Whats the quietest non ssd hard drive?

ciproxr

Senior member
Mar 26, 2005
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I have a seagate momentus 64gb that came with my white macbook, every since i installed leopard the head parking noise from the HD has been driving me crazy so i think its time for an upgrade.

I wanted to buy an SSD but there so expensive and i hear they have performance issues. If i could find a 64 GB for around 100 i would buy it but im seeing 32 GB ones around that price range which is way too small even for me.

What the quietest hard drive i can buy ?

im leaning towards samsung right now but im not sure.

Keep in mind its mostly the head parking clunk noise that bothers me, other then that my HD is silent.



A question better suited for General Hardware than Apple

-Aphex
 
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mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
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Your best bet for quiet storage and a reasonable price is probably going to be the Samsung Spinpoint M7

I second the Samsungs. I have it's bigger brother in my desktop. You can barely hear it.
Avoid Western Digital 2.5'' drives as they're quite noisy.

Interesting that you're Macbook came with a Seagate. Every Apple I've owned in the last five years has used Fujitsu drives.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
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Mar 4, 2000
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Avoid Western Digital 2.5'' drives as they're quite noisy.

Brings to mind an old saying - "All generalizations are false, including this one."

My T60 laptop has a pair of WDC 320GB 7200 RPM drives - of course, 2.5". The only way I know they are doing anything is to observe the LED above the keyboard.

Samsung is excellent, but not all OEM's models are the same. There are quality differences within a brand.
 

ciproxr

Senior member
Mar 26, 2005
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I second the Samsungs. I have it's bigger brother in my desktop. You can barely hear it.
Avoid Western Digital 2.5'' drives as they're quite noisy.

Interesting that you're Macbook came with a Seagate. Every Apple I've owned in the last five years has used Fujitsu drives.

my macbook was refurbished that would probably explain it.
 

pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
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Brings to mind an old saying - "All generalizations are false, including this one."

My T60 laptop has a pair of WDC 320GB 7200 RPM drives - of course, 2.5". The only way I know they are doing anything is to observe the LED above the keyboard.

Samsung is excellent, but not all OEM's models are the same. There are quality differences within a brand.

I agree 100%. I also have several systems with the Western Digital 7200 RPM drives and I cannot hear them at all.

pcgeek11
 

ciproxr

Senior member
Mar 26, 2005
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just thought i'd update you guys, i bought that samsung spinpoint m7 320gb and installed it and am using it right now, its almost completely silent, i have to put my ear very close to hear anything, and from a foot and a half away from my ear i cant hear anything.

The head parking is still taking place but i cant here unless like i said i put my ear very close its a very soft tick that almost sounds like regular hard drive access.

This drive running very cool and i feel like it gave my system a small boost.

This should get me by till SSD's get more afforable.

if anyone is looking for a quiet hard drive for their mac i would recomend this one.
 

ChaiBabbaChai

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Dec 16, 2005
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What do you mean "head parking clunk noise"? (I'm not a mac user so I wouldn't know of any OS issues) Sounds to me like your old momentus (they are pieces of $hit) was failing so it wasn't a brand issue. If it was 64GB then it must have been pretty old. 160 is the smallest I've seen in the last 2 years for laptops.
 

ciproxr

Senior member
Mar 26, 2005
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What do you mean "head parking clunk noise"? (I'm not a mac user so I wouldn't know of any OS issues) Sounds to me like your old momentus (they are pieces of $hit) was failing so it wasn't a brand issue. If it was 64GB then it must have been pretty old. 160 is the smallest I've seen in the last 2 years for laptops.

it was older, which it probably why that clunk noise i was complaining about was so loud.

head parking is also called "Load/Unload Head Technology" or a load cycle. Basicaly it parks your disks head when you are not using the drive to save power and to avoid damage to your disk, just in case you drop your laptop. All non SSD drive do this. Some drives make a really loud clunk noise (not as bad as the click of death) every 5 second or so.

look it up on google or im sure someone can explain it better then me

I apologize for any typos in my post's ive been very tiered
 
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Swivelguy2

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Sep 9, 2009
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I don't know how to do it in mac OS, but I figured out a way to disable head parking on my Seagate drive in my Thinkpad, using a command line utility called hdparm. If only the head parks bother you, trying to fix this problem with software would be a lot simpler than getting a new drive.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
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Mar 4, 2000
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I don't understand why head parking is an issue. As I see it, especially in a laptop, it is necessary to avoid HDD damage caused by moving the laptop if the head is over data and not the parking area.

Loud clicks are usually a symptom of the hard disk drive's thermal recalibration process or it can be due to head crashes on the platters. Head parking is a quiet process in all 3.5" and most 2.5" hard drives.

In some 2.5" hard drives that use ramp load/unload mechanism (to park the drive heads), audible clicks can be heard when the heads park. Manufacturers have successfully dealt with the problem in newer generations of 2.5" hard drives and they no longer produce audible clicks whenever they park ther drive heads.
 

pukemon

Senior member
Jun 16, 2000
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I replaced my 2007 white macbook's drive with a Hitachi Travelstar 7K200 two years ago when it was new. I don't think they make those anymore but the performance was good and it wasn't any louder or hotter running than the 5K-whatever 80GB model that came stock.

My other notebook (a Gateway from last year) has the Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB drive which was actually quieter than the 250GB Scorpio Blue that came with the machine... Your mileage may vary it seems.
 

ChaiBabbaChai

Golden Member
Dec 16, 2005
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head parking is also called "Load/Unload Head Technology" or a load cycle. Basicaly it parks your disks head when you are not using the drive to save power and to avoid damage to your disk, just in case you drop your laptop. All non SSD drive do this. Some drives make a really loud clunk noise (not as bad as the click of death) every 5 second or so.

look it up on google or im sure someone can explain it better then me

I apologize for any typos in my post's ive been very tiered

I know what it is, I just don't see why you would even care. I have a laptop but I rarely use it on battery so I have the power settings to high performance meaning my HDD is always spinning. My desktop external (WD Black) parks after like 30 minutes but the only time I hear it is when it spins back up and I hear a faint "whir". Anyway hopefully the newer HDD will work out for you.