WD 'SE' , Maxtor 'ball baring' , Seagate 'IV'

[eaadams]

What is more quiet at 7200 and 80gb:
Western Digital Special Edition
Maxtor Ball Bering Quiet Drive
Seagete Baracuda IV

 

[tallest1]

Seagate

 

[DrVos]

The Seagate Barracuda IV is definetly the quietest

 

[CrazySaint]

The Seagate 'cuda IV is by far the quietest, the WD 'SE' is by far the fastest.

 

[Ilmater]

Actually, if you want to know how they measure up, go to http://www.storagereview.com/welcome.pl/http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200205/20020529WD800JB_1.html

The 800JB (which I have enjoyed for a couple of weeks now), is the coolest, and fairly quiet. However, the Seagate IS the quietest by a good margin. BAH! See for yourself.

 

[Dimitri]

I have both the WD SE 80gb and Cuda IV 60gb and the WD sounds like a friggen sawmill compared to the Cuda, yet it is quieter than the Maxtor 'fluid bearing' drive I had in there not too long ago.

 

[dannybin1742]

seagate

 

[EXman]

I'll I know is my 100JB is very quiet so the cuda must be silent

Loud= X-15 cheetah I had to get rid of it but nothing like having your puter boot up in 10 seconds!

 

[randomlinh]

i found that maxtor's d740x to be quite quiet. Can't compare to anything else other than a 60gxp and the d540x maxtor.. but they are all relatively quiet.. as most of the time, your fans will be louder

 

[eaadams]

I got the cuda IV 80gb for $105. Thanks for all the help. Now should I get a mobo with RAID for a future add in cuda or should I save the money infacor of ram and vid card?

 

[FlowerMan]

The seagate Barracuda's are the quietest, but I've heard they cannot be put in a RAID configuration and I have experienced that their performance is not quite as fast as other comparable drives.

 

[Biggs]

If you want to do a Cuda IV RAID, look for the newer drives designed exactly for RAID. I believe you could "RMA" your older drive for this newer "RAID-capable" drive that has a firmware of 3.10.

 

[mechBgon]

You can also adjust the Auto Acoustic Management on the Barracuda ATA IV to take about 10% off the seek times at the expense of a slight increase in noise. Seagate will replace your drive if you want to run RAID0, but the RAID0-optomized ones are a little slower in non-RAID situations. Here is more info on both topics:

RAID issue
AAM issue

I have a 'cuda IV in my home system and it's a trifle slow. What's interesting is that the Seagate Cheetah X15-36LP in my work system, running at 15000rpm, is very quiet too! Unlike the original X15 as mentioned by EXman, the 36LP uses fluid bearings. Seeks are not inaudible, of course, but they're nothing like the bag-o'-microwave-popcorn sound of my old Quantum Atlas10k seeking. Anyway, Seagate is putting those fluid bearings to effective use in both areas.