Reasonably Quiet HDD?

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Hi guys,

I built my new PC last Saturday. I specifically chose the Fractal Design Define R3 case to make it as quiet as possible - I hate loud PCs. Unfortunately my 1TB Samsung F3 HDD has ruined my dream of having a quiet PC. It is by far the loudest component in my case; it makes a droning noise that is louder than even my optical drive when it is in use! :mad:

I'm going to send my Samsung F3 back as I suspect that I've just been unlucky. However, I would like to avoid this frustration in the future; can you recommend a HDD that is quiet?
 
Well you can't get quieter than an SSD, no moving parts, but if you need storage thats not really feasible unless you have a large budget.

HDD's will always make noise when spinning and seeking (the read heads) and HDD's with fewer platters, lower rpm speeds will generally be quieter than those with more/higher. This meass you'l have to sacrifice some capacity/speed although speed for a storage drive is not usually too much of a concern for me.

Personally Ive found my 1tb Hitachi deskstar to be one of the quietest I've ever used but its a good 2 years old now, so not sure how current models are.

edit: Personally an SSD for my OS and main use programs, with an HDD for storage/games has worked out well for me as the HDD's are typically halted. I dont often need to access stored data for the noise to be a constant irritating presence, and when gaming or watching stored media, the noise isnt an issue as it is drowned out.
 
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What I have done as a comprimise is to use a SSD in my PC for OS/apps and files i use a lot.

Then I have a 1TB NAS drive in another room for files backups and media.
 
As with others, my general setup for a computer these days is ssd, with as many frequently used apps/games on there as possible. SSD = silent, even the very very best hdd will be audible sometimes(unless in another room :p ). I do have hdd's though, 5400-5900rpm drives, and keep in mind that a lot of drives have settings for performance/noise. I have raid 0 Hitachi drives from ages back for my games drive for stuff that can't fit on there. THey are surprisingly quiet and I've also used an app that access's the setting so you can enable the acoustic something or other management. The biggest difference is the drives are less aggressive when seeking, you lose a little speed, not much, and the drives are massively quieter under heavy loads. When doing something like unraring they would chug/click/make a hell of a racket. Now they just make the fairly usual quite whine. Not perfect but it helps.

If it's got to be an hdd for capacity and you can't put a ssd in as well, then go for a slower spin drive, and a smaller drive, less platters, less noise. IE you'd be better off with a single platter drive for the OS, and another for storage, that way the storage drive can spin down most of the time and you're left with as quite as possible a main drive.
 
Could try Samsung utility to put drive in to quiet acoustic mode and see if it improves it slightly. It used to be called hutil.
 
I find Samsung f3 and f4 the most silent drives out there,you could have picked up a faulty one,I've owned lots and all are quiet
 
I just swapped it out for my brother's HDD and the droning noise didn't go away; it's definitely not another component because the noise disappears when I unplug the HDD...

I can't understand how my case can have so many 5 star reviews with people saying things like 'I wouldn't know that it was turned on if it wasn't for the power LED', when mine is so loud! My second choice of case was the Fractal Design Arc Midi, which has similar HDD trays, but now I'm worried now that it will share the R3's noise problem. I would get a CM Enforcer case like my brother's but I don't like its aesthetics. What do you think? Can you recommend a good mid-range, mid-tower case for me please?
 
Well quieteness is very subjective, it depends on sensitivity, accustomisation/expectation, ambient noise provided by fans/household/traffic noise, the actual components themselves etc.
The best way around it is to rely on passive cooling (and in my case the ssd) to avoid moving parts when not doing anything intensive.
Some people will use 2.5inch sata drives and use mounting brackets to buffer vibrations.
Check out sites such as silentpcreview.com for tips.
 
Have you tried HDD in case, but not fixed in position? Just resting on some padded material in base to rule out vibration being transferred and amplified through case.

I know my Samsung F1 320GB caused periodic case vibration in my aluminium SG-03. In addition to normal noises HDD make.
 
Thanks for the recommendations guys. I'm going to send my current HDD back, I think that I will replace it with a 5400 RPM drive as I'm willing to sacrifice a little speed for a significant noise reduction.

Should I get the Samsung F4? Apparently it has 667 GB platters, so if it shouldn't really be that much slower than my current drive?
 
im running 2 f4's,they are 140mb read/write on an empty drive,they take roughly one minute to boot up if you have the os on them,but all hdd's are pretty slow if you dont have your os on an ssd

purely for storage though they are a good/quiet drive
 
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