Quiet ATA drives?

kickahakickaha
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Anyone have any recommendations?



So far I've been pointed towards the Seagate Barracuda IVs and the Western Digital Caviar lines... but I'm not exactly looking at spending a truckload of money. (I'm in the market for 3 80GB drives that I'll pop into a B/W G3 and two FireWire enclosures.) Any other fluid bearing drives out there besides these?



My Quantum FireBall is loud enough to be heard two rooms away.



I'm not looking for killer speed, since I currently have zero methods for working with video.



D'oh, this probably should have gone into Genius Bar.



[ 07-30-2002: Message edited by: Kickaha ]</p>

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    mcqmcq Posts: 1,543member
    From what I've read, the Barracuda IV's are extremely quiet drives. You can get them at <a href="http://www.newegg.com"; target="_blank">http://www.newegg.com</a>; for $103 each. I'm not sure about the Caviar drives, they're supposed to be very fast but no clue about how loud they are.
  • Reply 2 of 13
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    agreed. and to the Genius Bar it goes....
  • Reply 3 of 13
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    The Barracuda ATA V series drives should be out now or very soon as well...
  • Reply 4 of 13
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eugene:

    <strong>The Barracuda ATA V series drives should be out now or very soon as well...</strong><hr></blockquote>



    And the advantage over the IV would be... ?



    I'm still a grad student - this drive bundle is The Big Computer Purchase for the summer. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
  • Reply 5 of 13
    pixelpusherpixelpusher Posts: 73member
    I have both the Barracuda IV and the Maxtor D740X. Hard to tell a difference really, they are both fast and supersilent. The Maxtor didn't cost as much, though.
  • Reply 6 of 13
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    [quote]Originally posted by Kickaha:

    <strong>



    And the advantage over the IV would be... ?



    I'm still a grad student - this drive bundle is The Big Computer Purchase for the summer. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>



    60 GB per platter...I imagine it's easier to make drives quieter/lighter with fewer platters.



    Seagate also claims the following:

    "Barracuda ATA V has the world's fastest PC hard drive internal transfer rate at up to 570 Mbits per second, and a 9-msec seek time."
  • Reply 7 of 13
    babarbabar Posts: 28member
    The Barracudas are really great drives. Very good performance and about no noise. I got a 80gb here and I NEVER hear it.
  • Reply 8 of 13
    the pie manthe pie man Posts: 425member
    I will second (or third) the vote for the barracuda. I replaced 2 IBM 75GXP drives (I had 4 failures within a year and a half) with 2 ATA barracudas - I can't really hear them at all over the fan in the machine.



    I have them mirrored as an always-on backup plan. Anyone that can afford 2 drives I would recommend it!
  • Reply 9 of 13
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Okay, cool. Thanks.



    Now for part 2:



    My machine is a Rev A B/W G3 - the one with the funky ATA chain that shows data corruption on some drives.



    So, I'm planning on putting one of these on an internal IDE card, and two in FireWire enclosures.



    Which brings me to questions 2 & 3:



    Any recommendations on ATA PCI cards, or on *quiet* FireWire enclosures? Makes no sense to put ultra quiet drives in noisy fan enclosures...



    [ 07-31-2002: Message edited by: Kickaha ]</p>
  • Reply 10 of 13
    klinuxklinux Posts: 453member
    Try Dell Home and look for discounts. I got it for $92 w/ s/h included. Two days later it's $87! Check http\\\www.techbargains.com (mostly PC stuff).
  • Reply 11 of 13
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    It doesn't really matter which brand of ATA card you choose. There's SIIG, Sonnet, etc...but they all use rebadged Acard or Promise boards. Don't try to flash PC boards of those brands though. They don't work quite right.



    You can't really go wrong with SIIG or Sonnet.



    As for enclosures. You probably don't need an enclosure with a fan, which eliminates most 5.25" sized enclosures.



    The 3.5" enclosures are expensive though, heh.



    <a href="http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=4764&Item=OWCMEFWU2"; target="_blank">http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=4764&Item=OWCMEFWU2</a>;
  • Reply 12 of 13
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    That's what I thought about the boards too, but it seems that the Sonnet boards are a little less expensive, and different than the Acard derived boards. OTOH, I've seen reports that they don't play well with OS X.



    The Acard 6280M looks good, but the benchmarks I've seen have it slower than a slightly cheaper Sonnet ATA/100. Hmmm.



    Grrr. Anyone know where I can pick up one of these for, say, $50? <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



    Oh, and Eugene - if you go for the non USB2.0 version of that enclosure, it's quite a bit cheaper...



    edit:



    Well, I found the Acard 6280M at other world computing for $88, vs $99 for the Sonnet. Ah, and the Sonnet doesn't seem to support ATAPI, while the Acard does. That settles it. Now to find it *cheaper*...



    Newegg.com does indeed have the Seagate Barracuda IV drives for $103 each.



    Now for the enclosures: the Elite non-USB2.0 are $95 each. I've seen some way cheaper enclosures, but none that were fanless. Anyone?



    Total so far: $587



    Well, after searching for a while, those really were pretty darned good prices, and I've been up since 9am... yesterday. So I did it. Thanks for the input folks!



    [ 08-01-2002: Message edited by: Kickaha ]</p>
  • Reply 13 of 13
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Try firewiredirect, macally, and all the other web retailers maybe.



    Also, you could probably just buy the 5.25 inch Mercury or like product from somewhere else and unplug/remove the fan.



    Heh, actually, that sounds like a good idea. I'll probably do that with my ADS Pyros.
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