SSD + HDD or just an SSD?

[SebastianHELP]

I currently have a Samsung 850 EVO Series 250GB 2.5in SSD and a Seagate Barracuda 2TB ST2000DM001 HDD. I'm aiming for a silent PC but I always hear my HDD creating loud noise. Should I completely remove my HDD and run my system on a more powerful SDD alone? Or should I purchase a more quiet HDD? If you could help me with this decision please leave your suggestions below, and also if you know how to make your HDD more quiet please help me out with that as well. Thank you.

 

[xFeaRDom]

I currently have a Samsung 850 EVO Series 250GB 2.5in SSD and a Seagate Barracuda 2TB ST2000DM001 HDD. I'm aiming for a silent PC but I always hear my HDD creating loud noise. Should I completely remove my HDD and run my system on a more powerful SDD alone? Or should I purchase a more quiet HDD? If you could help me with this decision please leave your suggestions below, and also if you know how to make your HDD more quiet please help me out with that as well. Thank you.

Do you have any anti-vibration screws? I noticed a reasonable difference from using just ordinary, cheap screws for my HDD to the Anti-Vibration one, it is a lot quieter.

I personally, would not recommend buying, lets say a 1TB SSD and that being that, I would stick with the setup you have currently, and maybe get good anti-vibration screws to attach your HDD.

 

[SebastianHELP]

I currently have a Samsung 850 EVO Series 250GB 2.5in SSD and a Seagate Barracuda 2TB ST2000DM001 HDD. I'm aiming for a silent PC but I always hear my HDD creating loud noise. Should I completely remove my HDD and run my system on a more powerful SDD alone? Or should I purchase a more quiet HDD? If you could help me with this decision please leave your suggestions below, and also if you know how to make your HDD more quiet please help me out with that as well. Thank you.

Do you have any anti-vibration screws? I noticed a reasonable difference from using just ordinary, cheap screws for my HDD to the Anti-Vibration one, it is a lot quieter.

I personally, would not recommend buying, lets say a 1TB SSD and that being that, I would stick with the setup you have currently, and maybe get good anti-vibration screws to attach your HDD.

Could you link me a good set of anti-vibration screws?

 

[Godiwa]

I would definetly get a hdd (storage for less important but nice to have live stuff) and a ssd 250-500gb range for system drive, hdd get as big as your budget allows, they are not that expensive anymore.

which case do you have? does it have hdd bays with rubber stands? then you already got "silent mount"

 

[xFeaRDom]

I currently have a Samsung 850 EVO Series 250GB 2.5in SSD and a Seagate Barracuda 2TB ST2000DM001 HDD. I'm aiming for a silent PC but I always hear my HDD creating loud noise. Should I completely remove my HDD and run my system on a more powerful SDD alone? Or should I purchase a more quiet HDD? If you could help me with this decision please leave your suggestions below, and also if you know how to make your HDD more quiet please help me out with that as well. Thank you.

Do you have any anti-vibration screws? I noticed a reasonable difference from using just ordinary, cheap screws for my HDD to the Anti-Vibration one, it is a lot quieter.

I personally, would not recommend buying, lets say a 1TB SSD and that being that, I would stick with the setup you have currently, and maybe get good anti-vibration screws to attach your HDD.

Could you link me a good set of anti-vibration screws?

Not sure where you're from, so it is difficult to suggest some. But just search Anti-Vibration Hard Drive Mount (Or) Screws, and just read through the reviews and choose the best ones for you, personally.

 

[SebastianHELP]

I would definetly get a hdd (storage for less important but nice to have live stuff) and a ssd 250-500gb range for system drive, hdd get as big as your budget allows, they are not that expensive anymore.

which case do you have? does it have hdd bays with rubber stands? then you already got "silent mount"

I have the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe

 

[Godiwa]

I would definetly get a hdd (storage for less important but nice to have live stuff) and a ssd 250-500gb range for system drive, hdd get as big as your budget allows, they are not that expensive anymore.

which case do you have? does it have hdd bays with rubber stands? then you already got "silent mount"

I have the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe

can't see if there is rubber in those hdd trays, if there is = you are good, if not then you need to add something. should be relatively simple, so pull one out and look.

 

[Haravikk]

If you've got an Intel chipset you could take a look into combining the HDD and SSD into one volume if you have Intel Smart Response Technology.

It's something that's best done when you're setting up a system though, as what you do is set everything up normally on your HDD, then enable the feature in order to automatically use the SSD as a cache (wiping the SSD); this means that most of the time all your data is cached onto and coming from the SSD, meaning the HDD can just spin idly (or spin down in some cases) which reduces noise from it considerably. If you've got the feature I highly recommend enabling it, but it depends on the motherboard you have. If you've already set up your system with files separated between the SSD and HDD then it's more complex to decide how to separate them out.


Of course that's contingent on you having the feature, a lot of motherboards do though so it's worth a look. Otherwise like others have said you can either get anti-vibration screws, or even just rubber washers in the right size to add to the screws you have. A lot of hard-drive noise isn't from vibration alone though, some drives are just noisy, it really depends on whether it's noisy during light use (probably vibrations), or only when loading large files (in which case it's a noisy drive). There are other things you can do too, for example you can buy noise-dampening matting to put inside the case, which cuts out some of the harsher sounds that can be distracting, but it's expensive for what it does.

Alternatively consider getting another HDD; if you're currently using a 3.5" drive then you might consider a 2.5" drive if your case has a suitable mount, these tend to be a lot quieter, but are also slower for random access (you wouldn't want to boot your system from it unless you're using Smart Response)

 

[SebastianHELP]

I would definetly get a hdd (storage for less important but nice to have live stuff) and a ssd 250-500gb range for system drive, hdd get as big as your budget allows, they are not that expensive anymore.

which case do you have? does it have hdd bays with rubber stands? then you already got "silent mount"

I have the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe

can't see if there is rubber in those hdd trays, if there is = you are good, if not then you need to add something. should be relatively simple, so pull one out and look.

The HDD tray's wings are rubberised, same as these : https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Phanteks/Enthoo_Pro/5.html