New Hard Drive Line

Muel

Muel

Muel

Soldato
Joined
26 Jun 2009
Posts
3,023
Location
Sheffield
Howdo,

We have 3x Samsung F1 320gb, 2x F3 320gb and 2x F3 1tb.

All of the F3s are vibratey and and loud, and one has died completely.

Enough is enough. We're looking for a new line of hard drives. They need to be as close to silent as possible, with decent performance and high reliability.

Western Digital sound about right?
 
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You basically only have a choice of 4 manufacturers - Samsung, Western Digital, Seagate and Hitachi.

At the moment I have 8xSamsung F3 1TB and 6xSamsung F4 2TB and don't have problems with any of them.

In the past I've used 10xWestern Digital 640GB (7200RPM) and 2xWestern Digital 2TB (5400RPM), again without any problems.

Might just be my perception but there always seems to be more stories of Seagate failures and Hitachi have a reputation for being noisy. Personally I've never owned either and always go Western Digital or Samsung.

I'd say if you've gone off Samsung go Western Digital.
 
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Had a dodgy WD black which was replaced with an F3, and my F3s are quieter (but still make a bit of noise).

There's always going to be someone with a dodgy experience though, WD seem to get relatively few along with Samsung who you're trying to get away from.
 
in 20 years and owning about 50 seagate drives in that time, I have never had a single failure. I have known first hand about Maxtor though. In 2003, I was working at an office that had bought 200 desktops and one by one their Maxtor drives failed, to the point we were sent a box of 200 replacement drives by Maxtor. Reason was the high summer temps was too much for the drives.
 
Cheers for all the comments guys, lots of info about reliability but what about noise?

My F3 1tb drives are suspended on zip ties, which makes a big difference to the amount of noise they make but suspending the 3x320gb array in the other desktop won't be an option, so we need to find something quieter.

It's worth noting that both of these systems will be fitted out with SSDs when the new raft comes in (C400 and the like), so maybe it'd be worth looking at Eco drives?
 
In theory the eco drives are quieter due to their lower spin speed.

Personally I've never had a problem with the noise from 7200rpm drives.

It's all subjective I suppose.

I suggest that you decide what make and capacity you're after and try googling for some reviews to see if there's any comparison on noise levels.
 
Recently built a new system with a Western Digital Caviar Blue SATAIII 6Gb/s as a primary drive.

System is stable and quick but I had a bit of a noise issue that I was putting down to the two large fans on my CPU cooler. It was getting on my nerves so I decided to investigate. Turns out that the hard drive outer case was "rattling" and causing a high pitched wine. If I touched the top of the drive ever so slightly the noise went away completely. So two big blobs of Blu Tack wedged on top to the bay above and it is now completely and utterly silent.

Result.
 
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