Quietest 320GB 7200 RPM drive?

Hi,

I was going to wait for an SSD to become cheaper but the cheap ones seem to each have their own share of problems so I will just stick with HDD for now.

What is the quietest 320GB 7200 RPM drive?
Are 500GB HDD's much more battery consuming and louder?

Right now I have a 136GB HDD that came with my notebook and it is pretty quiet.

 

I don't think there's such a thing as quiet when it comes to 7200rpm drives. People have reported the WD Scorpio Black to be quiet, I got mine but is NOT.

Why are you leaning on a 7200rpm drive, why not go to a 500GB drive, the WD5000BEVT is almost as fast as the WD3200BEKT and it seems it would be quiet.
What will be the use for the drive you're looking for. Of course the 7200rpm would have lower access times, my Black had something like 14.5ms and the Blue 500GB maybe is ~19ms.
I've tried another 5400rpm drives and has not been quiet, the 5K320 for example is not.

 

I will be using it for graphics design and video editing.

So the 500GB 5400RPM is quieter than the 320GB 7200RPM drive? If so, then I'll go with the 500GB 5400RPM drive. Are there any sites out there that test the quietness of the drive?

 

there's no reason to go for a 5400rpm drive, unless you constantly put your ear next to your laptop.. i use a 7200rpm and i can't hear anything, i have to be very close to the laptop with the fan off.. and focus to hear the hdd

my current 7200 is a hitachi travelstar, they are known to be more quiet than normal, but seriously, i really don't think you'd hear anything

and i'm going to predict K-TRON will be posting on this thread soon ;]

 

Your prediction was right

Their is only one difference among the three 320gb 7200rpm drives in terms of acoustics. The 7K320 does have a triple cover on it which helps to dampen the noise more than a single cover. I cant say how much it works, but I cannot hear my 7K320. Please note I have the single platter model, which naturally makes less noise than a double platter design. This is because their are two less heads and one less spinning platter.

If you are coming from a 136GB drive, you may want to check out the 160Gb model of the 7K320. It is extremely quiet, and barely vibrates at all.

K-TRON

 

K-TRON do you know if there's a single platter WD5000BEVT available?

I'm sure all this confusion with noise has to do with the environment and with the laptop itself; mine the fan is almost OFF all the time and tend to use my laptop indoors so that's why I'm very picky.

 

I think the WD5000BEVT is only available in 500Gb and 400gb capacities.
I would think it would have been released in a 250gb capacity as well, but it has not been released yet.
Their are only two drives in this series, the WD5000BEVT and the WD4000BEVT
The WD4000BEVT should perform slightly better than the WD5000BEVT, since it has two platters and 4 heads, with limited head movement. So that means it uses 400gb of the 500gb of the platters, so it uses the fastest 80% of the disc

K-TRON