Any quiet 7200rpm notebook drives?

I had a WD Scorpio Black 500gb drive in my laptop and promptly returned it to Amazon, it was quite possibly the loudest laptop drive I've ever heard.

Do any of the other HDD manufacturers, like Seagate or Fujitsu, make a quiet 7200rpm laptop drive?

 

The Seagate Momentus XT 500GB I have now is totally silent.

The one I had last year was relatively noisy. So were WD Black 320GB and 500GB.

Your best bet for silent 7200rpm drive: Hitachi 7K750.

 

Your experience with this HDD is quite odd, as I own this exact same hard drive and have not had any noise problems with it. Perhaps you received a "bad" hard drive? A replacement might be in order if it's not too late.

 

Actually it's not that odd. German magazine Chip.de measures noise levels on hard drives. Scorpio Blacks (750GB, 500GB and 320GB) are the only ones that received a negative rating.

The reason some people don't experience it that way can be that some notebooks shield the noise better then others.

And it's also possible some people have more sensitive hearing.

 

Quite true, I didn't think of that.

 

Yeah I had the Scorpio Black 750GB in a thick Dell XPS 15 here. No way I could pick up any sound from it.

 

I think noise levels can vary quiet a bit even from the same model. That's been my experience anyway.

 

Wow...peoples perception of 'silent' vary greatly.

I challenge any of you who 'cant hear the hard drive' to pull it out and turn the notebook on.Except for a fan that comes on once and a while...notebooks are completely silent. Any noise you hear...is the hard drive!

I've experienced both the Seagate Momentus and the WD Black. BOTH make lots of noise...I wouldn't trust my data on a Seagate...ever.

Hitachi does make some very quiet drives. I use a WD Caviar Black, because I favor performance and reliability. It was originally my primary drive...now my secondary.

 

Dreamliner, keep in mind what Zaz said, noise levels vary even with the same model.

The Momentus XT I had last year was quite noisy. Now I have different sample in the same notebook, it's completely inaudible.

And that's in a Macbook Pro 13", it doesn't shield noise very well.

 

The Hitachi 7k500 is quieter (in my 16" Dell) than the Segate 7200.4 and Momentus XT, all 500 GB models. It also keeps a few degrees cooler too.

 

Perhaps I am impervious or just not bothered by drives, but I own 2 Momentus XT 500 GB drives, a Scorpio Black 320, 500, and 750 GB and none of them are particularly noisy.

You can also try firmware updates as that sometimes fixes noisy drives/excessively vibrating drives. Also try QuietHDD and messing with APM/AAM settings.

 

Yeah, this T420 is more 'modular' than a lot of consumer notebooks and has plastic pieces that cover the HDD that come right out, noise passes through this part very easily. Also the wristrest is very thin and the HDD is in the rollcage right beneath it.
My old XPS 15 had a 7200rpm HDD and I could never hear it, it was thicker and had more plastic though.


If the Momentus XT is quiet I may consider that one. I use the exact same applications everyday, boot (or resume) Windows 7, then usually Office and PDF reader for schoolwork, iTunes, Firefox, and Thunderbird.
Occasionally Lightroom 3.

 

I think Seagate XT can be hit or miss (talking about noise levels). Although it's generally quieter than WD Scorpio Black.

If silence is a number 1 priority I say go with Hitachi 7K750. I'm assuming it's as quiet as the 7K500.

I made this video to show how fast it is:
‪Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid Drive: Application Launching‬‏ - YouTube

 

Good video, thanks for that.