Help me find a truly quiet CDROM

[amcdonald]

A while ago I posted about looking for a quiet cd-rom, and its really been getting on my nerves.
There's got to be some guru here that has real information on a cd-rom that is quiet in operation.
I'm not looking for 72x because obviously higher rpms will probably mean more noise.
Please try to understand that my computer is almost absolutely silent, so what is 'quiet' to you with a 60mm delta is probably way too loud for my taste. The cd-rom is the only thing i can hear. I've tried switching out with several cdroms from work, old and new, and none are really quiet.
I couldn't find anything besides user opinion on the web, any help is appreciated.

 

[clumsum]

I think Samsung and Asus 52X CD-ROM drives are relatively quiet, at least compared to my other Sony CD-ROM and Pioneer 106S DVD drives.
You may find some good information here:

Storage Review

Click on Reviews, then:
Tab down "All Reviewed Drives" to "Optical Drives" and then click on the drive you want to review.

Another good site:
CDRInfo.com

CD-RW's are getting so cheap, it's hard to find reviews of just plain CD-ROM drives.

 

[ReiAyanami]

there's no reason these days to have super fast loud spinning cd-roms, why cant u be able to select the max range it can spin at like when burning a CD u can choose what to burn at.

oh well, i'm sure they'll add it as a feature and charge for it

 

[ThisIsMatt]

I have an older, slot load 24x pioneer cdrom and it's very quiet...my computer is also very quiet. Only downside to it is that it doesn't read cdrws (big whoopie) and if you leave a cd in it for a long time it makes some odd noises lol...

 

[Bookie]

amcdonald, I asked this question a couple of weeks ago and was pointed in a direction that took care of all my cd-rom noise. I got this program called Alcohol 120% (search kazaa). This program will make images of all your cd's and store them on your harddrive. Using the software, you can mount your images to virtual cd-roms, and can have up to 26 images mounted at the same time. So far this is something that many other image burning program can do, but the really cool thing about this program is that it fully supports all kinds of copyright protection. The main cd I use this for is Warcraft3 which uses a version of Securom copyright protection. The image created by this program actually emulates all the specifics needed to trick the computer to thinking that I have the original cd-rom in the drive. I haven't used my dvd-rom once since creating my images. This software really supports everything. You can't get your optical drive any more silent then by not having to use it. Not to mention that running your cds from your harddrive, gives you about the same speed as a 200x cd-rom would and it's much faster and easier to mount a different image than to open your drive and insert a new cd.

 

[Bookie]

by the way, that software comes from http://www.alcohol-software.com

 

[Jhhnn]

The new Asus drives are supposedly very quiet. I bought an off-brand EPO 52x drive at CompUSA that's extremely quiet- not their 56x, it's noisy.

Other similar software is available from Farstone, called Game Drive, and there's Daemon Tools, which is freeware....

 

[amcdonald]

thanks for the advice guys.
Clumsum, I frequent storagereview, but their latest optical drive article is dated october 2001 =)
Still they recommend a teac drive i'll look into.
Bookie, while i'm sure you have good intentions, its not wise to promote piracy.
Just because its on kazaa that doesn't mean its legal =)
As for the alcohol, etc. software, I've already looked into this, and it is just a temporary solution.

 

[Bookie]

i didn't mean to promote kazaa as a means of piracy but rather a way to demo the a full working version of the software before purchasing it. The $50 it cost for this software is inline with the price of a new cd-rom drive and is in my opinion well worth it. I am finally putting all that extra disk space I have lying around to use (well at least some of it).

 

[Fallen Kell]

I remember hearing that the TrueX's were fairly quiet. It makes sense since they basically have both the laser head and that CD-ROM both spinning opsite to each other, so they would only need to each spin 1/2 as fast.... but gonna be hard trying to find one since they are not made anymore.

 

[beatle]

Nero drive speed is what you're after. I use this when watching movies, as the bitrate of an SVCD is below 4x. It's also free.