best Quietest Hard Drives sata HDD

chris blackford · 3 Dec 2022 at 22:46

hi what are the best large sata HDD's not SSD looking for 8TB or 10TB drive i was looking at WD Black drive

hornetstinger · 3 Dec 2022 at 23:23

WD black aren't quiet they're gaming drives. Quietesy will be low rpm like 5200/5400 rpm

lsg1r · 4 Dec 2022 at 02:12

Honestly I'd say you're going to struggle to find any really quiet drive these days... although some in the past did have the ability to change settings in the firmware but no idea if that's still a thing.

As above WD black is not a quiet drive, same would apply for enterprise class drives (seagate exos, WD gold etc)

Are you ok with SMR (aka shingled) or do you need CMR drives because it all makes a difference. Most consumer drives are SMR, nas focused drives can go both ways and enterprise is generally CMR.

freddie64 · 4 Dec 2022 at 08:51

I always used WD Green/Blue or Red HDD's.

Still got a Red in my media PC and can't hear it in use (TV will drown it out anyway).

If your case alows it, you could try the "bungie mod" to further quieten the drive.

Cyber-Mav · 4 Dec 2022 at 18:22

5400 is a lot quieter than 7200. You should hear the old 3.5inch wd raptors lol or better yet 3.5inch sas 15k... Music to my ears

darael · 5 Dec 2022 at 00:13

Cyber-Mav said:
5400 is a lot quieter than 7200. You should hear the old 3.5inch wd raptors lol or better yet 3.5inch sas 15k... Music to my ears

I love the sound of old 5.25" hard drives, in particular the Miniscribe brand.

Ouch.

EsaT · 5 Dec 2022 at 15:44

Cyber-Mav said:
5400 is a lot quieter than 7200. You should hear the old 3.5inch wd raptors lol or better yet 3.5inch sas 15k... Music to my ears

At one time Maxtors were also quite good at making seek noises.
You didn't need any indicator LEDs to know drive was doing something when you could hear it couple rooms away.

JasonM · 6 Dec 2022 at 04:08

It's almost 2023, but still using WD Enterprise drives here, Gold and Ultrastar, use them on databases with high writes, WD enterprise drives are extremely reliable.

Spudgun · 6 Dec 2022 at 08:58

Wd red plus, but no more than the 6tb version as that is where they move to 7200rpm

alec · 7 Dec 2022 at 09:25

Have a shucked WD 14TB wd140edfz in my system.
5200rpm so its relatively quiet.

Eddie99 · 7 Dec 2022 at 12:40

alec said:
Have a shucked WD 14TB wd140edfz in my system.
5200rpm so its relatively quiet.

This is 7200 RPM, there are no high capacity 5400 RPM drives. Western Digital only reports the RPM as 5400 because it is a '5400 RPM class' drive with firmware artificially slowing down the speed, but the actual rotation rate is 7200 RPM. Many people have verified it with acoustic analysis, and you can actually bypass the firmware speed lock for a while by running a short SMART self test.

alec · 7 Dec 2022 at 13:32

Eddie99 said:
This is 7200 RPM, there are no high capacity 5400 RPM drives. Western Digital only reports the RPM as 5400 because it is a '5400 RPM class' drive with firmware artificially slowing down the speed, but the actual rotation rate is 7200 RPM. Many people have verified it with acoustic analysis, and you can actually bypass the firmware speed lock for a while by running a short SMART self test.

maybe
I can confirm it is slower than my other large drives. And also quieter, from less aggressive read head movements then?

Eddie99 · 7 Dec 2022 at 13:47

alec said:
maybe
I can confirm it is slower than my other large drives. And also quieter, from less aggressive read head movements then?

I have the same 14TB drive and it is quiet, but it is definitely 7200 RPM. If I do a SMART short test during a disk scan speeds will jump from 225 MB/s to 280 MB/s.

Eddie99 · 7 Dec 2022 at 20:24

If you wanted to confirm which RPM your drive is then try this android app and put your phone as close to the drive as possible.

Spectroid - Apps on Google Play

Audio Spectrum Analyzer

play.google.com

90hz spike = 5400 RPM, 120hz = 7200 RPM.

As far as I'm aware a 5400 RPM drive with a capacity of 8TB or higher doesn't exist.

chris blackford · 13 Dec 2022 at 21:47

lsg1r said:
Honestly I'd say you're going to struggle to find any really quiet drive these days... although some in the past did have the ability to change settings in the firmware but no idea if that's still a thing.

As above WD black is not a quiet drive, same would apply for enterprise class drives (seagate exos, WD gold etc)

Are you ok with SMR (aka shingled) or do you need CMR drives because it all makes a difference. Most consumer drives are SMR, nas focused drives can go both ways and enterprise is generally CMR.

what are the dif in performance in them 2? i'm not looking for a 100% silent just most quietest drive out of 7,200rpm drive i have 2 old segate pros 6TB drive at mo that not too bad

lsg1r · 14 Dec 2022 at 01:15

chris blackford said:
what are the dif in performance in them 2? i'm not looking for a 100% silent just most quietest drive out of 7,200rpm drive i have 2 old segate pros 6TB drive at mo that not too bad

SMR - in a home computer with just one drive you likely wouldn't notice much difference over a CMR drive, put it in a raid array or similar and SMR will cause no end of issues.
Google is your friend on this, there's been far more tests on this than I can remember.

Justintime · 14 Dec 2022 at 09:38

Cyber-Mav said:
5400 is a lot quieter than 7200. You should hear the old 3.5inch wd raptors lol or better yet 3.5inch sas 15k... Music to my ears

Oh man had a original 36gb and 150gb Raptor with the window, good ol days. In my quest for peace and speed i had 15k scsi arrays in Raid 0...dark days compared to ssds...the noise and vibration! if only large capacity ssds were as cheap as predicted by now.