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Question Are enterprise drives really loud?

paperfist

paperfist

Diamond Member
I’ve been reading up on which are the best as I’ve never used one before and then when I check amazon and Newegg ratings people complain they are loud.

Their complaints slant the noise as if the drives are bad, but I don't know if they know any better.

I’m just looking at one for backup purposes so a little noise won’t bother me, but roughly how loud are they or is it like GPU coil whine?
 
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They shouldn't be any more loud than normal spinning drives, at least 5400rpm ones...

They may be referring to multiple drives as part of a storage array in a server room or something, though I wouldn't think you'd hear them over any cooling devices.
 
EXCellR8 said:
They shouldn't be any more loud than normal spinning drives, at least 5400rpm ones...

They may be referring to multiple drives as part of a storage array in a server room or something, though I wouldn't think you'd hear them over any cooling devices.
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Thanks, I didn't consider that they were being used in a RAID which could be what the noise is from.
 
I have a baraccuda pro in my PC which is the pro-sumer driver of seagates enterprise drives. Eg. it's the same drive as enterprise drive just a bit different firmware. 7200rpm. It's essentialy silent for my use cases and doesn't make any more noise than my older wd green 5400rpm drives.
That said maybe the comments you read were about 15k rpm SAS drives. Yeah, these are going to be loud but not sure if such drives are still being made at all.
 
They aren't that fast.

I was looking at the WD Ultrastar at newegg & at Amazon where they seem to point to noise a lot. I haven't bought an HDD in eons so maybe Western Digital isn't that great anymore?
 
paperfist said:
I’ve been reading up on which are the best as I’ve never used one before and then when I check amazon and Newegg ratings people complain they are loud.

Their complaints slant the noise as if the drives are bad, but I don't know if they know any better.

I’m just looking at one for backup purposes so a little noise won’t bother me, but roughly how loud are they or is it like GPU coil whine?
Click to expand...

No reason to use enterprise drive for backup. They are meant for 24/7 operation.
 
paperfist said:
Their complaints slant the noise as if the drives are bad, but I don't know if they know any better.
Click to expand...

This is just because enterprise drives usually have acoustical management disabled. It doesn't matter in a server room, and gives a bit more performance.

Enterprise drives are mostly of a bit better quality then regular drives. As to whether or not they're worth it, that's down to individual preference.

paperfist said:
I’m just looking at one for backup purposes so a little noise won’t bother me, but roughly how loud are they or is it like GPU coil whine?
Click to expand...

You can defiantly hear 7200RPM enterprise drives, particularly when seeking. I'm personally not bothered by the noise level, but I do know some who find it bothersome.
 
paperfist said:
Supposedly long life too. You wouldn't get one even if the cost is negligible? I just need a few GB so the cost difference isn't much.
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Longer life in continuous duty. Backups are rarely that in a home setting.

For home, two consumer drive mirrored > one enterprise.
 
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The biggest practical difference to a buyer of a HDD honestly is the warranty. Business class "NAS" / "Pro" type drives usually have longer warranties up to 5 years. Many consumer class drives are either 90 days (refurb) or 1 year warranties.
 
Arkaign said:
The biggest practical difference to a buyer of a HDD honestly is the warranty. Business class "NAS" / "Pro" type drives usually have longer warranties up to 5 years. Many consumer class drives are either 90 days (refurb) or 1 year warranties.
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I think the last time I rmaed a drive was on my son's Athlon II Compaq.
 
sdifox said:
I think the last time I rmaed a drive was on my son's Athlon II Compaq.
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That's a dang good run lol 🙂

I install quite a lot of drives, and I guess I see 1-2% fail in the first few months or years of use, which adds up to a number of RMA experiences. WD seems to have by far the best experience with that, even advance/cross ship RMA service.
 
Arkaign said:
That's a dang good run lol 🙂

I install quite a lot of drives, and I guess I see 1-2% fail in the first few months or years of use, which adds up to a number of RMA experiences. WD seems to have by far the best experience with that, even advance/cross ship RMA service.
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My Toshiba 2TB is going, still good as a scratch drive, but not as storage. I think that one is 8 year old or so. Need to check records.
Need to check my bunch of 300gb drives in external enclosure. Probably seized ip by now.
 
My 2x toshiba enterprise 4K drives are nice.
The price is about the same as consumer WD drives. Noise is the same as consumer drives of the same rpm spec.
I think noise is only a factor if comparing 10K or 15K to lower rpm consumer drives.
 
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