Quiet HDD for OS and storage for 24/7 usage, ideally 2TB

spoonjaffa · 30 Oct 2009 at 12:27

I have a nice quiet HTPC which is on 24/7 and is often left downloading.

I currently have WinXP media edition on a WD caviar se16 500gb drive which is also where items get downloaded to. Its often in 24/7 use and has been working fine for 2+ years.
I have a 2nd WD 1tb RE2-GP drive in it as a storage drive (at the time i think it was the only 1TB green drive available)

I want to upgrade to windows 7 and also get a larger drive than the 500gb.
The new HDD needs to be quiet as it sits under the TV and also ideally larger than 1.5tb. Speed is not too important as its just for a HTPC setup even tho the OS will be on it.

Should I perhaps setup my older WD 1tb drive as the boot drive and just get a quiet 2GB for storage or just get a larger replacements drive?

DIABLO · 30 Oct 2009 at 14:37

A WD Green 2TB would be perfect for your needs, i would have just the 1 drive as what you do it not stressful on the harddrive so 1 harddrive would be fine plus less noise, heat and power and allows to to simply flop in another drive easy if you run out of space.

spoonjaffa · 30 Oct 2009 at 14:39

Agreed WD Green would be good however after reading up on sound levels i think i'll go for the 1.5tb.

photoshop · 30 Oct 2009 at 15:43

Seagate LP 2Tb 5900rpm

Runs quiet, runs cool and a good price.
Got one sat in my PC and im very happy with it.

PS. a lot of people on here have had their WD Greens fail on here. I've counted 8 in a little over 2 weeks now. Might have been a bad batch but just thought i'd point that out.

spoonjaffa · 30 Oct 2009 at 17:54

Not sure about the seagate LP 2tb, seems a bit noisy for my htpc.

photoshop · 30 Oct 2009 at 19:52

spoonjaffa said:
Not sure about the seagate LP 2tb, seems a bit noisy for my htpc.

That says 43dB at idle and 50.3dB when working. What the........
Seagate says it 25dB at idle and 28dB seek.

There is no way mines at what tom's states!

I find mine very quiet!

spoonjaffa · 31 Oct 2009 at 11:09

Well gone for the WD 1.5tb green. Last 3 drives i bought were WD and im gonna stick with them. The seagate lp 1.5 and 2tb looks good but its seems the wd 1.5tb price and noise level won me over. Reliability issues at the moment seem to be coming from the 2tb drives, i guess as they are pushing the boundries at the moment, 1.5tb seem the safer choice.

HighlandeR · 31 Oct 2009 at 14:22

Ive got 2-3 WD 1tbs and even I notice while they run cooler when u start adding them up the noise does come up.

but so far out of the 4-5 WD hdds ive had ive only had one die on me but I think it was since I was routinly plugging and moving it about 'while still on' lol

easyrider · 31 Oct 2009 at 23:29

I ditched all 3 of my 1 TB greens due to failures and got the Seagate LP 2TB

Cool and Quiet.