Quiet PCs and Drives.

[cioffij]

Here's a couple of tips for anyone who wants a quiet PC and is considering a mirrored drive or RAID5 setup. I recently bought several 500GB drives for my XL system and a business system. I am mirroring two of the 500GB drives now. Works like a champ.

The 1st drive I bought was a Western Digital. The thing was so D*** quiet I thought it was defective. Turns out it wa

But even after I replaced it, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this thing IS darn near silent!!!. But because of the failure, when I went for my second drive, I bought a Seagate 500GB. NOT silent. My third drive is a Maxtor. Also near silent!!!.

I saw a thread on here about RAID5 arrays. I prefer Mirrored configurations with a backup to a third drive. I find 500GB will probably be enough. But whether you use RAID or mirroring or use one pair of drives or an array, I thought y'all would be interested in my findings.

My desktop machine now has the WD (Caviar) 500GB drive mirrored to the Maxtor (DiamondMax) 500GB drive. I'm using a home-built PC (AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core 4600+, 2GB RAM). The last thing I will tell you is that when I bought the case, I was concerned about noise and wanted to get a case with a single large fan. But I got burned (pun intended) with overheating problems on my last PC, so I took advantage of a deal on a case that had 3 large case fans with speed switches.

What I have discovered, is that more fans is (can be) quieter!!. By having more fans, and turning the speed to a minimum, I have an almnost silent PC, yet it moves a ton of air.

Y'll may be aware of this, but I wasn't so I thought I would share.

Cheers,

Jim C.

[lpg]

Thanks Jim,

Could you specify the model numbers of the drives. There are so many model numbers in a drive line for each size disk. I do not want to get the wrong drive.

Larry

[cygnusaa]

i can also recommend samsung drives

ive always used WD and their new drives are extremely quiet...

when i built my htpc, i decided to try samsung based on reviews at htpcnewsDOTcom..im thrilled...they are dead silent...i purchased a 40gb and 2-250gb models in sata2...

cant go wrong either way

[cioffij]

Thanks Jim,

Could you specify the model numbers of the drives. There are so many model numbers in a drive line for each size disk. I do not want to get the wrong drive.

Larry

Sure. I need to reboot and get into the BIOS to see the model numbers so it may take a day or so. I will edit this post.

Jim

[BMD]

By any chance is your case the Antec P180?

For anyone who doesn't know, http://www.silentpcreview.com/ is an amazing resource for silent computing enthusiasts.


BMD

[sonofdbn]

The last thing I will tell you is that when I bought the case, I was concerned about noise and wanted to get a case with a single large fan. But I got burned (pun intended) with overheating problems on my last PC, so I took advantage of a deal on a case that had 3 large case fans with speed switches.

Could you also please let us know the brand and model of the case? The "large case fans with speed switches" is very intriguing - don't recall seeing anything like that before.

[BMD]

The Antec P180 has those features, as well as hard drive suspension, advanced thermal design, and acoustically treated side and door panels. I've managed to make a 410 watt (actual consumption, which is rare, most computers are less than 300) computer almost silent.

The included 120mm fans range from silent to a less than quiet 75 CFM via a 3 way speed selector switch. I replaced them with Scythe S-Flex fans so that I could plug them into my motherboard's speed controllers and turn them up while overclocking, but they were quiet enough before.

There is also an Antec Solution series of HTPC cases with some of the same features, including the fans.

</Antec Advertisement>

[Naylia]

i can also recommend samsung drives

ive always used WD and their new drives are extremely quiet...

when i built my htpc, i decided to try samsung based on reviews at htpcnewsDOTcom..im thrilled...they are dead silent...i purchased a 40gb and 2-250gb models in sata2...

cant go wrong either way

I have 3 160GB Samsung drives in my HTPC and all are fabulous...that was back when you had to check for the right motor but that's another story. I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands on a few of the new Samsung 500GB SATA II drives. Samsung silence, 500GB and only $150 at newegg!

[cioffij]

Ah, yes indeed, it is the Antex 180B (black). Insulated walls, fan on top, power supply hidden on the bottom instead of the top. Very nice case. Only cost about $100 at Fry's.

I was kind of on the fence about a case with a door covering the CDROM drive, but now that I have it, I like it. It's built like a tank. It's larger than I wanted, but it's very clean-looking.

The one thing that still worries me is the fan on top. I have a grand-daughter and I have kids who are not always careful. If something spills on my desk, I can imagine it dripping off onto the top of my PC. Rather scary.

I still haven't had time to reboot to get the drive model numbers. I run a production server in a partition on this machine, so I am reluctant to just reboot. But I will soon.

Now if I could only silence the fan on that g*&@d%#m laser printer. Sounds like an air conditioner.

Jim

[cmhardwick]

Can you get the models from the device manager? Sometimes they show up in the properties for the drives. Worth a shot and may keep you from having to do a reboot.

[cioffij]

Here are the model numbers from BIOS. Device Manager can't see them because they are mirrored. It only sees the NVIDIA mirror. It sees a single drive (as it should).

Maxtor 6H500F0
WDC WD5000KS-0

These:
Maxtor
Description: http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.ba88f6d7cf664718376049b291346068/?channelpath=%2Fen_us%2FProducts%2FDesktop+Storage%2FDiamondMax+Family%2FDiamondMax+11
Specs: http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/data_sheets/diamondmax_11_datasheet.pdf


Wester Digital:
Desciption: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=214
Specs: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/productspecs.asp?driveid=214

Jim