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Quiet Hard Drives?
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Posted by: Tkilmer

What are the quiet ones to work in a TiVo?

Maxtor stresses its quiet drive yet I have seen threads that swear by Seagate. Has anyone done any comparison tests?

Posted by: litzdog911

I haven't seen any side-by-side comparisons, but I can personally state that the Maxtor Diamondmax drives are very quiet when using the AMSET utility to set them into Quite Mode.

Posted by: litzdog911

Also check out this thread
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=156289

Posted by: Crash331

I have never used a Seagate.

I have a Maxtor 40gig in my PC, and two WD 8mb cache 80 gigs in my PC.

I have the original 40gig Maxtor and a 160gig Maxtor in my TiVo.

The 40 gig in my PC is loud as hell, but I have never run amset on it because I don't care. The two WDs are relatively quiet for a PC.

The 160gig I added to the TiVo was REALLY loud when fast forwarding or rewinding, but then I took it out and ran amset on it (I didnt think the noise would bather me when upgraded...and it doesnt, except at night) and after I ran amset /quiet, I can't hear the thing at all.

Posted by: uclakidd

i would go for seagate or the samsung spin point series for quietness.

Posted by: TexFlats

My SVR-3000 came with a Maxtor 80 gig which was silent. I added a Seagate 160 gig which was also silent. I can't hear either drive.

Regards,

TEX

Posted by: Hopeless

I agree with uclakidd - Seagate or Samsung. www.newegg.com has 160gb Seagates for $119 with free shiping. These drives have a 3 year warranty. They have another Seagate 160 for a few dollars less, and it comes with a 1 year warranty. Reasonably good deal if you're looking at a very quiet drive that size. I've ordered quite a few drives from them, and have had great service.

Posted by: Tkilmer

I found this site...and one of its comparison had the Seagate Baracuda's as the most quiet drives.

http://storagereview.com/index.html

The Samsung drive I purchased from Weaknees is not real loud, but my wife notices it in the bedroom. Since I now have msf tools working and can do my own drive replacements, I was considering trying to find a quieter drive for the bedroom.

Posted by: Tivo_60

The Seagate 120g model ST3120026A at Best Buy this week @ $69.00 after rebate. (edited-1 yr warranty)
I took back the WD 120 from Off Max a couple weeks ago @ $49 (after rebates)due to the 1 yr warranty.
Samsung's seem to be avail primarily online and the lowest I've seen is approx $89.00.

Posted by: Tivo_60

oops, almost forgot. Here's the link to the Seagate's specs :

http://www.seagate.com/cda/products...081,580,00.html

Posted by: sulli2p

The BestBuy Seagates have a one year warranty if the part number ends in "RK". Details in the link below.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...477#post1644477

There is a Jan 04 Samsung SpinPoint P80 review at:

http://www.storagereview.com/articl...2SP1614N_1.html

Of note in the above review: the SpinPoint P80 operates at 42.3 dB/A at idle, and the Seagate at 39.9 dB/A. Both are quiet though.

Some folks have mentioned "Apparently every 4th or 5th P80 produces more vibration that others, and some V80s seem to exhibit a bit of whining (while others are dead silent). "

http://forums.storagereview.net/ind...=ST&f=4&t=13426

Posted by: Tivo_60

sulli2p...you're right about the warranty. I was going by Seagate's site. When I called them, after seeing 1 yr on the box at BB, was told that it varies by retailer and what they purchase (ie 3yr product cost more)
I, of course, stated that it would be nice to mention that little bit of info on their site !!

BTW sulli...how does the speed of menus, etc change w/upgrading from a 40 to a 120 drive? NE other performance issues w/the larger drive, especially as it starts to fill up ?

Posted by: wkirke

Western Digital allows you to extend the 1-year warranty on any of their retail packaged drives to 3-years for $14.95 (provided you are still in the 1 year warranty period). See http://websupport.wdc.com/store/ext...dex.asp?lang=en

-Bill Kirke

Posted by: sulli2p

Tivo_60...My menus and "Now Playing" feel noticeably faster with my single Seagate 120 gig, 7,200 rpm, 8 meg buffer drive, versus my OEM WD 5,400 rpm, 2 meg buffer drive. My drive is about 1/3rd full.

Many people say it shouldn't be so, but this has been my experience. The only other variable is the swap file size, which I increased to 127 megs per Hinsdale's standard upgrade instructions, I think the default is 64 megs. But I am not sure if this would have anything to do with speed.

Also, my WD drive was starting to fail, spontaneously rebooting the system, so I may have been slower than normal with the bad drive. The bottom line is that it's tough to really pin down the reason for the speed increase without a lot of testing.

On another related topic, I do have an occassional "scratching" sound, just like a needle skip on an old 33 rpm phonograph record. I suspect this is the needle bouncing on the hard disk. It happens only rarely and briefly during heavy IO, like going from 60x to play. I would be interested if anyone else has a 7200.7 with this "feature".

Posted by: Tivo_60

sulli...others do seem to comment that as the 120 drives start to fill up (3/4 or more?) that they do slow down. Makes sense as there is so much more info to process. The swap file size may be the answer to better speed.
But if speed/access does slow down everyone seems to agree that the tradeoff f/ the larger capacity is worth it. I wonder what the swap file size is on the new 100hr factory units ?

Scratching sound is interesting bcause, as you know, drive heads don't actually touch the platter surface, or at least shouldn't be bouncing. And the fluid spindle in the Seagates vs ball bearings in others.

I like the comparison because my business is phonograph cartridges !