HD noise: Ball bearings Vs Fluid bearings

[raghu1111]

Hard disks with fluid bearings are supposed to be much quiter. How much do you think it matters?

Does it make the disk quiter only when there is activity (reading/writing) or even when it is idle?

I recently bought a WD 200GB. Now realized the it has regular ball bearings. I don't have a disk with fluid dynamic bearings to check the difference.

 

[HiTek21]

I have a seagate barracuda IV drive with FDB and that compared to my old WD Caviar 13GB hdd its dead quiet. You don't even know its on. I recently sold the WD 13gb hdd and got a WD120JB drive and the WD drive was surprisingly quiet. I can't tell if either drive is on or not unless I put my ear next to the drive.

 

[galt]

regular vs. fluid bearings is like high pitched while vs. dead quiet. trust me, i just got a fluid bearing drive after 3 years of regular drives, and i can hardly believe the difference. my system is so quiet now it makes me feel weird (in a good way), because for the past 3 years i've had a bloody whiney computer sitting next to me.

 

[Goi]

Newer drives tend to be quieter than older ones, even if they're both running ball bearings. The FDB ones are even quieter though.

 

[Cardio]

My computer has five (5) 120MB Maxtor fluid bearing drives and you cannot hear them. Quitest and coolest drives I have ever used. Compared to a new 160 WD reg bearing drive they are completely silent and you can definately hear the WD.

 

[awal]

Originally posted by: Cardio
My computer has five (5) 120MB Maxtor fluid bearing drives and you cannot hear them. Quitest and coolest drives I have ever used. Compared to a new 160 WD reg bearing drive they are completely silent and you can definately hear the WD.

please tell me these are raided in some way or the other, and you not just using all 600G for file storage

 

[Naruto]

Not all FDB drives are quiet. My maxtor 80gb was the first FDB drive they developed, they claimed it was quiet, but its noisy like a mother fcuker (in actuality it was giving my case lots of vibes, but even using rubber washers to pad it didn't do any help, only taking it out of the case and on the floor did the trick). Seagate FDB drives are dead silent. And from what I hear from hot maxtor hdd deals, those newer FDB 8mb cache drives are not that quiet either. Many people say their maxtor or western digital harddrives are quiet, but maybe their fans are too loud that they drown the hdd noise. Also, I tired out those smaller diamondmax 8 or 9 drives (the maxtor ones with single platters up to 40gb or so only), and those are pretty darn quiet to nearly silent.

Heres what I got:
Western Digital 40gb 7.2k rpm 2mb(ball-bearing) - loud on idle, makes louder noises when reading/writing
Maxtor 80GB 7.2k rpm 2mb (fluid) - no noise on idle, makes loud noises when reading/writing/turning off (when in pc case) - no noise on idle, very very faint noises when reading/writing (when on floor outside)
Seagate 40gb 7.2k rpm 2mb (fluid supposedly) - always silent, can't be heard unless you have no fans or other noise making component of any sort, and if this is the case, can only be heard at most 1 foot away
IBM "Deathstar" 15gb 7.2k rpm 2mb (ball supposedly) - if i can recall pretty darn loud like the WD drive

 

[Thump553]

I pretty much agree with just about all the above comments. When you have noisy fans you don't notice HD noise. When you quiet your system down a noisy hard drive isn't necessarily loud, its just a very annoying noise. I've used a couple of Maxtor fluid bearing drives and been happy with the sound volume. The price difference is pretty insignificant.

 

[Cardio]

The drives are running in RAID. Usually, anyway, they drop out ocasionally, shich is a pain!