News HDD Clicker v0.2 Restores Aural Ambience of Pre-SSD Life

[Admin]

If you don’t enjoy the silence of a flash-only storage configuration, maker Matthias Werner provides instructions for how to build your own HDD Clicker, or you can grab a pre-built device for $25.

HDD Clicker v0.2 Restores Aural Ambience of Pre-SSD Life : Read more

 

[InvalidError]

My 4TB HDD is practically silent against background noise around my PC. I have to put my hand on my external HDD enclosure to tell whether the drive is spinning when the activity LED isn't blinking.

 

[BillyBuerger]

My 4TB HDD is practically silent against background noise around my PC. I have to put my hand on my external HDD enclosure to tell whether the drive is spinning when the activity LED isn't blinking.

Depends on your setup. I only finally replaced my second drive on my work PC from a 1TB 2.5" drive to a 512GB SSD. The HDD was pretty quiet but definitely noticable as there was only the PSU and CPU fans which run pretty slow under normal conditions. My home PC is even more quiet with the 120mm case fans all set to around 500rpms. Any spinning drive would be very noticeable there.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

However, as with any change, some people — such as Tom's Hardware Managing Editor Matt Safford, who has promised to never buy a hard drive again — may miss aspects of what they had before.

I know the feeling, sadly 4TB and higher SSDs for NASs will likely remain out of reach for the average home user for quite some time to come.

 

[USAFRet]

This is one of the reasons we HAVE an SSD, so we don't hear that noise.

But, the 11 HDDs in my NAS setup are pretty quiet.
They sit on the other side of the room, and I rarely hear them.

 

[boe rhae]

I love mechanical hard drives. Cheap, high capacity storage for data that doesn't been frequent access. Not only that, but they're a technological miracle. The read/write head controls the data with magnets. It's less than the length of a strand of DNA away from the platters without ever touching, iirc.
The clicking noise is comforting for me. I understand the focus on silence, but something about hearing an HDD clicking is like witnessing magic.

One time, I took one out of an old laptop that had already been cleared of important data. I got a screwdriver and a cable, plugged the HDD in externally, and opened it up while making it move some random massive files around. Watching it work was the highlight of my week.

Maybe I'm weird. Yeah, probably.