TiVo Community Forums Archives - Seagate upgrade

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Seagate upgrade - very quiet
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Posted by: GregT

My wife's TiVo recently returned from a 7 week cruise at the Sony repair center. Previously she had 3 or 4 problems with the 2 80GB Maxtor drives with grown defects (new bad spots/blocks on disk surface). These caused hangs, reboots, and other ugly things to happen.

So my wife asked (under penalty of death) to replace her two "demon" drives with something new. I was about to install a 120GB WD drive when I read a review of Seagate's new drives that indicated they were dramatically quieter. Since the new Seagate 120GB drives are currently impossible to find I ordered 2 Seagate 80GB drives. They are 7200rpm but 5400rpm drives are difficult to find.

It's diffcult to explain how quiet they are! The Maxtor's had a high pitch whine and were significantly louder than a high speed fan that I installed for better cooling. The Seagates are invisible. The only sound is the fan, and it's not bad. FYI: This TiVo is in our master bedroom.

The original Maxtor upgrade ran 50-52C with the stock fan. With the faster fan it ran 46-48C. The Seagates with the faster fan are running at 43C. Time will tell if these drives are reliable. I expect they will be, most of the major large RAID manufacturers use Seagate drives.

Just an FYI....

Greg

Posted by: litzdog911

GregT:
Great information! What's the series/model number for these Seagate drives? Where did you purchase them?
Jim

Posted by: pinto_guy

I think Seagate drives use a fluid dynamic motor. All the other HDD manufacturers still use ball bearing motors. This is why I think the SEG ones are quieter.

Posted by: GregT

The drives are SEAGATE ST380021A, ( Seagate web site link: http://seagate.com/cda/products/dis...081,381,00.html). These are Barracuda ATA IV drives not the new Barracuda Vs that include the new 120GB drives.

I bought them from newegg.com, $106.

And pinto_guy is correct, they do use a FDB motor.

Greg

Posted by: blksnake

SLCENTRAL rates the drives very quite, but they found that they ran warm as well.

SLCENTRAL Review

PC Magizine Review

BlueSmoke.net review

digit-life review of several drives (technical)

Overall the reviews are favorable. I'll seriously consider one once my 60GB Maxtor (VERY NOISY!) runs out of space of gives up (Already replaced one drive after only 1 year of operation).

Posted by: Storkweiler

Just installed a seagate barracuda in my sony SA unit and it doesn't even make a whisper. Paid $70 for a 60G @ best buy with rebate.
btw running at 40C
I highly recommend Seagate