my samsung spinpoint is dead silent (cant hear over fans) but my old 20gb maxtor is lound and annoying.
Personal experiences: 74gb Western Digital Raptor - Awesome, fast, reliable (24/7 since August 2004) Seagates - (2x120GB) Quiet, not the fastest, reliable (24/7 since Easter 2003) Maxtor - Blown two of these up (200GB SATA, totally my own stupid fault) and have to say, Maxtor's RMA service is above and beyond, they payed for the courier and also sent me a 250GB Drive in the end. Other than that Reliable (24/7 Since a few months ago)
maxtor for me has been nothing but nightmares. I have had 3 40gb's and a 80gb fail within the first year. For me, I like WD. The drives are really really reliable. and it was cheap.
Having used both I found that Seagate drives have an audiable seek noise that Samsung drives don't and Samsung drives ship with Acoustic Management enabled whereas Seagate doesn't. Other than that they are both very quiet. Samsung drives (80GB, 120GB and 160GB) outperform their seagate rivals by a small margin but the large platter Seagate drives 200GB+ have a higher platter density and are quicker than their Samsung cousins.
i've found seagates to be quiet at idle, but the "Crunching" seek is a little loud and annoying. Western digitals are a little noisy at idle (high pitched bearing noise), but their seeks are quiet. I've mounted two WD's (1200JD and 800BB) with rubber blocks, and the high pitched noise they had when they were mounted directly in a steel cage is almost completely eliminated, though they do still emit a quiet low pitched hum. I can't hear them seeking at all! That said, if you mounted a seagate in a foam lined box of some sort and suspended it, its seeks would probably be pretty quiet I've never had problems with Seagate drives, and i've only had one problem WD drive, though it was a DOA, so i guess thats a little different...
hard drive i have olny ever used segates for my own pc, i build pc's in my spare time for other people and have bought western digital and maxtor drives for them, the only hdd i have sold that has broken was a western digital, i was tempted to go for a raptor for my own pc until this happend and as for maxtor hdd's yes there very noisy and all the ones i have used have been no match for my seagates.
I have at least 1 of all the above, except the the fujitsu. All the companys seem to be good and ive never had to RMA any of the drives.
I have tried drives from nearly all of the above except the samsung. Seagate is my favorite so far. WD is a great drive as far as quality, but noisy! Have had maxtors fail on me in the past, but that was a while ago and they might be more reliable now. Part of the failure was also due to my case being moved around a LOT in college.
Seagate and Western Digital are my current favourites... Seagates are definately quiet, the Wd's are a bit noisy in comparison but seem quicker. Maxtors ive had are generally loud (quick tho) and Hitachis have a high pitched noise which is irritating. Kinda off topic but I was trashing a hard drive some time ago (Ibm i think), and I heard a shatter so I opened it up and the platters were glass. I've taken them appart before and they were solid metal platters... you learn summin new everyday http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1777189,00.asp "In a more standard desktop hard drive, which spins at a tamer 7,200 RPM, a point close to the outer track is moving at roughly 48 miles per hour. In a typical working day, that means the outer edge of your hard drive has traveled 384 miles."
I wouldn't really call WD shitty after 40GB...I've had up to 250GB WD drives that have been completely fine. Having said that, I prefer Seagate drives over WD. I used WD religiously for probably 4 years, and finally bought my first SATA drive, and it happened to be a Seagate. I was instantly sold on Seagate, because...I dunno. This one was a bit quieter than my WD's, and just felt better to use As for Maxtor, I've had nothing but bad luck with them. Bad drives, bad RMA's, bad tech support. I haven't tried one of their drives in around 2 years though, so things could have gotten better.
Yep. Samsung's best in my book right now. Idle noise is the quietest. WDs also have quiet idles, but due to the crappy bearings they use, they develope a whine over time. WDs seeks are also quiet. Seagates are supposedly a tad quieter than Samsungs, but their crackling seeks ruin the goal of silence. Plus, their performance just plain sucks (often last). But, I have yet to test a 16MB Maxtor with the acoustic setting set for quieter operation. Tempted to get one, but I havent bothered to research it all that much.
I have a Samsung, Seagate and Maxtor in my rig, although I have had no problems with them, I think I would reccomend Hitachi, although on the expensive side, they are rock solid relaible imo (and my uncle agrees with me - computer technician). Athough I have a Maxtor (Which used to be the master drive), I have hard of a lot of people having problems with Maxtor just dieing on them, Maxtor have a good returns policy, but they shouldn't die in the first place. Got a friend who had 4 Maxtors die on him in less than 2 weeks. Seagate is another I would recconmend, quiet too.
Ever since I started fooling with computers, I've lived by Seagate. Super quiet drives, fast IMO, and superior qualty. I had a Maxtor 20gig one time that I pulled from a friends rig, it was a 20gig 7200RPM drive, damn that thing was loud.
i reccomend maxtor, but thats really only because thats what i have. they are very fast in comparison to the other drives in my other computers. but as far as noise: my 40 gig is the most silent drive i have ever owned. but the 160gig is rather loud in comparison, as are all diamond max 9s ive seen (reccomended to friends). fujitsu drives are great...for mp3 players. i just bought a 40gig for my zen nx and the install worked great. battery life is longer, player is more quiet, and faster.
I used mainly WD and i had never had a problem with them. I been using them for over the last 5 years a never had a problem my 10gb in my old athlon still works like a charm. I used maxtors but i haven't had them for long but no problem so far. As for seagate never used them in my system so far but i hada 128MB from a 386 that still work till i took it apart a month ago thats about 10 years old
Ive only really had experience of WD Drives and haven't had any problems with them. they've lasted well in my pc's that are left one for extended periods of time. If i was going to buy new drives id look at WD ones first.
I have a maxtor 80gb 8mb cache IDE 7200rom quite fast and been running with about 5hrs break in 2 years. Sounds like a freight train crashing when it acceses data though but when not under hevey use is only audiable when your head is right next to it... I have installed several 120gb WD drives though and there alot quiter under load and havent had problems yet. I've had a very old and hevily used hitchie 20gb drive fail on me but it had been in use for ages and went out like gentle man with SMART telling me to bakc up my data about a week before it finaly died totaly
I find samsung extremely quiet -Some of my WD drives are loud, and others quiet - it seems like its just random...
Seagates are awesome IMO. never had one fail. almost silent except when seeking. WD Raptors are also good. great preformance, not bad noise. I don't really like Maxtors. in my experience theyve been the loudest. they are cheap, though. bottom line: Raptors for speed, Seagates overall, Maxtors for value. havent had much experience with the others.
