Need a good PATA HD rec. Good performance yet QUIET.

[yacoub]

Having a tough time finding reviews of PATA drives anymore since everything is SATA-focused, but I have an EIDE/PATA-based system that needs a new HD and I don't know what to get. Something that whines less than my current drives though, that's for sure.

Currently I'm running:
WD SE 80GB (8MB cache), Maxtor Ultra 120GB (8MB cache) via USB 2.0 external enclosure

The WD SE drive is noisy as crap. The Maxtor isn't quite as loud, even in the external enclosure.

Anyway, they're both ancient (like two years old) in relative terms, so what's a new PATA drive I can run that will offer as much or more performance than those old drives and be nice and quiet (relatively speaking)?

Thanks.

 

[Crescent13]

Get a seagate, from what I've heard, quietest, coolest, fastest hard drives out there. I have a WD caviar 160GB hard drive and it's super quiet, but I don't know if it's as quiet as seagate. You could also buy this.

 

[CSMR]

Samsung makes some quiet hard drives - P80 and P120 I think. Particularly if you get one with a Nidec motor.

 

[w00t]

one thing I miss from EIDE/PATA is boot times D:

 

[Auric]

See storagereview and silentpcreview. I've only had Seagate and Maxtor in recent years and found the motors quiet (and I'm a low-noise freak). AFAIK Maxtor is the only of those with the ACM/AAM option and they are often cheaper, especially with frequent "hot deals" rebates. Hitachi has ACM too... not sure aboot Samsung but as said the motors vary and they have not been up to date performance wise.... mayhaps the new models have closed the gap.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Samsung, cheap and quiet but reliable.