Looking for quiet black Drives

[royalk4]

I am looking for some super quiet Optical drives in black to go with my system. I have some ugly beige ones that don't look good with the Centurion case and they are loud as hell now that I've realized about noise more. Any suggestions would be great. I don't really DVD +-R/RW so I imagine jsut a DVD-rom and a CD-rw would be sufficient. Unless of course they are the same price.

 

[shortylickens]

Well finding a drive with a black faceplate is not difficult.
Finding one that is designed to be quiet may be more difficult. Very few manufacturers post their noise stats and most companies lie about such numbers anyway.

 

[royalk4]

I know finding black drives is easy I was hoping people who use them would be able to give personal recommendations as to which to look into to.

 

[royalk4]

no recommendations?

 

[bREwIn dOdgEr dUDe]

i bought a black samsung cdrw/dvd-rom, they're really inexpensive, try newegg...

samsung black cdrw/dvd

 

[mechBgon]

My Benq 1620 down at work is markedly more quiet than my NEC 3520. I'm getting a BenQ 1655 tomorrow and will post if it's not quiet, but I expect it will be.

 

[notanotheracct]

what price range are you looking for? the NEC 3550A has proved to be a reliable cd/dvd burner, i believe it's usually around $40? and like most drives, starts out loud but quickly quiets down.

and if anyone can correct me if i'm wrong, but don't plenty of drives support a way to change how loud they are? i think i've always heard that you can change an optical drives RPM speeds through software/firmware for some drives?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
My Benq 1620 down at work is markedly more quiet than my NEC 3520. I'm getting a BenQ 1655 tomorrow and will post if it's not quiet, but I expect it will be.

Update: I've just ran my first burn with the 1655. It's not as quiet as my 1620. It spools noisier, it burns a little noisier. Remember I only have one sample of each model to report on, of course.

 

[royalk4]

Thanks for all the info guys. It seems like NEC and Benq seem to be the top choices. I'll keep doing some of my own research also

 

[Tostada]

I don't see why you wouldn't just get a DVD-RW ... it's what, about $5 more than a combo drive?

The Pioneer retail drives have a program that lets you select whether you want quiet operation or optimum speed. If you get a non-retail (like the DVR-109 or whatever) you can flash it to the retail firmware and select quiet operation.

 

[secretanchitman]

the NEC 3550A is pretty silent.

comes in black, beige, and silver. silver is quite uncommon, so its nice of NEC to be providing that color too!

 

[Tostada]

There's a forum at http://pioneer109.com/ that has a lot of info on Pioneer drives. The program to put it in quiet mode is just called "QuietDriveUtility.exe".

Personally, I've got mine in "Performance Mode" and it's still a lot quieter than most DVD-ROMs.

 

[royalk4]

Thanks Sectretan and Tostada. I'll look at this pioneer site.

 

[Bobthelost]

Have a look round cdfreaks.com too.

 

[royalk4]

cool thanks bob