T400 with 7200 rpm hdd bad idea, noisewise?

Noisewise? Is that even a word? Well - you get the meaning. I have an offer for a T400 that seems perfect for me - except for a 7200 rpm drive. One of my main reasons going for the T400 is that is is very silent. Should I worry about ordering a 7200 rpm T400 with this requirement? Or doesnt it really matter?

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I have that combination and I don't hear the hard drive at all. It's a very quiet computer.

 

I would think the hard drives you can chose when you configure or buy the T400 are all ok. At least I haven't heared otherwise since I lurked around here and currently make my research for my next laptop.

If, however, you are going to buy a 7.2k drive aftermarket, I remember there were a few people who said their drives caused a lot of vibrations (and noise therefore). I think 320GB/7.2k Hitachi drive was above them, the WD Scorpio Black 320GB/7.2k was perefectly normal, if I remember correctly.

As a side note, I'm also very picky about noise. But my current 7.2k drive is barely audible and when I get my new laptop beginning next year I will swap the hd on the first day with the above mentioned WD or with a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ([email protected]).

 

Thanks all. I think I will go for that model then...

 

Drive noise seems to be hit or miss. If you get a noisy one, ask for a replacement.

 

I actually don't think so. From my experience HD noise is consistent along a particular model, but also quite independent from vendor and capacity. I'd say it's most probably a particluar hard drive model which causes noises/vibration more than others, but there is a also small chance it could be a bug in the acoustic management that could be fixed with a firmware update.

So I'd check the vendors web site and try to find a firmware update at first if a particular hard drive is too noisy or causes vibrations whatsoever. The latest example I know of was a 750GB Seagate (desktop) drive wich needed a firmware update to run fine.

 

Your experience and mine have been different.

 

I have a T500 with a 7200rpm drive and it is more quiet than the 5400rpm drives I had in my previous notebooks. So I think you would be fine ordering a 7200 rpm drive with your T40 - I would guess Lenovo uses the same drives across their models (at least the T series).

My experience is also that noise is consistent along a particular model of a HDD.

 

If you are worried about the noise level of your 7200 RPM HD, make sure to get one with just one platter instead of two. One platter drives generally produce less idle (wind) noise than two platter drives. I have a Hitachi one-platter 160GB 7K320 Hitachi drive and it is reasonably quiet.

Örjan

 

Remember that its the Seagate that does not have the noise reduction patend.

Renee