Silent HDD recommendations?

[Vexr]

My Western Digital 2 TB WD20EURX-64HYZY0 is on its last legs.

It generally works fine, but there are now some files that are inaccessible, and running a CHKDSK style repair will get stuck at a certain %.

This drive is in my PC because it's silent. It was previously an upgrade for my Sky HD box, which I reclaimed after I dropped Sky.

I have another drive (a 4TB Hitachi 7,200 RPM) that is ludicrously noisy when powered on, so that's been relegated to an external hard drive enclosure I usually keep switched off. I definitely don't need another one of these. I just want a general work horse drive for my PC that I can keep always-on that's silent and reliable. It will be for documents / downloads / some GOG-style DOS games, etc. I do not care about speed or performance at all.

Any recommendations? I'm hearing about WD Reds for NAS and WD Gold Enterprise Drives etc, but as I do not have that need case, I'm wondering if there's some good drives anyone can recommend for personal use like mine?

I think a 6-8 TB would be a decent upgrade for me. Anything bigger would be a bonus. Looking to spend less than a ton. Quietness and reliability is all I want.

 

[darael]

I don't think I've ever come across a silent hard drive - just quiet ones. But I've always bought Htachi/Toshiba hard drives, mostly because they're not overpriced and reliable for 24/7 use, despite just being standard desktop drives.

The only thing that bothers me is the vibration from the hard drive spinning, not so much the heads seeking. Depending on your case, you might be able to do a bungee cord mod to get rid of the worst of the noise.

 

[Vexr]

My current hard drive obviously isn't completely silent, but I can't hear it over my low RPM Noctua fans, and even now in it's dying days there's no clicking or clacking, or any nasty noises at all, coming from it.

My Hitachi drive sounds like a jet engine just when powered on and idling. Very doubtful I'll be going Hitachi for a quiet drive.

As my current WD drive is quiet enough for me, I assume other drives like it still exist, so I won't need to do some elastic-band case modding. The hard drives for the Lian Li O11-Air need to be mounted vertically in individual cages, so guessing that won't be practical, but cheers for making me aware it's a thing.

 

[darael]

My current hard drive obviously isn't completely silent, but I can't hear it over my low RPM Noctua fans, and even now in it's dying days there's no clicking or clacking, or any nasty noises at all, coming from it.

My Hitachi drive sounds like a jet engine just when powered on and idling. Very doubtful I'll be going Hitachi for a quiet drive.

As my current WD drive is quiet enough for me, I assume other drives like it still exist, so I won't need to do some elastic-band case modding. The hard drives for the Lian Li O11-Air need to be mounted vertically in individual cages, so guessing that won't be practical, but cheers for making me aware it's a thing.

What's the rotation speed of your current drive? Likely to be either 5,400rpm or 7,200rpm, but I'm guessing 5,400rpm if you can't hear it.

In all honesty I've never had a hard drive sounding like a jet engine, unless while powering on. The only way I know my drive is spinning is due to Corsair's poor case design allowing the sound of a low hum through.

From memory, Toshiba took over Hitachi and prior to that Hitachi took over IBM. I can still remember the revolutionary fluid bearing being introduced into their drives - I think most/all hard drive manufacturers use this technology now, as all the drives are far quiet than they used to be.

 

[Vexr]

The WD that I like for quietness is 5,400 rpm.

The noisy Hitachi is only 500 days behind it.

Maybe I should be planning for the failure of this drive too, though I'm now keeping it offline due to noise.

I've seen the most recent hard drives having their dB level in their spec sheets, which is missing from the drives I have in my system, presumably as those belong to a different era.

Would be great if all hard drives are now dead quiet, but I don't want to risk another jet engine hard drive. I hear there's tech like helium filled hard drives now that are making a difference when it comes to noise, but at the same time I wonder if such a feature is not quite what I'm looking for, and there are normal consumer-grade hard drives that can deliver what I want.

 

[Murphy]

If you want silent storage don't buy a HDD, if you want quiet though there's various option but it all boils down to personal choices like the ones other have suggested.

Obviously a 5.4k rpm drive will be quieter than 7.2k rpm but you'll be sacrificing transfer speeds, then there's the 3.5" vs 2.5" (desktop vs laptop) with the latter sacrificing capacity. Added to that is what seems to be a proliferation of NAS drives and the technology used in them being used in their desktop counterparts.

 

[darael]

The WD that I like for quietness is 5,400 rpm.

The noisy Hitachi is only 500 days behind it.

Maybe I should be planning for the failure of this drive too, though I'm now keeping it offline due to noise.

I've seen the most recent hard drives having their dB level in their spec sheets, which is missing from the drives I have in my system, presumably as those belong to a different era.

Would be great if all hard drives are now dead quiet, but I don't want to risk another jet engine hard drive. I hear there's tech like helium filled hard drives now that are making a difference when it comes to noise, but at the same time I wonder if such a feature is not quite what I'm looking for, and there are normal consumer-grade hard drives that can deliver what I want.

I can't speak much for helium filled hard drives, other than I'm not sure I'd trust them for long term storage or use. That's my own personal opinion though and helium filled hard drives could well be just as reliable as normal air filled hard drives.

Echoing what @Murphy said, I think you should look at 5,400rpm hard drives, you don't seem to notice the noise of these as much as 7,200rpm drives. Bear in mind the transfer and seek speeds will be slower however. But from what you've said in the first post, this isn't going to be an issue.

I honestly don't think there's much difference in terms of reliability when it comes to 2.5" and 3.5" hard drives. But a 2.5" drive should be quieter, albeit at the cost of having smaller storage. It does appear as though Seagate offer a 5TB hard drive and perhaps there are higher capacities still. Personally I'd rather not touch a Seagate hard drive, mostly because I've never found Seagate drives very reliable.

 

[Dave2150]

SSD's are cheap enough that I've had no HDD's in my PC for several years. Have your mass storage on a NAS in another room instead, I highly recommend it.

 

[Vexr]

I've found the old 500 GB Seagate HDD I yoinked from my Sky Box years ago, which I replaced with the WD 2TB mentioned above that's now failing. It's a Seagate ST3500312CS, which is apparently 5900 rpm and should be immaculate as it was never used.

I've also purchased a 5TB WD My Passport External Drive (£65 used, only a few hundred hours on it) and a Samsung 4TB 870 SSD (new, £125 after cash back), as I get the distinct impression traditional HDDs are a rip off right now, especially in the 6 TB+ range I'm interested in.

I'll need to rearrange my storage doctrine, with only a 500 GB internal HDD, but now with a sizeable external drive and an overkill SSD

I'll hopefully see if all that matters is low RPM when it comes to noise with this Seagate drive.