How loud is the WD Raptor 74gb?

[BillClo]

I can say that it's not that loud. My case fans are the biggest noise producers, and while I can hear the drive working, it's not bad at all. It is noticeably faster than what I had (by 1/3rd), and with 1GB memory, the system is noticeably snappier than it was before.

 

[Chang10is]

Originally posted by: Gerbil333
I've spent a week with my shiny new 74gb Raptor, and I'm completely satisfied 😀

Idle noise is non-existent, which is what I'd hoped for because I could plainly hear my WD400JB idle, and that drove me mad. The Raptor's seek noise is fierce, but rewarding. I've never minded seek noise. The heads move so quickly that my case panels shake. I don't think the drive itself is noisy, but rather the heads move with so much speed and force that it shakes the crap out of my tower; if I apply pressure to the front and side panels of my case, the seek noise hushes significantly. This doesn't bother me at all.

Performance is phenomenal, as expected. My Raptor's HDTach scores blow away my old WD400JB, and I can really feel the difference. My computer boots up about 10 seconds faster than before and programs launch much faster. With my last hard drive, programs didn't feel this responsive until they'd already been running (stored in the RAM). The Raptor makes apps seem like everything is already in the RAM. That's very nice 🙂

While typing this post, I haven't even heard a peep out of the drive. I'm glad to say that the WD Raptor 74gb is the best hd I've owned so far, and I've owned a fair number of drives (back to ~200mb drives). Hopefully its reliability will prove to be as great as the warranty hints at...

Thanks for the info--it's appreciated very much.

 

[arsbanned]

For me it would not be an acceptable trade off, according to what I've read here. I'll stick to fast SATA drives. My current system is virtually silent and I sure as HELL do NOT want to hear any seek noise. I despise that sound.

 

[KoolDrew]

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