Searching for a low noise IDE HD, any recommandations?

[chaoliang]

To store scanned images. Must not be very fast. Should be quiet and reliable.

[az]

Seagate Barracuda ATA V.

AZ

[Sasq]

my stack of Seagate 7200.7's are nice, the ATA V is a tad quieter though.

[chaoliang]

Are ATA V and 7200.7 both serial ATA? Since there is also a Ultra ATA 100 version of ATA V.
What are the differences between them? I saw 7200.7 is 8.5ms and ATA V 9ms.

[Sasq]

the 7200.7 comes in two flavours, I have the 80 gig drivers (3 of them s/w raid) and I couldn't afford serial ata at the time.

difference = not much. the ATA V is a little quiter, speed I think in real terms is muchly the same - for your purposes negligble I'd say.

[Gurm]

The ATA V is a VERY VERY QUIET drive. It's quiet the way that IBM drives used to be quiet. Its bearings float in an oil-filled chamber, producing nearly nothing in the way of spindle noise.

It rocks.

Gpar_

[chaoliang]

There are two version of Barracuda ATA V: Ultra ATA/100 and Serial ATA. Do they run same quietly?

[Tjalfe]

I think they just changed the interface board, hence the drives should run the same for noise.. I have a 120GB and an 80GB SATA V drive, both run nice and quiet.

[chaoliang]

Thank you all for the tips. I'll get one!

[Gurm]

They do, in fact, run exactly the same except for interface.

Gpar_

[az]

In fact, they don't

But the differences are very small, so it doesn't matter anyway

BTW, the IBM/Hitachi 180GXP is also very quiet, and VERY fast (the 'Cuda V is only moderately fast, but certainly fast enough). You might be concerned about its reliability though, given IBM's recent track record, and every few minutes it emits a noise (recalibration, maybe?).

AZ

[bsdgeek]

The 180GXP is a great drive, if you don't mind the clicky sound every few minutes. (self checking mechanism, keeps the drive from dying like previous GXPs) Before I got one, I thought it would be worse, but it's not that bad.

[az]

Exactly. It doesn't bother me in the least, I was just surprised when I first heard it

This drive is nearly as silent as the Barracuda ATA V, and quieter than the 'Cuda ATA IV, which was already very quiet. And the bigger 180GXPs with 8MB cache are FAST!

AZ

[TnT]

Oh BTW they Seagate drives have 2MB and 8MB cache versions, so check that before you buy.

[dZeus]

Originally posted by az
Exactly. It doesn't bother me in the least, I was just surprised when I first heard it

This drive is nearly as silent as the Barracuda ATA V, and quieter than the 'Cuda ATA IV, which was already very quiet. And the bigger 180GXPs with 8MB cache are FAST!

AZ

Barracuda IV is quieter than the V according to nearly all users who have them in quiet systems, and the SATA versions of Seagate drives don't offer AAM, which make them much louder when the parallel ata versions are set to 'quiet' AAM mode.

Barracuda 7200.7 parallel doesn't have AAM at all afaik, and it's quite a bit noisier than the IV and V, but also much faster (see www.storagereview.com), which make it a very good drive for the noise/speed ratio.

Seagate SpinPoint V80 is another very quiet drive.

read www.silentpcreview.com and their forum for usefull information on quiet computer components, including harddrives (and read user reports who have tested the drives against eachother instead of getting near to useless lab test results from manufacturers and computer magazines, etc).