Quiet Boot Drive

[blanketyblank]

I would like to get a fast boot drive, but I've heard that raptors sound like a jet engine.
I want something fast and quiet, but the storage space doesn't matter so much. (I tend to delete, and I have a 500 gig external if needed)
RAID is an option since I think my mobo supports it, but cost is also important to me.

Right now I have an 80 gig maxtor sata drive which only gets a 5.3 under vista's experience index. It is out of warranty so I'd rather not use it in raid.

 

[sutahz]

RAID is not quiet as it is more then 1 drive. a single drive setup will net the quietest machine. You want fast and quiet, you're a hard customer to satisfy.
3 things come to mind.
1TB Green Power drive by WD (spins at 5400RPM most of the time => quiet)
A WD3200AAKS single platter. It was designed w/ the avg user in mind (ie quietness is a big factor).
Buy a laptop hdd w/ a 2.5" to 3.5"/5.25" adaptor (though this will not be high performance i'm sure its the quietess solution).

 

[PolymerTim]

Originally posted by: blanketyblank
I would like to get a fast boot drive, but I've heard that raptors sound like a jet engine.
I want something fast and quiet, but the storage space doesn't matter so much. (I tend to delete, and I have a 500 gig external if needed)
RAID is an option since I think my mobo supports it, but cost is also important to me.

Right now I have an 80 gig maxtor sata drive which only gets a 5.3 under vista's experience index. It is out of warranty so I'd rather not use it in raid.

Yeah, that Green Power has had very quiet reviews although it is a trade off for a little performance.

And then, of course, there are the people who go to the DIY extremes of suspending and sandwiching.

I guess it just depends on how important that quiet is to you.

 

[blanketyblank]

Is it wrong to want everything?
I guess I could always wait for ssd prices to drop in the worst case, but I'm somewhat impatient.
Do you know anything about the WD 640 gig HD or the 500 gig green power?
I think those are 7200 rpms so I'm wondering if those are quiet, but still fast.
I don't need dead silence since I have an antec p180 which is supposed to muffle a little of the sound.

 

[mcturkey]

The Green Power drives are great - quiet and reasonably fast. They're not going to be nearly as fast as a Raptor or SSD, but for me at least, they hit the perfect balance between performance and noise (and lower energy consumption!)

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: blanketyblank
Is it wrong to want everything?

No, just as it isn't wrong for you to not get what you want because it doesn't exist.

Your case helps... has nice grommets for the hard drives. The early Raptor drives were loud, but more recent ones have fluid bearings and you really don't hear them spinning. What you DO hear are the seeks. Seeks are what gets muffled the most with grommets, which is basically decoupling the drive from the chassis.

 

[skypine27]

Im happy with with Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB, though it is not a boot drive.

I notice the Spinpoint F1s don't get a lot of press or reccos around here, but I've had one for about 4 months now and would like to point out my experience.

First, when I ran it with a 680i mobo, I had some problems with the drive. There is a well documented issue where when used on an nvidia chipset mobo, and nvidia Forceware Drivers 15.08 (which I was using) the drive will simply lock up, thus locking up your whole system, when you try to copy large amounts of data to it. The solution is to simply roll back to Forceware 15.01, and the drive works fine. Again this is only an issue on the nvidia 6xx series (I belive limited to the 680i). The drive currently works fine on my new X48 mobo.

Second, the drive is fast. I run 4 HDs, see sig. The Spinpoint is definitely faster in sustained transfer rates than the Segate 750 is. I have not compared it to the 2 Segates in Raid 0, as that would not be fair.

Third, the drive runs cool, check out the SMART temps:

http://img107.imagevenue.com/v...ps_volts_122_902lo.jpg


The temps of the two Segate 500 Barracudas in Raid 0 can not be shown, as Raid inhibits smart monitoring. However, when comparing the temps of two totally idle drives, in a fairly hot system case in a fairly hot room environment (Temp sensor 3 is room temp, 84 F!!) you can see that the Samsung runs much cooler than the Segate 750 barracuda ES. Again, this temp reading is with both drives totally idle. Will try to do a screen cap later with each drive working is *** off.

Forth, to me anyway, it's quiet. Hard to tell in a system with 4 HDs, 2 of which are in Raid 0 for booting Vista. However, when I test copy a large chunk of data using the Samsung vs my Segate 750 (the one not in Raid), the drive noise is less with the Samsung.

So, in summary, I really like the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB. I've never had a crash associated with it once I figured out the Forceware 15.08 issue. And even then, it never lost data or developed a bad sector. It's faster than my Segate 750 Barracuda ES, and runs much cooler.

When I get home I will post some HD Tach benchs of both drives.