Fluid Bearing Hard Drives

[k900]

Are fluid bearing hard drives significantly quieter than normal hard drives?

Does anyone have a list of manufacturers and model numbers of fluid bearing hard drives?

Also, does maxtor make a fluid bearing 120 gig hard drive with 2 mb of cache?

any info is appreciated, thanks in advance

 

[eplebnista]

StorageReview.com

 

[corkyg]

I replaced a 4200 RPM 2.5" drive in my laptop with a 5400 RPM fluid bearing drive. Definitely better performance and quieter. Yes, Maxtor's 7200 Ultra series uses fluid bearings and comes in sizes 80, 120, 160 and 200 GB.

 

[lorlabnew]

Originally posted by: corky-g
I replaced a 4200 RPM 2.5" drive in my laptop with a 5400 RPM fluid bearing drive. Definitely better performance and quieter. Yes, Maxtor's 7200 Ultra series uses fluid bearings and comes in sizes 80, 120, 160 and 200 GB.

corky-g, which drive did you personally got and which was the original one?

I did the similar upgrade, but didn't notice too much improvement (maybe because my laptop's chipset - 440BX udma33 limitations). Have Dell Inspiron4000-PIII-mobile 800MHz , and originally had IBM 20GB 30GN, 4200rpm/2mb cache. I got the new IBM 40GB 40GNX 5400rpm/8mb cache; both drives are fluid motor bearing based, and so the noise level remained pretty much the same. Performance is slightly better, but not remarkably, maybe some 20% in tests and a bit faster loading of applications. In general, I feel I blew up $170+ or so for minor upgrade (doubled my storage, but I don't need that too much on the laptop anyway, have desktops with cheaper & large 3.5" drives). Also, with 5400rpm drive I think my laptop battery time decreased a bit...from somewhere around 3 hours to about 2 hours.


dave

 

[Kk4JC]

I have a Maxtor fluid bearing HDD in my main computer. It is very quiet, I love it!

Kk

 

[bgeh]

i changed from a quantum 20Gb 7200rpm
to a seagate baraccuda IV 40gb
its definitely noticeable. its extremely quiet(compared to my quantum)

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: lorlabnew

corky-g, which drive did you personally got and which was the original one? I did the similar upgrade, but didn't notice too much improvement (maybe because my laptop's chipset - 440BX udma33 limitations). Have Dell Inspiron4000-PIII-mobile 800MHz , and originally had IBM 20GB 30GN, 4200rpm/2mb cache. I got the new IBM 40GB 40GNX 5400rpm/8mb cache; both drives are fluid motor bearing based, and so the noise level remained pretty much the same. Performance is slightly better, but not remarkably, maybe some 20% in tests and a bit faster loading of applications. In general, I feel I blew up $170+ or so for minor upgrade (doubled my storage, but I don't need that too much on the laptop anyway, have desktops with cheaper & large 3.5" drives). Also, with 5400rpm drive I think my laptop battery time decreased a bit...from somewhere around 3 hours to about 2 hours. dave

OK - I had a similar drive - a Travelstar 4200 20 GB in a Gateway Solo 9300cx. I had tw0o of these - one a cloned backup. I replaced them both with 20 GB 5400 Travelstars w/Fluid Bearings about $100 each from Googlegear last August. I cloned them both and have the same arrangement. The cloning operation ran approximately 90 MB/min faster - that is moving all data from drive 1 to drive 2 with the new drives.