Quietest HD for HTPC

[Stereodude]

I'm looking for the quietest HD I can get to put in my HTPC (idle is more important than seek). It doesn't need to be big (even only 20 gig would be fine). A cooler running drive would be helpful.

I haven't been keeping on top of HDs lately, so what's my best choice?

 

[Stereodude]

Oh, one more thing. It needs to be PATA, not SATA.

 

[Fushigi]

Samsung or Seagate 5400 RPM, anything from 2 years ago or newer, I would guess.

 

[sechs]

If you can find a Hitachi 180GXP, that would be a good choice. The newer 7k250 is a bit noisier, but performs better. A Samsung P80 is also a possibility.

 

[Jan Kivar]

Get a 2.5" laptop drive. SilentPCReview has few articles on them, IIRC at least Fujitsu and Samsung have positive comments on the forums.

Cheers,

Jan

 

[Mercutio]

That's the best suggestion yet.

 

[blakerwry]

Anything not FDB is out.. so that 5400 rm samsung is probably gone. the 180gxp and the 7k250 are out because of the recalibration noise (can be resolved on 7k250)... a laptop drive is a good choice(although some seem to have a high pitched noise), or a DM+9, or a Samsung p80.

 

[Stereodude]

Get a 2.5" laptop drive. SilentPCReview has few articles on them, IIRC at least Fujitsu and Samsung have positive comments on the forums.

Cheers,

Jan

I'll take a look, but I wasn't aware that they were quieter. :?:

I'll check out SilentPCReview too.

Now, all I need is one of these (English translation of a French site). LINK

That Pentium M (.09um Dothan) is pretty impressive. It ran at at 600MHz, 800MHz, and 1gHz stabily without even a heatsink (bare die). With a heatsink and no fan it did 1.7Ghz (rated speed) under 60C.

 

[Stereodude]

Sorry about the long link. I didn't realize it would force the tables wider (in FireFox).

 

[The JoJo]

Link fixed.

 

[blakerwry]

oh yeah, laptop drives are horribly expensive and reletively slow... I'd go with the p80 or DM+9

 

[Stereodude]

oh yeah, laptop drives are horribly expensive and reletively slow... I'd go with the p80 or DM+9

You can get a 40 gig for $80 or so (which is cheap enough for what I want), and with gigabit ethernet to a 1TB RAID-5 array in a server speed doesn't matter all that much.

 

[sechs]

the 180gxp and the 7k250 are out because of the recalibration noise

Baloney. My 180GXPs never made a peep. If they weren't hot and giving data, I might have thought that they weren't working.

 

[sechs]

oh yeah, laptop drives are horribly expensive and reletively slow...

Yes... I think that you have that backwards. They're relatively expensive and horribly slow.

Of course, if you're going to blow money for as quiet as quiet can be, just set up a dumb terminal and put the real computer in a closet.