Harddrive noise and heat

Hi,

Are there any harddrives that are known for being quiet? And any that are
known for operating at a low(er) temperature, and any that are preferably
both?.

I have 2 seagate barracuda drives in my box and they are the noisiest
components in there. After the box has been on a while, they make a constant
deep humming noise that is very annoying and vibrates through the floor and
can be heard around the house.

Any one have any cheap and cheerful tips on how to eliminate this noise, Ive
found that if i press against the box case, this sound disappears, but
returns when I let go. I have eliminated most of the noise in my machine
with silent psu etc, but this harddrive noise sort of defeats the purpose.
Do hard druves get noisier the hotter they get?

Thanks for any help.

 

You might want to check that the drives are screwed in securely/tightly
(since you said the noise disappears if you press against the case). If they
are loose this will increase the noise level.

My computers have Maxtor hard drives and they are quieter than the
near-silent fans in the PSU. Have no experience of Seagate drives.

Dominic

 

tighten the screws to the hard drive to case.
if you chose ATA 133 or higher , the noise gets lower, which is new
technology hard drive.

 

Well i'm using maxtor disks in my server which is on 24/7 and my desktop
which gets a lot of HDD intensive apps thrown at it. They run near-silently,
i can't hear them over my volt modded CPU and case fans, and run at 38.5
degrees.
I used to use seagate drives and they were noisier, not sure about the newer
ones though.

hamman

 

This sounds like its a bad mounting in the case rather than the drives
themselves.
Cheap case?
Not screwed in right?
Only one/two screws?
No rubber mounts??

Without checking, I can't be certain, but I thought the latest
barracudas were one of the quietest drives out there and are recommended
for quiet applications ??

--
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Thanks for all you replies. The case is an Antec 1080amg, I think its an ok
case (it cost a lot!). The hard drives are actually 2 seagate barracuda 3
ata 100 40 gb, perhaps these are a little noisier than the newer models??.

Otherwise they are screwed in tight all 4 screws, only thing I dont have is
rubber mounts, ill look into this.

thanks again everyone.

 

Thanks for all you replies. The case is an Antec 1080amg, I think its an ok

Sometimes even if you screw them in tight, the HDD rack itself can make
noise when it vibrates, it can also make the case vibrate and make noise.

If you can get some rubber grommets and place them around the HDD
screw-holes, they reduce vibration, and stop any noise being generated
between the drive and the drive rack.

If you don't have grommets available, try some rubber washers.

 

Hi,
Samsung is the best bang for the buck and VERY quiet.
NewEgg has the best deals and service.
See reviews for the 160gig here
http://secure.newegg.com/app/CustratingReview.asp?DEPA=0&item=22-152-011
Or the 120gig here
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-152-013&depa=0
Plus Samsung has 3 year warranty.
Over the last couple of years I have changed out all my drives to Samsung.
40gig
80gig
120gig
All are very quiet and not one problem.

I have used Quantum, WestDig, Fujitsu, IBM, and Maxtor.
Samsung is the quietest I have used.
YB

 

I have just bought a Samsung Spinpoint after reading good reviews of it and
I can say it is considerably quieter than my Seagate Barra (Only 6 months
old) and I thought the Seagate was quiet.

 

Since you mentioned noise and heat, others have said in the past that
rubber mounts cut down the conduction of heat from the drive to the
cage and this can be a substantial part of the cooling for drives,
unless you add fans and that adds more noise...
Sometimes it seems like you just can't win.

 

Hitachi drives run faster, quieter and cooler.

 

<schnippen crossposts>

I like Maxtor. They are very quiet....;o)

"billybronco" <[email protected]_defiency.iron> chiseled in stone,
the following words

 

Coincidence time.... that's what I'm using on this machine now.
Without opening it up to check...... this has a removable drive caddy
unit yes? It could very well be the whole caddy itself that's vibrating
(is the clamping lever all the way in??)
Take the whole thing out run the machine with the caddy on something
like a piece of soft cardboard. Should be easy to find out the source of
the prob them (although its probable the noise will have gone now)

As an aside, someone else mentioned rubber mounts not transferring heat.
Even with the drives screwed directly into the metal of the case, they
will still get hot. The Antec has a mounting for a front case fan that
blows over the drive bays. You hardly need any air movement to
substantially cool these drives down.... but with none at all, you're
asking for problems. Get an 80mm quiet fan and run it slow.
Also, you don't have the two drives stacked right on top of each other
do you ?? this will really cook them. space them out. There's plenty of
room in that caddy!

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Personal email for Gareth Jones can be sent to:
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Yeah, that fluid bearing series, by, darn, who makes those things again?
Maxtor I think.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/section14.html

I've read very good things about people who use some sort of elastic
chord instead of a normal screw mounting.

 

samsung p80 drives are the quietest currently available.

www.silentpcreview.com

 

Barracuda V were the first of the very quiet Seagate drives
from memory. The current model 7200.7 are almost as quiet. Some
people say they are slightly noiser, but others can't tell the
difference. I have the 7200.7 and find it silent in operation.

 

Yesterday I just put in a new 7,200 80 gig WD HDD into an older pc. WDs
are normally some of the noiser ones but this one I couldn't even tell
it was on. I thought I forgot to hook up the power cable

 

In alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.abit, Don Taylor ordered an army of
hamsters to type:

Zalman have a heatpipe passive HD cooler, that also comes with rubber
mounts for the drive. I only have one, and will be buying more for future
drives, cheaper and its better looking too than the fan'ed coolers.

 

Ok, you have lots of opinions.

Here is a fact:

Drives with Fluid Dynamic Bearings (FDB) are quieter than those without. At
least idling. Some drives seem to make a lot of noise seeking whilst
others don't.

Yes, it's a generalisation, but nevertheless if you take two similar drives,
one with and one without, the one with FDB will be quietest.

Ben

 

Maxtor, Hitachi/IBM, Seagate, and WD all make fluid bearing hard
drives, you just have to check the specs on the drive models.

Bill