Raptors, Cheetahs, and Barracudas, oh my!

N

Nate Finch

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 5, 2005
Messages
298
So, I'm looking for something quiet and fast. I hear all kinds of things about the faster hard drives having annoying whines. I don't want an annoying whine, but I don't want to have to wait 20 minutes for a level to load in whatever game I'm playing either.

Assume the rest of my computer is brand new and 90-95% of top-of-the-line. Are cheetahs too noisy? Are raptors? Is the speed difference actually noticible, or will a 250gig 7200RPM do essentially as well?

I don't need a *silent* pc, but it should be rather close. I'm planning on using a Lian-Li v1000 case, if that matters.

Any help, especially comments from people who actually have these hard drives, would be much appreciated.

-Nate
 
I sold my raptor a couple days ago. Now im on maxtor's maxlineIII 300gb drive and let me tell you there is a difference between the raptor and any 7200rpm drive.

I've been looking at seagates 36gb 15k cheetahs and hope to be getting one soon and use the maxtor as space.
 
Thankfully, all hard drive makers make their new drives, regardless of spindle speed, interface, or market segment, with FDB Motors. I gather that there are still some older WD Caviars without FDB motors, but I have not received one in over 6 months. Fluid Dynamic Bearing motors have made hard drive idle noise a thing of the past, unless you are within three feet of the drive and sensitive to noise in a HTPC environment. It is true that a 10,000RPM drive will have louder motor noise than most every 7200 drive, but you should not be able to tell the difference over all but the absolute quietest fans.

However, seek noises are a much different story. Be prepared for this: swifter seeks = louder seeks. I have a Fujitsu MAP3367, and when I'm using Terminal Services to administer the server that it's in from another room, its seeks from 30 feet away sound like a 7200.7's seeks from 3 feet away :eek: Yes, they are that loud. The MAP is a modern 10K drive (a second generation unit) and is much better in the noise department than older SCSI drives, but one pays a price in noise for fast seeks, that's a simple tradeoff that must be accepted.

The Raptor will also have seeks that are significantly louder than any other current ATA desktop drive, but its noise profile is a little lower than the typical SCSI drive. While I do not have any 15K drives, expect to <4ms seeks to be pretty noisy. Also, the hefty price premium on 15K drives requires that they be approached cautiously. There are quite a few 15K drives floating around on Ebay and the like, but only a handful of them (Fujitsu MAS/MAU, Maxtor Atlas 15K, and Seagate Cheetah 15K.4) actually deliver higher single user performance than the WD740GD. Others, such as older Cheetahs, IBM/Hitachi, Fujitu MAM and the like, will have all of the problems of a 15K drive without delivering much better performance or even be slower than a WD740GD. Be prepared to shell out quite a bit of dough for a 15K drive that is faster than WD740GD, even if you do resort to Ebay or refurbs.

If you do settle for a 7200RPM drive, it should be one of the 16MB Maxtors. If you get a 10K drive, it should be WD740GD. If you decide to make the leap to 15K, do your homework at place like StorageReview before you automatically assume that just any 15K drive is worth more $$ than a Raptor.
 
Kickass response, thanks! It's good to know that modern drives are quiet while not actively seeking.. I haven't bought hardware in about 3 years, so I'm still on the learning curve for what's current.

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to spring for a 15k drive, since I don't want the hassle of scsi nor the price premium. Thanks for the suggestion on 7200 drives, I hadn't really done any research into those, and it would be good to know what I'm comparing against.

-Nate
 
After 6 months of my Raptor 74 I have no noise problems at all. I will tell you it's very fast and worth every penny though. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top