Looking for a quiet 7200rpm HDD 16/18TB drive.

Associate
Joined
8 Jun 2023
Posts
10
Location
Scotland
Looking for a quiet 7200rpm HDD 16/18TB drive.
If its a recent 7200rpm drive then the performance will be good enough (I'd rather not settle for a 5400rpm drive) so I mostly care about the noise.
The only large drive I currently have is a Toshiba 12TB HDWG31GUZSVA N300 which I would rate as very noisy for reading and writing files. When I stream a movie from my PC upstairs I can hear it from the living room during quiet bits. The idle is fine.

Looking at the options below but almost every review I look at contradicts another review!
I will be using it for downloading torrents, storing /editing photos and videos.
Need some advice from people that actually own these 16 or 18TB versions -
Seagate Exos X18 ST16000NM000J
Seagate Exos T16000NM001G
Seagate IronWolf Pro ST18000NT001
Toshiba HDWG31GUZSVA N300
WD Gold Enterprise WD161KRYZ
WD Red PRO WD161KFGX
 
I have a 3x 18tb and 3x 22tb WD Gold drives and they work a treat performance wise. Can be a little noisy when powering on but a lot quieter when being used. I guess it’s down to cost and how quiet you want things. They will never be totally silent but I’m happy with the Gold range.
 
For quiet drives I would stay away from Toshiba N300s, I had 2x 10TB drives and even though they were very reliable, never had issues and ran great they were the noisiest drives I've heard, not heard drives that noisy since the 90s. Even hidden in a solid wooden wardrobe with some sound dampening material all I heard was constant grinding even when streaming back movies with in ear headphones in with the drives installed in a Synology DS218+.

Currently running 2x 18TB Seagate 18TB Exos drives (ST18000NM000J) and while they are not silent they have been significantly quieter than Toshiba and I barley even notice them whatsoever. Been running these drives 24/7 for 8 months and they've been great.
 
Last edited:
another vote for the Seagate 18TB Exos drives (ST18000NM000J) running mine as a parity drive in unraid and never hear it
 
Back
Top Bottom