Best quiet 120gb drive for upgrade?

[edpowers]

Any recommendations on a 120gb harddrive? I am looking for the most quiet drive possible without breaking the bank. Also, I am going to be replacing the fan with a Vantec Stealth, and from what I hear, they are very quiet but don't push a ton of air, so I'd like the drive to run on the cool end of the spectrum. Temp has never been a big concern since I have my tivo on an open wire rack with good airflow on all 6 sides.

The reason I need this new drive is because I just got a new used GXCEBOT on ebay. It works just fine, but it seems to be a lot louder than my old DSR6000. Probably a fan problem, but since I'm getting a bigger drive anyway, I thought I'd ask for opinions.

I read a post from a while back saying that the Samsung 5400 drive is nice, quiet and cool with a 3 year Warranty. I can get it online for around $100 shipped. Should I go with a 7200 drive? Is the speed difference noticable?

[captain_video]

You probably won't see much, if any, difference in the way your Tivo works with a 7200rpm drive, although there are those that swear the faster drives speed up their menus. 5400rpm drives have been the recommended ones to use since they're quieter and run cooler but they're getting quite scarce. The original Quantum Fireball lct series drives only spin at 4500rpm but anything faster will work just fine. I think you'll find that most 120GB drives are selling for under $100 these days, including the 7200rpm models. I haven't heard much about the Samsung drives but the Seagates are supposed to be pretty quiet (they have liquid bearings from what I hear). Stay away from the IBM drives (bad JuJu). The Maxtors & Western Digitals are probably the most widely used. There are lots of great deals with rebates on either brand at the moment.

[SR712]

By far ... the quietest drives are the Seagate Barracuda line of drives with the Fluid Bearings. I have had them all, and if you use one of these, and enable the acoustic management, you will not know its on. Then the fan will drive you nuts, and you will want to replace that, too. HaHa. I did that too! One of my units is on all night in my bedroom, out in the open, and I cannot hear it. Period. I highly reccommend it. Many drives will be pretty quiet when they are new, but will sound like a cheese grater after a couple of months. The Fluid Bearings will not get noisier as they age.

Here is a link to the 120GB version. (http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,572,00.html) Be sure you get that particular model, as they have the same model without the Fluid Bearings, and many online stores will try to sell you the wrong model. Just be sure.

I have the Acoustic Management software for Seagate if you can't find it.

[stanski1]

I can bacup everything sr712 just said. I too have this drive in my tivo and it is amazing how little noise comes from this drive. I had a 120gb 5400rpm Maxtor drive originally in my Tivo and got sick of the grinding noise it made. Ran out and bought the Barracuda V, and was very happy. This drive is quieter than the 5400rpm Maxtor.


I also did notice a speed increase with the menu loading also. Could be the higher spindle speed or the larger cache(8mb) on the Seagate drive. Not sure but it did make a difference.

[kozmo21]

QUOTE]By far ... the quietest drives are the Seagate Barracuda line of drives with the Fluid Bearings. I have had them all, and if you use one of these, and enable the acoustic management, you will not know its on.[/QUOTE]

Do you have to do the acoustic management before you xtreme, or can you do it after you already have recordings on the drive?

[captain_video]

Acoustic management software can be set up at any time. It's just a matter of placing the drive in your PC and booting from a floppy with the AM software utility on it. I don't believe it writes anything to the platters where the Tivo OS is stored but adjusts a setting in the BIOS chip of the drive controller.

[HuMan321]

I have heard mention of this accoustic software for the Maxtor units also.
I have 2 WD 120Gig. Do they have an accoustic manager software for these? I haven't found it. What I did find and was recommended to me was to set the drives to 33 ATA from 100.
I did and it works fine. Just wish it were quieter.

[SR712]

Correct. At any time you can enable Acoustic Mamagement. In reality, what it does is alter the head ballistics, so when the drive does a seek, instead of zipping right to the requested cluster, it moves there more gracefully. This eliminates the head "chatter" which is one of the more offensive noises generated by the drive. Captain Video is correct, you place the drive in your PC, and run the management software. It sets a bit in the onboard prom on the drive. It does not alter any info on the drive itself. I would reccommend running it from a DOS floppy, and disconnect any other IDE devices in that PC while running this. Just to be safe.

[DaytonaDave]

I have read that 7,200 rpm drives run hotter...

Do you recommend fan upgrades if I use the seagate drives?

If so, any certain fans that work well & don't add too much noise?

Thanks!

[edpowers]

Thanks for the help everybody. It sounds like the Seagate Barracuda V model ST3120024A is the way to go. My Vantec Stealth fan is on the way, so this should be one quiet Tivo.

Does anybody have any suggestions on a good online shop to buy this drive?

[SR712]

I don't know about dual drives, but one of these with the standard or quieter replacement fan run just fine. It usually runs at 48-49C. I usually shop through Pricewatch.com , but like I said ... be sure its the exact drive you want.

[DaytonaDave]

What is a good alarm temp for xPlusz?

[kozmo21]

Originally posted by DaytonaDave
What is a good alarm temp for xPlusz? I usually set it at 53 or 55. It depends on how warm the room temp is, what fan you have etc. Mine usually runs between 41 & 46.

I just did the acoustic management on my Maxtor drive and it is quiet now, major difference :D ,in case anyone needs a cheap quiet drive.

[ThaDude]

For anyone looking to buy one of these guys, I found that CNET.com's vendors had much better pricing than Pricewatch.com.

Through CNET, I discovered the thenerds.net, which sold the drive for $110 (about $20-$40 cheaper than other vendors).

[SR712]

If anyone's looking for the acoustic management for the Seagate Barracuda drives, I have it, if you want to PM me I can send it to you. It affects the ballistics of head access and eliminates the chatter.

<edit> As it turns out, the executable I have for Seagate only works on Series IV Barracudas, NOT Series V's. Sorry.

[edpowers]

The Barracuda V drive I purchased was driving me nuts with all of the loud clicking. The V drive does have acoustic management but the factory default is set to off, the tough part is finding a tool to turn it on.

I downloaded a Hitachi version of the tool and it also works with my Seagate V drive. To my surprise, the Acoustic Management was set to OFF MODE. I turned it on and virtually eliminated the clicking. I can still hear it faintly, but it isn't even close to the level it was before turning on AAM. The tool is simply called Feature Tool ver 1.9 . Here is a link
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Now I finally know what everyone is talking about when they say the Barracuda is a quiet drive. I can finally sleep at night!

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by edpowers
The Barracuda V drive I purchased was driving me nuts with all of the loud clicking. The V drive does have acoustic management but the factory default is set to off, the tough part is finding a tool to turn it on.

I downloaded a Hitachi version of the tool and it also works with my Seagate V drive. To my surprise, the Acoustic Management was set to OFF MODE. I turned it on and virtually eliminated the clicking. I can still hear it faintly, but it isn't even close to the level it was before turning on AAM. The tool is simply called Feature Tool ver 1.9 . Here is a link
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Now I finally know what everyone is talking about when they say the Barracuda is a quiet drive. I can finally sleep at night!

Wow!! Good find ed.