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[Arindelle]

Hi

I have been using 2to drives 5900 rpm Seagates and I have been really satisfied with them. I also tried Western Digital Green 5200 tpm's, but had some issues.

So I added a 3 tera Seagate but at 7200 rpm, because I could'nt get the slower drive in France.  BUT it is noisy!! And not the "clicks" that some people have already reported goggling the drive. No it works fine, but it runs loud.

I was thinking of trying out the WD 5200 green which is now available here, but I am leary because of past expereiences with firmware updates from Western Digital ...

Can anybody recommend something "quiet"? Has the W.D. green 3 tb drive worked well for anybody without hassles? 

Thanks in advance

Steve

[rjm]

I have six WD Caviar Green WD30EZRX 3TB drives. All purchased 9 months ago. I have had no errors or failures.

[Arindelle]

I have six WD Caviar Green WD30EZRX 3TB drives. All purchased 9 months ago. I have had no errors or failures.

  Are they quiet? If so I'll go with those Thanks.

[rjm]

My tower is right next to me and I cannot hear the drives.

[Arindelle]

Thanks rjm. Just what I was looking for ...

[6233638]

Try adjusting the acoustic management settings for the drive before getting rid of it.

And with WD Green drives, you might want to reduce the head parking to 5 minutes to improve long term reliability.

[Arindelle]

Try adjusting the acoustic management settings for the drive before getting rid of it.

say what?! is that a new DSP? 

seriously I thought AAM was stopped by both Seagate and WD years ago? If you know how I can do this, I'd be interested in trying.

Thx

[6233638]

I'm not sure about Seagate drives specifically. All my WD Green drives support acoustic management though.
The Samsung disk does as well, but my Hitachi does not. (and it's the loudest of them all)

The option is available in HD Sentinel, I don't know if "Not Supported" means the drive doesn't support it, or if HD Sentinel can't adjust it, and a lower-level tool could though.

Reducing head parking on the WD Green drives was a pain - I had to disconnect all drives but the one I wanted to change, and use a boot disc to use WDidle3 and change the setting.


EDIT: Looks like software patents strike again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_acoustic_management#Availability
I guess my WD Green drives are old enough that they still have support. (WD20EARS)

For what it's worth though, I can hear any of my drives working while they're in the next room. And this is in a big heavy case, not a flimsy one that lets sound escape easily. But that may say more about my hearing than the drives, I don't know.

[jologskyblues]

The CC4H firmware update for my Seagate 3TB Desktop HDD made the "chirping" noise go away.

Disclaimer: flash at your own risk

[Arindelle]

The CC4H firmware update for my Seagate 3TB Desktop HDD made the "chirping" noise go away.

Disclaimer: flash at your own risk

Yeah I hate flashing stuff, but thanks might as well give it a try. Probably also has to do with it spinning at 7200 -- i don't really have the clicking noises lik I read about on the web.  The drive is at lot louder than my system fans.

[icstm]

I have used, Samsung, WD, Seagate at the 2Tb and above sizes.

I have not tried Toshiba, but they would be my next purchase.

WD Greens are fine under windows management but the Idle3 issues are still somewhat there.
Samsung are RIP, but my favourite (though 1 did RMA after about 2 years)
Seagate have a great RMA in the UK, their new firmware I think takes an upto 7200prm approach to better manage power and noise, but they could be even quieter, if that is what you (and me) are after.

Hitachi had some cheap drives last year, but have not tried them.