5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC?

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003, Rod Speed wrote:

  >>I see that the idle noise is 2.4 bels which is ballpark
  >>with the higher peforming 7200rpm Barracudas.

 >Those numbers are pretty hopeless when looking for a really quiet PC,
 >particularly when comparing the quietest drives.

Has the Quiet PC crowd settled on laptop drives? What's out there (in
3.5" desktop FF) that's quieter than 2.4bels?

R<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: 5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC? 

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 04:41:58 -0500
richard6121 DeleteThis @excite.calm wrote:

 >
 > On Mon, 29 Dec 2003, Rod Speed wrote:
 >
   > >>I see that the idle noise is 2.4 bels which is ballpark
   > >>with the higher peforming 7200rpm Barracudas.
 >
  > >Those numbers are pretty hopeless when looking for a really quiet PC,
  > >particularly when comparing the quietest drives.
 >
 > Has the Quiet PC crowd settled on laptop drives? What's out there (in
 > 3.5" desktop FF) that's quieter than 2.4bels?

Go over to <http://www.silentpcreview.com> and see what's currently
considered to be the best drive choice. You're not going to find a
drive much if any quieter than 2.4 bels--the laptop drives aren't and
that was the noise level for the Barracuda IV, which was probably the
quietest drive produced to date--the Barracuda IV installed in any kind
of halfway reasonable case is for all practical purposes
inaudible--first time I installed one I thought it was dead until I
_felt_ not _heard_ it start to seek--I've got a machine with 4 of them
and they're inaudible over the ambient noise in a quiet room.

The quietest _available_ drives, the Barracuda IVs being discontinued
and the newer ones not having acoustic management enabled thanks to some
legality or other, are some Samsung models--I've got Samsungs in my Tivo
and they are inaudible over the fan in the Tivo, which, incidentally is
a replacement that is quieter than the original--the bearing in the
original fan went and I replaced it with an FDB Papst with the same
airflow.

If you need absolute silence, your only real choice is a solid state
drive, and they in any kind of reasonable capacity are not cheap.
 >
 > R


--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: 5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC? 

<richard6121.DeleteThis@excite.calm> wrote in message
news:Pine.NEB.4.58.0312281923030.21348@panix2.panix.com...

 > Guys,

No one here cept us rather badly behaved animals.

 > Looking for opinions on the 4R120L0 (Maxtor) as a quiet
 > drive that will survive in a system that has minimal cooling.

I'd go for a samsung V80 series drive myself.

V80 for the 5400 rpm and significantly lower power
demand to minimise the effect of minimal cooling.

 > I see that the idle noise is 2.4 bels which is ballpark
 > with the higher peforming 7200rpm Barracudas.

Those numbers are pretty hopeless when
looking for a really quiet PC, particularly
when comparing the quietest drives.

 > This drive may not be any quieter than
 > the 'cuda but would it run cooler?

The Samsung certainly will. One of the lowest power
consumptions around with their 5400 rpm drives.

 > I'm looking to eventually stuff it into a
 > SmartDrive/Silentdrive enclosure.

Get a samsung.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: 5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC? 

<richard6121.DeleteThis@excite.calm> wrote in message
news:Pine.NEB.4.58.0312290440150.29804@panix2.panix.com...
 > Rod Speed wrote

   >>> I see that the idle noise is 2.4 bels which is ballpark
   >>> with the higher peforming 7200rpm Barracudas.

  >> Those numbers are pretty hopeless when looking for a really
  >> quiet PC, particularly when comparing the quietest drives.

 > Has the Quiet PC crowd settled on laptop drives?

Nope, largely because they are noticeably
slower and much more expensive.

 > What's out there (in 3.5" desktop FF) that's quieter than 2.4bels?

I meant that the numbers listed are pretty
hopeless when comparing quiet drives.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: 5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC? 

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003, J.Clarke wrote:

 >The quietest _available_ drives, the Barracuda IVs being discontinued and
 >the newer ones not having acoustic management enabled thanks to some
 >legality or other, are some Samsung models--

The numbers on those Samsungs weren't any better than the Diamondmax 16's.
Is this a case of the numbers not telling the whole story on how the idle
noise is perceived by human hearing?

 >a replacement that is quieter than the original--the bearing in the
 >original fan went and I replaced it with an FDB Papst with the same
 >airflow.

They make FDB fans now? No shit!

RM <-- off to Google for FDB fans<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: 5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC? 

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 03:43:19 -0500
richard6121.RemoveThis@excite.calm wrote:

 >
 > On Mon, 29 Dec 2003, J.Clarke wrote:
 >
  > >The quietest _available_ drives, the Barracuda IVs being discontinued
  > >and the newer ones not having acoustic management enabled thanks to
  > >some legality or other, are some Samsung models--
 >
 > The numbers on those Samsungs weren't any better than the Diamondmax
 > 16's. Is this a case of the numbers not telling the whole story on how
 > the idle noise is perceived by human hearing?

Check the seek noise--the Maxtor is 1.1 bels louder than the
quietest Samsung in seek--acoustic management affects seek noise, not
idle noise.

A Smart Drive enclosure will cut down the idle noise to inaudible
levels, but won't do anything about seek noise. A bungee mounting such
as the Novibes II will reduce the seek noise considerably but won't do
anything about the idle noise, and the bungee mountings do have an
effect on transfer--the drives are designed to be rigidly mounted--when
head seeks can move the drive physically this throws off the timing a
little which increases settling time, and, since the drive can continue
to move after the seek is complete tends to make the heads drift a
little which increases the soft-error rate. So seek noise is in some
regards a more significant problem than idle noise.

Whether seek noise is an issue for you depends on how you plan to use
the machine--for most home theater and recording-industry situations it
does matter as seeks occur frequently during recording and playback.

  > >a replacement that is quieter than the original--the bearing in the
  > >original fan went and I replaced it with an FDB Papst with the same
  > >airflow.
 >
 > They make FDB fans now? No shit!

Been making them for years--Papst and Panasonic are the best known
producers. They were around before the first drives with FDBs.

You can download the entire Papst catalog from <http://www.papst.de/>.
Panasonic information is at
<http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/appliance/appliance_fans_panaflo_a
xial.htm>. You can get most of the line of Papst/EBM fans from
<http://www.galco.com> and most of the Panaflos from
<http://www.digikey.com>. Take the noise ratings with a large dose of
salt.


 >
 > RM <-- off to Google for FDB fans


--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: 5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC? 

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003, J.Clarke wrote:

 >Check the seek noise--the Maxtor is 1.1 bels louder than the quietest
 >Samsung in seek--acoustic management affects seek noise, not idle noise.

Ah! I should've clarified. I'm looking for low idle noise. Seek noise
doesn't bother me. In fact, I used AMSET to disable acoustic management
on both of my existing Maxtors.

 >A Smart Drive enclosure will cut down the idle noise to inaudible levels,
 >but won't do anything about seek noise.

Excellent! The SmartDrive is what I want then.

RM<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: 5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC? 

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 21:09:17 +1100, "Rod Speed" <rod_speed.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com>
wrote:

  >> Has the Quiet PC crowd settled on laptop drives?
 >
 >Nope, largely because they are noticeably
 >slower.

5400 rpm is becoming mainstream for 2.5" drives. And I just put a 7200
rpm 60 GB Hitachi Travelstar 7K60
(http://www.hgst.com/hdd/travel/tr7k60.htm) in my Thinkpad X22 this
afternoon.

 > and much more expensive

That is certainly true. And the largest 2.5" drive is still "only" 80
GB.

Cheers, Dominique<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: 5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC? 

<richard6121.RemoveThis@excite.calm> wrote in message
news:Pine.NEB.4.58.0312300338510.8615@panix3.panix.com...
 > J.Clarke wrote

  >> The quietest _available_ drives, the Barracuda IVs being discontinued
  >> and the newer ones not having acoustic management enabled thanks
  >> to some legality or other, are some Samsung models--

 > The numbers on those Samsungs weren't any better than the
 > Diamondmax 16's. Is this a case of the numbers not telling the
 > whole story on how the idle noise is perceived by human hearing?

Correct.

And the reality with these very quiet drives is that the numbers
dont mean much if you have to feel the drive to see if its spinning
when initially installed with no covers on the case etc.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: 5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC? 

Dominique Pivard <domi.DeleteThis@kenavo.NOSPAM.fi> wrote in message
news:tuf3vv41uf2r2vj6kdiam97g2dd8c845kg@4ax.com...
 > Rod Speed <rod_speed.DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote

   >>> Has the Quiet PC crowd settled on laptop drives?

  >> Nope, largely because they are noticeably slower.

 > 5400 rpm is becoming mainstream for 2.5" drives.

When 7200 rpm pas already become the mainstream for 3.5" drives.

 > And I just put a 7200 rpm 60 GB Hitachi Travelstar 7K60
 > (http://www.hgst.com/hdd/travel/tr7k60.htm) in my Thinkpad
 > X22 this afternoon.

Sure, but when there are already 7200 rpm 3.5" drives that
are so quiet you have to feel them to see if they are spinning
up at install time in a case with the covers off, what's the point
in spending much more per GB for a 2.5" drive in a desktop PC ?

  >> and much more expensive

 > That is certainly true. And the largest 2.5" drive is still "only" 80 GB.

Yeah, tho that is enough for plenty of
people. The main problem is the $/GB.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: 5400RPM FDB motor drive for a Quiet PC?