Quietest Exteral Hard Drive?

[Jeff Linder]

Short of replacing the internal drive on my Dell Dimension 4500S, an
external hard drive would suit my purposes well. So, I bought a 120 gig
Iomega drive. But its high pitched fan is so loud it could be heard down the
hall and in the next room. Thinking it was defective I returned it for
another. Same thing. Does anyone know whether there is a truly quiet
external drive? Thanks so much. -Jeff Linder

 

[John McGaw]

Short of replacing the internal drive on my Dell Dimension 4500S, an
external hard drive would suit my purposes well. So, I bought a 120 gig
Iomega drive. But its high pitched fan is so loud it could be heard down the
hall and in the next room. Thinking it was defective I returned it for
another. Same thing. Does anyone know whether there is a truly quiet
external drive? Thanks so much. -Jeff Linder

Sure. A 2.5" notebook drive in a solid case -- preferably aluminum but a
good plastic one will do the job and will be essentially silent unless you
literally place your ear on the case. Problems are that the size is limited
to about 80gB and the cost for the larger ones is astronomical. But why is
it that you don't want to replace or augument the internal drive? Right now
the drives are dirt cheap and the actual work of installing one takes only a
few minutes (once one gets past the Chinese puzzle box aspects of opening
the computer).

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

Sure. A 2.5" notebook drive in a solid case -- preferably aluminum
but a good plastic one will do the job and will be essentially silent
unless you literally place your ear on the case. Problems are that
the size is limited to about 80gB and the cost for the larger ones is
astronomical. But why is it that you don't want to replace or
augument the internal drive? Right now the drives are dirt cheap and
the actual work of installing one takes only a few minutes (once one
gets past the Chinese puzzle box aspects of opening the computer).

There is one very good reason for external vs internal - insurance. I'm
currently looking into external drives to hold backup images and
infrequently used files. Though, having said that, there is no excuse for
tiddly internal drives these days, either. If I could find a decent 'cage' I
have a 200GB WD Caviar that could be used, but I'm a little leery as to the
robustness of it - I suppose it wouldn't get used that much.

Basically, I'm looking for something I can back up to, then shove in a
drawer when not in use. I never thought about noise as a factor. That's made
me think even harder now!