Quietest 7200rpm ~100GB 3.5" drive

SilenceOfTheFans · Post by **SilenceOfTheFans** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 3:54 pm

have been away for a while, would love to read up on all i've missed but am short for time and short a hard drive (master)
which is the quietest but still fast 7200rpm hard drive please?

Thanks

line · Post by **line** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 12:19 pm

Welcome back. Are you sure that is 100 and not 1000 GB?

To give you a heads up, the current platter density is 250GB for notebook drives and 500GB for desktop drives. Western Digital has not yet introduced 7200rpm 3.5" drives with 500GB platters but its last-generation 333GB-per-platter drives still beat the competition thanks to optimized firmware.

The 640GB Caviar Blue is the current sweet spot for performance and quietness on the desktop. The 500GB Barracuda 7200.12 is popular out there but hasn't been tested by SPCR.

What's your typical work like? If it is not disk intensive you might want to consider 5400rpm 3.5" drives like the 500GB Samsung EcoGreen F2 or the new 500GB Caviar Green with 32MB cache (WD5000AADS -- not the one ending with CS), which are single platter drives. They'll run cooler than 7200rpm drives and probably be a little quieter too.

In the 2.5" space the 500GB Scorpio Blue stands out.

SilenceOfTheFans · Post by **SilenceOfTheFans** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 5:54 pm

nope, definitely meant 100GB :p
just a nice, quiet, but still fast and modestly sized 7200rpm master that can be wiped regularly with minimal loss and restoration time (wondering about making a ghost image but think its better to do it manually each time? would mean all the drivers are the latest versions and freshly installed) backed up onto the 500GB slave where all the important files are kept

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 6:18 pm

Why 3.5" and not 2.5"?

SilenceOfTheFans · Post by **SilenceOfTheFans** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 9:37 pm

are 3.5" drives not faster than 2.5"s?

rei · Post by **rei** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:19 pm

there's nothing in 100gb. you might still get overpriced 80gb drives for businesses and enterprises.

SilenceOfTheFans · Post by **SilenceOfTheFans** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:48 pm

what about 120/160?

pixel · Post by **pixel** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:05 pm

Hello,

I've asked for ideas in the last few days here, but for about 500 GB. I second line that the 640 GB Caviar Blue is a popular choice, and -though a bit slower- the 500 GB Samsung EcoGreen F2 or the Caviar Green are easily recommendable. I bought a 500 GB EcoGreen F2 yesterday and I'm happy with the quietness, and the disk isn't noticeably slow either.

If you can stretch your budget, maybe you could look at SSD's? There are 60 GB ones out there, that might have enough capacity?

I'm saying these because AFAIK there are not many "quality" 100 GB drives out anymore, in fact it may be a problem to even find one new.

Also, about wiping and restoring: Many new drives are quite a bit faster than the 100 GB drives of old, and it might not take as long as you think to wipe / restore a modern 250 GB drive compared to a 100 GB one. And you can always partition the drive? I don't think you'd save significantly by hunting down a 100 GB drive.

Good luck..

maxu · Post by **maxu** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:29 pm

Around 100GB would be any single platter 160GB. Take WD1600AAJS, for instance. The 7200.9 "slim" was also quiet, but had a tad metallic sound.

Ksanderash · Post by **Ksanderash** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:57 pm

SilenceOfTheFans wrote:what about 120/160?

160Gb per platter... That will be too old drive. With a low speed and high idle noise

A 500Gb maybe? I agree here with line. You can use not all the space, thus having maximum speed on the outer platter tracks. A 100Gb silent 3.5" drive with a constant 100Mb/sec -- that's a dream

green · Post by **green** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 6:15 am

SilenceOfTheFans wrote:what about 120/160?

velociraptor?...
10k rpm though...

SilenceOfTheFans · Post by **SilenceOfTheFans** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 7:12 am

blimey, never would have guessed bigger would be faster/quieter
an SSD was my primary choice, thought i may save a bunch with a 3.5" but guess its not worth it, good enough excuse to get a 32/64gb SSD

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 6:12 pm

I second the suggestion of Velociraptor or SSD.

In my personal opinion, 3.5" drives have one use only - extremely high capacity storage.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:14 pm

SilenceOfTheFans wrote:are 3.5" drives not faster than 2.5"s?

How much speed do you require?

SilenceOfTheFans · Post by **SilenceOfTheFans** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:37 am

wouldnt need to be a 10,000rpm but it would be nice to be a bit quicker than avergage, treat myself

maybe one of the OCZ SSDs would best suit? or do they still stutter?

pixel · Post by **pixel** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:40 am

There's also an article (on TechReport, link ) about an OCZ SSD losing performance as it fills up. Those SSD's are fast when it comes to "empty" portions of the drive, but when it comes to portions previously written they don't fare so well. They noticed performance drops of up to 50% compared to new.

In my opinion it's still early to go for SSD; more so if you don't plan to / can't afford to replace it with a more "mature" SSD a few years down the road. If I could spend a lot of money I would get an Intel SLC-based SSD and enjoy the speed and silence, but they're too expensive for people with limited budgets ATM. And the cheaper ones are, IMO, not mature enough to invest in.

I'm not trying to justify my purchase or anything; but I think I did right by choosing a 5400-rpm 3,5" quiet HDD now and waiting for another year or so before going SSD. The 500 GB drive I bought I can then use for music/photo/video storage. I would advise that you consider this idea.

Edit: Added link to TechReport article.