WD Scorpio Black for desktop use?

[996GT2]

I currently have 2 x 1TB Caviar Blacks in my system. They're fast for mechanical drives, but they are a bit on the loud side when seeking.

I was thinking of getting one or two Scorpio Black 750GB to replace the Caviar Blacks, since it should be quieter (being a laptop drive). Would there be a big performance difference between a Scorpio Black and a Caviar black if the two are both 7200 RPM drives?

Alternatively, is there another option for a quiet hard drive? I've looked at the Caviar Greens, but they're out of the running because I would prefer a 3+ year warranty.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

There are benchmark listings online for both.

I am using a 7200rpm Seagate Momentus 2.5" drive in my desktop quite happily. It replaced two much older 3.5"drives, that were such poor performers they couldn't even match the Momentus in RAID-0.

I benchmarked it when I added it a while back - I have since replaced it with a 750GB version of the same drive. (I also replaced my motherboard, CPU, and a few other bits.)

The Scorpio Black was, iirc, a faster, more expensive option vs. the Momentus. So I'd expect it'd perform tolerably well. The only time I really wish it were faster is when loading large game installs - I have a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO for boot/applications.

 

[postmortemIA]

Here's good topic on the issue. in short 2.5" is bit slower than 3.5" for 2 reasons: smaller circumference (with same rotation speed, outer part of disk is faster) and slower seek times to reduce noise. so no noise = lower performance

 

[It's Not Lupus]

I was considering this too or maybe change my 1TB Black for a Red.

It's not the seeking that bothers me, but the humming.

The Seagate or Toshiba hybrid drives are an option you might want to consider also.