Hello everyone! Lovely forum you have here!
I am building a new audio recording computer for my business, and I am having trouble picking my two drives. I will need one for Windows and programs (size is not a concern) and another larger drive (320-ish, preferably with a single platter) for audio data. Noise levels are the number one concern, followed by performance, and finally heat. They will be housed in an Antec Solo with fans right in front of them, probably in the trays instead of the bands as I need to move my computer from time to time.
I would love to have a 32 GB SSD for the boot drive, but I believe this is out of the question due to the prohibitive price of the good SLC models.
Laptop drives are intriguing, but I'm a bit worried about performance. The biggest project I could conceive of ever having would require perfect streaming of about 12 MB/s, and since I occasionally do pop music production work, I might also have to add the additional strain of streaming from several virtual instruments, though hopefully most of that will be coming from my 4 GB of ram. I'm just wondering if a laptop drive is really a good choice for such a task. What about for a Windows/Programs drive? Might there be any harm in employing a laptop drive there?
So, with that said, which models should I be looking at? There are tons out there and the recommended list on this site seems outdated.
Thanks in advance!
Confused about HDD selection
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
The Samsung HD502HI should fill your needs. As Mikes recent review documentet, it is very quiet and with a single 500gb platter also quite speedy.
Based on his review I bought one of these last week, and can support the conclusion 100%.
1. Compared to other desktop drives: It is much more quiet that my WD Greenpower (3 platter 1tb), which is another very popular drive around here. Seeks are louder but still very muted. Idle noise and vibration is almost non-existing in comparison with the GP, which is pretty quiet to begin with. I imagine seeks would disappear completely in a QuietDrive enclosure or similar.
2. Notebook drives: Idle noise is about the same as my old Samsung MP0402, which has been at the top of the SPCR recomended notebook drives list before it was retired. Only difference is that the the MP0402 virtually doesn't vibrate at all, but the HD502HI still has exeptionally low vibration compared to other desktop drives I have tried (various Samsung, WD and Maxtor). I am currently using a Samsung M5 HM160HC in my laptop (160 gb single platter), which is decent but has higher idle noise and vibrates more than both of these drives. Point is: there is no reason to buy a laptop drive over the HD502HI.
For the record: these oppinions are based on a drive mounted with the standard silicon insulators in a NSK-3480.
Based on his review I bought one of these last week, and can support the conclusion 100%.
1. Compared to other desktop drives: It is much more quiet that my WD Greenpower (3 platter 1tb), which is another very popular drive around here. Seeks are louder but still very muted. Idle noise and vibration is almost non-existing in comparison with the GP, which is pretty quiet to begin with. I imagine seeks would disappear completely in a QuietDrive enclosure or similar.
2. Notebook drives: Idle noise is about the same as my old Samsung MP0402, which has been at the top of the SPCR recomended notebook drives list before it was retired. Only difference is that the the MP0402 virtually doesn't vibrate at all, but the HD502HI still has exeptionally low vibration compared to other desktop drives I have tried (various Samsung, WD and Maxtor). I am currently using a Samsung M5 HM160HC in my laptop (160 gb single platter), which is decent but has higher idle noise and vibrates more than both of these drives. Point is: there is no reason to buy a laptop drive over the HD502HI.
For the record: these oppinions are based on a drive mounted with the standard silicon insulators in a NSK-3480.
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JazzJackRabbit
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Get MLC based drive if you want to go SSD for boot drive, they should last you long time. If you can't get intel drive at reasonable price get an indilinx based drive. They cost around $200 for 60GB or $130 for 30GB.
For storage get 502HI like mond said. They are quiet and should be more than fast enough to guarantee 12MB/s. You can even put them into Scythe Quiet Enclosure at which point they should be pretty much inaudible tucked inside the case. Although you might have a problem trying to mount Scythe Quiet Enclosure inside a case. I've used SQE, but I never hard mounted it.
For storage get 502HI like mond said. They are quiet and should be more than fast enough to guarantee 12MB/s. You can even put them into Scythe Quiet Enclosure at which point they should be pretty much inaudible tucked inside the case. Although you might have a problem trying to mount Scythe Quiet Enclosure inside a case. I've used SQE, but I never hard mounted it.
Thanks for the advice, JazzJackRabbit. As for the SSD's, I think I'd rather wait until the price goes down... budget is definitely a concern for me.
What do you guys think of the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS? I hear that people are reporting it as very quiet, and it is a top performer on the PassMark site, well above the Samsung.
What do you guys think of the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS? I hear that people are reporting it as very quiet, and it is a top performer on the PassMark site, well above the Samsung.
Don't have any experience with the Seagate - or any other of their recent drives for that matter - but they appear to have a reputation for loud seeks. Someone else will have to confirm that though, I could have a wrong impression. Anyway, it will almost certainly be substantially louder than the mentioned Samsung model, seeing as the ST3500418AS is a 7200RPM drive. If noise is your primary concern, and the drive is for regular streaming of audio (i.e. sequential reading of large files), defineatly go with a 5400RPM drive.
Cool, thanks for the input.
My idea for the drive came from this thread, in which the poster says,
A review mentioned in that thread, though of the 1TB model, said that,
My idea for the drive came from this thread, in which the poster says,
vibration in my sample seems near-nonexistent. idle noise is very, very soft, and seeks are noticeable, but barely-- far more muted than the WDs I had in his machine before.
A review mentioned in that thread, though of the 1TB model, said that,
However, that same review went on to say that,Both at idle and while seeking, the 'cuda is among the quietest 3.5" drives we've ever tested. From a few feet away, I can't even hear the drive seeking—and that's with it running outside a case on an open test bench.
So now I'm not sure. Perhaps it would be great for an audio/video drive, but not good for a boot drive? Really confused now!he drive fared better than any other in our iPEAK multitasking tests, but it stumbled spectacularly when faced with multi-user IOMeter loads. And at more than 17ms, the 7200.12's random access time is slower than, well, any other desktop drive we've tested. Ever.
When reading reviews from sites that aren't focused on recording or silencing, keep in mind that to some people "very quiet" means they can hear the drive in the next room with the TV on, but it's not loud enough to blot out the dialog. If you care enough about noise that you found your way here, acoustic impressions from mainstream reviews aren't likely to be of much use to you.
Seagate got a reputation for loud seeks after being forced to remove AAM from their drives a few years ago. Apparently they didn't have the rights to the code they were using for this, and I don't think they've released a drive with user-configurable AAM since. However, some of their drives are apparently set up for soft seeks. You just can't adjust the drive to find the best performance/noise compromise.
Techreport is down ATM, so I can't look at the data in that review. But when reading test results, pay the most attention to the tests that are most similar to what you actually do. IOMeter is meant to assess a drive's performance in a web or file server, and is not very good at simulating single-user loads.
http://forums.storagereview.net/wiki/index.php/IOMeter
You won't have 10 people logged onto this box at once, right? Hence, you can ignore the IOMeter results completely. This is especially true because the drive did well on the single-user multitasking tests. But long seek times might be a factor. Again, look for test results that simulate what you actually do.
It pays to think carefully about what the test results are telling you. For instance, if a drive is the slowest in a test involving real applications, but all drives took over two minutes, and the drive you are looking at was only a few seconds behind the leaders, you're unlikely to notice the difference. The drive looks terrible down there at the bottom of the chart, but for practical purposes, it's just as good as any of the other drives in the test. Tests with applications you never use tell you nothing about how the drive will work for you. And low-level IO tests can be extremely misleading if the aspect they are measuring is not a major bottleneck in anything you do.
In what sort of situations do you expect drive performance to be important?
One caveat about Seagate: Some of their 720.11's shipped with a "self bricking feature" in the firmware that, under the right conditions, will turn the drive into a paperweight. A friend of mine recently lost all four drives in a RAID 10 array to this bug. Now, Seagate should has had time to sort this out since he bought his drives, but they should have sorted it out long before it became an issue to end user. That a bug of this magnitude was let loose is a very bad sign. Personally, I'm not considering anything from Seagate right now. If I need a drive in a year or two, though, I'll consider them again, as long as they've kept their firmware nose clean. But the bug is an egregious fubar, and may be a sign of serious problems within the company. Call me callous, but my data is a lot more important to me than whether or not the CEO's nephew has a job.
Seagate got a reputation for loud seeks after being forced to remove AAM from their drives a few years ago. Apparently they didn't have the rights to the code they were using for this, and I don't think they've released a drive with user-configurable AAM since. However, some of their drives are apparently set up for soft seeks. You just can't adjust the drive to find the best performance/noise compromise.
Techreport is down ATM, so I can't look at the data in that review. But when reading test results, pay the most attention to the tests that are most similar to what you actually do. IOMeter is meant to assess a drive's performance in a web or file server, and is not very good at simulating single-user loads.
http://forums.storagereview.net/wiki/index.php/IOMeter
You won't have 10 people logged onto this box at once, right? Hence, you can ignore the IOMeter results completely. This is especially true because the drive did well on the single-user multitasking tests. But long seek times might be a factor. Again, look for test results that simulate what you actually do.
It pays to think carefully about what the test results are telling you. For instance, if a drive is the slowest in a test involving real applications, but all drives took over two minutes, and the drive you are looking at was only a few seconds behind the leaders, you're unlikely to notice the difference. The drive looks terrible down there at the bottom of the chart, but for practical purposes, it's just as good as any of the other drives in the test. Tests with applications you never use tell you nothing about how the drive will work for you. And low-level IO tests can be extremely misleading if the aspect they are measuring is not a major bottleneck in anything you do.
In what sort of situations do you expect drive performance to be important?
One caveat about Seagate: Some of their 720.11's shipped with a "self bricking feature" in the firmware that, under the right conditions, will turn the drive into a paperweight. A friend of mine recently lost all four drives in a RAID 10 array to this bug. Now, Seagate should has had time to sort this out since he bought his drives, but they should have sorted it out long before it became an issue to end user. That a bug of this magnitude was let loose is a very bad sign. Personally, I'm not considering anything from Seagate right now. If I need a drive in a year or two, though, I'll consider them again, as long as they've kept their firmware nose clean. But the bug is an egregious fubar, and may be a sign of serious problems within the company. Call me callous, but my data is a lot more important to me than whether or not the CEO's nephew has a job.
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MikeC
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Otter's comments are apropos, tho perhaps a little OT -- re "keep in mind that to some people "very quiet" means they can hear the drive in the next room with the TV on, but it's not loud enough to blot out the dialog. " 
Don't go for the Seagate 7200.11 or .12 or .10 or .9 etc... They are NOT quiet at all. (Until you go back to the 7200.7 -- some 4-5 years ago)
Go for a WD Green Power or Samsung F2 EcoGreen -- or Barracuda LP (5900rpm) if you must have a Seagate. One or more of these have been reviewed, check the Storage section of the main site. I found it quiet but not as quiet as the other two.
Don't go for the Seagate 7200.11 or .12 or .10 or .9 etc... They are NOT quiet at all. (Until you go back to the 7200.7 -- some 4-5 years ago)
Go for a WD Green Power or Samsung F2 EcoGreen -- or Barracuda LP (5900rpm) if you must have a Seagate. One or more of these have been reviewed, check the Storage section of the main site. I found it quiet but not as quiet as the other two.