Re: Suggestions on the quietest SATA drive I can get for ~$5

Re: Suggestions on the quietest SATA drive I can get for ~$5