What is the quietest ATA hard drive out today?

[JackBurton]

I needs a VERY quiet drive and was looking at a Barracuda IV or WD SE hard drive. Which one of these is the quietest? Is there another hard drive that is quieter than either of these?

 

[Viper GTS]

The WD SE is a howling monster in comparison to the Barracuda IV.

Go to StorageReview, click on database, then choose idle noise off the dropdown.

Barracuda V is the top.

Rank Drive Name Model Results in dB/A @ 18mm
1 Seagate Barracuda ATA V (120 GB ATA-100) ST3120023A 37.8
2 Seagate U6 (80 GB ATA-100) ST380020A 38.8
3 Seagate Barracuda 36ES2 (37 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) ST336938LW 39.3
4 IBM Deskstar 180GXP 8 MB (180 GB ATA-100) IC35L180AVV207-1 40.1
5 Maxtor DiamondMax 16 (160 GB ATA-133) 4R160L0 40.7
6 Seagate Barracuda ATA IV (80 GB ATA-100) ST380021A 41.3
7 Maxtor DiamondMax 536DX (100 GB ATA-100) 4W100H6 41.5
8 Western Digital Caviar WD800AB (80 GB ATA-100) WD800AB 43.7
9 Samsung SpinPoint P40 (80 GB ATA-100) SP8004 44.5
10 Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 8 MB (160 GB ATA-133) 6Y160P0 44.5

Viper GTS

 

[tbates757]

I'm pretty sure the Cuda's are the quietest out there.

 

[Bovinicus]

The Baracuda is silent. The WD is near-silent. If you have any active cooling in your system, you probably won't notice a massive difference. Modern HDDs are all pretty quiet. My 75GXP hardly makes any noise unless it is really working.

 

[JackBurton]

Rank Drive Name Model Results in dB/A @ 18mm
1 Seagate Barracuda ATA V (120 GB ATA-100) ST3120023A 37.8
2 Seagate U6 (80 GB ATA-100) ST380020A 38.8
3 Seagate Barracuda 36ES2 (37 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) ST336938LW 39.3
4 IBM Deskstar 180GXP 8 MB (180 GB ATA-100) IC35L180AVV207-1 40.1
5 Maxtor DiamondMax 16 (160 GB ATA-133) 4R160L0 40.7
6 Seagate Barracuda ATA IV (80 GB ATA-100) ST380021A 41.3
7 Maxtor DiamondMax 536DX (100 GB ATA-100) 4W100H6 41.5
8 Western Digital Caviar WD800AB (80 GB ATA-100) WD800AB 43.7
9 Samsung SpinPoint P40 (80 GB ATA-100) SP8004 44.5
10 Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 8 MB (160 GB ATA-133) 6Y160P0 44.5

Thanks guys, and thanks Viper for the list. I was hoping the Barracuda V was the quietest. 120GBs will fit my needs perfectly. Is it also cool? Going from 6-8GB to 120GB is going to open up all new fun for me. Did I say I love my XBox?

 

[Lonyo]

WD's aren't all that noisy. I had mine running outside my case, decided to check the noise and couldn't hear it all that much, even from about 2cm.

 

[Davegod]

WD's arent noisy, but the SG are silent
the 40gb version is the quiestest of the quiet anyway, since its 1 platter
i vaguely remember reading they switched to 60gb platters? So 60gb *newer* ones should also be as quiet and 120mb new ones should be ok too, since only 2 platter cant remember where i read it unfortuantely, i think it was THG news.

 

[cmdrdredd]

heh all IDE drives are quiet next to my Ultra 160RAID setup on my Mac