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Quietest HDD?

I

imported_theEman

Senior member
Hey Guys,
I was just wondering which drives you guys think are the quietest HDDs out there. I'm currently using a Seagate 120GB 7200.7 which I think is very quiet. What do you think?
 
Samsung makes the quietest drives at the moment, the P8 I think. See SPCR for info. I have the Seagate Barracuda IV which is quiet but old. Hoping the 7200.8 will be quiet - published specs say it is.
 
my 2 quietest hard drives are my WD 800JB, and my 120gig Seagate 7200.7

I think the 800JB is actually slightly quieter, but the 7200.7 is very quiet too...can NOT hear the WD seeking at all.. the 7200.7 is very faint.
 
My Seagate was very quiet, but after it went DEAD quiet I bought a Samsung SP and can't even hear it. I'm waiting on my 2nd Seagate replacement but if it's been built right I probably won't be able to hear the difference.
 
I've got (or have used) one (or more) of each modern series 7200RPM/ 8MB cache drives). I must say the WD800JB has a pretty mechanical (and annoying) idle spin to it. The seek noise is also pretty loud. The Maxtor DM9+ (Mine is 160GB; dual platter) seems to be a tad quieter than the 800JB, but it still requires AAM to subdue the pretty annoying (and audible) seeks.

Now, the 7200.7 80GB I have is very quiet. The idle noise is very low, and I have never heard it seek until I put it in my SFF (with a 15dBa PSU fan and a heavily undervolted Panaflo L1A). The Samsung 160GB / 8MB drive is also really quiet (quieter than the Maxtor and WD) with virtually inaudible seeks.

Cliffsnotes: Samsung and Seagate are quietest. Others are saying WD and Maxtor drives are quiet, but you can clearly hear the seeks in a relatively quiet PC.
 
Ionizer86 is totally correct

only people with loud fans and PSUs say maxtor and WD are quiet.

If you have a quiet system, then there is no way a maxtor or WD is quiet. Samsung NIDEC drives are the quietest drive you can buy now. If you want dead silence, i suggest getting a notebook 80gig samsung drive.

~RaNDoM
 
I've had a number of Seagate drives in recent years, including IV's with FDB, SeaShield and AAM and yes they are quiet but are lacking in performance compared to modern drives. My current Maxtor with FDB and AAM is just as quiet but considerably faster and I am a quiet freak not one of these 'tards that call everything silent which they can't hear over a half-dozen high speed fans. Personally, I don't buy Seagate anymore since they lack AAM but would certainly consider Samsung. AAM aside, seek noise is largely dependent upon mounting.
 
As others have said here, some Samsung models are the quietest of the current models. Their 3 yr. warranty doesn't hurt either. Of course, noise is somewhat subjective and depends on how a drive's noise curve relates to your hearing curve.
..bh.
 
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