WD Black or something else?

dkm777 · 02-26-2013, 02:58 AM

I'm going to buy a WD Black drive for a little weird box that I'm piecing together but I'm worried that it will be too loud. I'm using a Fractal Design Core 1000 case and it has rubber mounting rings that should dampen most of the vibrations but the motor noise at idle is my main concern. Is it a low frequency hum or more of a hiss? If it's a low hum then I'm afraid I'll have to sacrifice the speed for some peace of mind.

slpnshot · 02-26-2013, 12:08 PM

I'll try to give a little input. I have a Fractal R2 with Caviar Black and Blue drives.

When idle, the Black is practically unnoticeable in my case. The blue vibrates pretty badly even on idle and causes a low hum to pitch throughout the case.

R/W, both drives are noticeably loud, but the Black seems louder.

Just my 2c. It's too small sample size to really make any real comparison, it might just be build quality lottery. I might have gotten a good Black drive that has minimum vibration, or a bad Blue drive that vibrates excessively.

Elixer · 02-26-2013, 12:28 PM

Go for WD Red drives, seems to be getting better word of mouth than blue or green.

Coup27 · 02-26-2013, 02:21 PM

I've never owned a black but I have had a couple of blue's and have a blue in my rig in a budget case about 1ft from me on my desk and it is blissfully quiet. I can't hear it over the system fans.

dkm777 · 02-27-2013, 05:29 AM

I just got an idea - since I'm going to get a 500GB drive it is going to have less platters than a 1TB drive and therefore produce less noise and heat. Is this correct?

dma0991 · 02-27-2013, 05:40 AM

Having fewer platters is no guarantee for less noise and heat. Since heat is negligible with adequate ventilation, noise is the only issue here. My HDDs are nearly dead silent unless its doing a lot of read or writes or its waking up from a deep sleep. Samsung F3, Samsung F4EG and WD Green that I have will turn off after a certain period of inactivity. I doubt it could be noisy when it isn't even running.

Assuming that its purpose is an OS drive, any reason for not using a SSD?

dkm777 · 02-27-2013, 05:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dma0991

Assuming that its purpose is an OS drive, any reason for not using a SSD?

Windows XP and high price of SSDs.

Insert_Nickname · 02-27-2013, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkm777

Windows XP and high price of SSDs.

Its a non-issue with XP. Most (recommend Intel) have a toolbox that allows you to do a manual TRIM. That's what I do on my XPBOX. XP also has the advantage that it does not require that much HDD space. You can get along fine on a 40GB.

dkm777 · 02-27-2013, 12:16 PM

OK, if Intel can do manual TRIM under XP, then for the price of a 500GB Black I can get a 60GB Intel 330. I know they're excellent, but it's a psychological barrier to climb over when looking at capacity. I know what it's like to use an SSD on W7 and I imagine XP would be just mindblowingly fast.

Insert_Nickname · 02-27-2013, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkm777

I know what it's like to use an SSD on W7 and I imagine XP would be just mindblowingly fast.

Well, my XP machine is a mini-ITX based on the ASUS C60M1-I with a dualcore Brazos C-60 (1.33GHz) plus an Intel 320 40GB and the bog standard 4GB RAM. Now you'd think its dog slow, right?. Wrong. I swear this thing feels 10x as fast as anything I used in XP's heyday (2005'ish)...