Looking for the quietest HDD available

[giggsy11]

Hi all,

I have a 256GB SSD as my primary drive (OS, games) and a 1TB WD Green as my secondary drive (for music, videos etc) but my space on the SSD is getting low and i currently cannot afford to buy a bigger one, but i don't want to put games on the WD Green because of the noise it makes when seeking (i'm pretty fussy, i don't even like the noise is makes when i open ITunes)

So i'm wondering if there is an alternative drive i can buy that is quieter than a WD Green, previously i had a Seagate drive which was near silent and basically made no noise when in use BUT it made the occasional random click or chirp (something which is normal according to there website) but i decided a random noise when not in use is more annoying than more noise when i know i need to access the drive, it still bothers me though.

So is there anything i can buy than will be much quieter? Is there a way i can quieten my existing drive to the point of near silence? My case is the NZXT H440.

Thanks.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

If ya look at THGs HD Charts from 2009.... they used to include this information

Samsung and Seagate were the best in this respect

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/Sound-Level,1032.html

For whatever reason, THG no longer includes this information

hard usage http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/benchmarks,134.html
idle http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/Sound-Level,1033.html

Other than the WD Reds which are quiet but not intended for desktop usage, the quietest drives are the Seagate Hybrids such as the Momentus and SSHDs

I have 2 of the 2TB ones in my system and they are completely inaudible. Not only that, One of the SSHDs is for Games Only and they load at near SSD speeds because let's say you are playing Far Cry 3 .... all the FC3 files are moved in the background to the SSD portion of the drive. Then when you finish and start playing FC4, the FC3 files get mobed off and the FC4 files again get moved to the SSD portion.

 

[giantbucket]

yeah, i was gonna say WD Red is pretty silent all the time. i never hear it tick. they're expensive, but silent.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

They are an excellent NAS drive, but I wouldn't use for desktop usage.

 

[giantbucket]

i use one (2TB) as the storage drive in my game machine. no reason they should be avoided. they're just overpriced for a basic storage drive, but i've not bought another red since.

 

[giggsy11]

Thanks for the replies.

So it seems my option is either the Western Digital Red or an SSHD. I do wonder what benefit i will get going from the WD Green as on the WD website it is marketed as quiet so i wonder if a Red or even an SSHD would be much better, my guess is the WD Green wasn't in the performance graphics because it possibly wasn't out at the time.

I am willing to go for the Red or Hybrid though, the Red seems to be slightly cheaper but will probably offer lower performance than Hybrid.

 

[Solandri]

So i'm wondering if there is an alternative drive i can buy that is quieter than a WD Green, previously i had a Seagate drive which was near silent and basically made no noise when in use BUT it made the occasional random click or chirp (something which is normal according to there website) but i decided a random noise when not in use is more annoying than more noise when i know i need to access the drive, it still bothers me though.

Given how picky you are about noise, you may want to just buy a hard drive silencer. It's just a noise-insulated box you put the hard drive into.

The important thing to be careful of with these is that the drive doesn't overheat. Try to keep it below 45C. Ideally it should be between 30-35C. Some boxes keep the drive cool with a fan. Others use a metal plate to conduct heat out of the box. Whichever method, be sure to check your HDD temps to make sure it's working.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

No, not saying they should be by any means "avoided". I recently lost an NAS to an electric surge during a storm and all 4 drives went into desktops as backup drives. But if ya live in Florida for example and don't go off road, while I wouldn't say there's any reason to "avoid"a 4WD vehicle, I can't think of a reason to spend more $ to own one as the feature I am paying for doesn't benefit my usage in any way and hurts mileage

There are not many physical differences between a manufacturer's model lines except for example to pick an obvious one ....."green" drives are slower rpm. The major difference in the various model lines like the Red, Purple, Black is that the firmware is tweaked for the specific intended usage. Purple for example is tweaked to provide better write performance, sacrificing read performance in the tradeoff because they write constantly and are read infrequently.... Red OTOH is optimized for NAS usage, the Black for desktop usage.

Looking here for example at 2Tb versions of the drives.... the SSHD is the top drive running about 50% faster than the WD Black in the Gaming Benchmark w/ the SSHD getting 9.76 Mb/s in gaming benchmark.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html

The Black gets 6.34 MB/s
The Green gets 5.14 MB/s
The Red gets 5.10 MB/s


Because of that "tweaking" to both (Red / Black) drives each one gets better at some tasks and suffers a bit on others. To use an another auto analogy for example.... tweaking your engine to run in Denver in winter would have it run most efficiently at 5,000 feet in cold weather but less optimally in NYC at sea level.

The Black manages a higher score in gaming than the Red, being about 20% faster.

Purple for Surveillance applications
Red for NAS applications
Black for Desktop applications
Blue for when ya want Black but don't have the budget.

So while I wouldn't look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth and I'd take ant decent drive I could get for a good price, if buying new, with today's prices, and in consideration of above performance differences in gaming for 2B HDs, to my eyes, the SSD offers the best bang for the buck. It's only $7 (7%) more than the Red but its performance on a gaming box is 195% of the Red's. It's $21 (26%) more than the Green but performance is 190% of the Green's.

WD Green = $80
WD Red = $95
WD Red Pro = $145
WD Black = $125
SSHD = $102