Who's got the quietest seek noise from a SATA drive?

[Richard Forester]

Hi all.

I'm in the market for a 160GB+ SATA drive. For me, quiet is of utmost
importance. Idle noise is important but seek noise is very important. I'm
quite surprised that reviews seem to be only interested in the former.
Anyway, I've heard that the Seagate 7200.7 drives are rather noisy (i'm
pretty disappointed to hear this since I'm a Seagate fan) and that the
Samsung and Hitachi drives tend to be more quiet. Can anyone substantiate,
refute this?

Thanks,
Richard

 

[Rod Speed]

I'm in the market for a 160GB+ SATA drive. For me,
quiet is of utmost importance. Idle noise is important
but seek noise is very important. I'm quite surprised that
reviews seem to be only interested in the former. Anyway,
I've heard that the Seagate 7200.7 drives are rather noisy
(i'm pretty disappointed to hear this since I'm a Seagate fan)

Those fools have disabled AAM due
to a purported problem with patents.

Talk about a very spectacular footshot indeed.

and that the Samsung and Hitachi drives tend to be
more quiet. Can anyone substantiate, refute this?

Yep, my samsung doesnt seek audibly at all, and thats with
the drive in a case that I dont bother using covers on at all.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Hi all.

I'm in the market for a 160GB+ SATA drive. For me, quiet is of utmost
importance. Idle noise is important but seek noise is very important. I'm
quite surprised that reviews seem to be only interested in the former.
Anyway, I've heard that the Seagate 7200.7 drives are rather noisy

Somewhere in between the quiet and performance settings of the BarracudaV.
The PATA version is even quieter than the BarracudaV in quiet mode.

The Maxtor Plus9 in quiet mode is as quiet as the PATA 7200.7