A hard drive dilemma! (SCSI vs. IDE)

[Gurm]

Ok, I have these two 18GB IBM 10k rpm Ultra80 hard drives. 4MB buffer, 5ms average seek time. Hella fast.

Also kinda loud. I've heard louder, but not recently. I've been spoiled, I suppose, by IBM's extraordinarily quiet 5400 and 7200rpm drives.

So now my problem... which is that these things are loud enough to drive me up a wall, and to tempt me to go back to using my 20GB UltraDMA drives.

Whaddya all think? Would it quiet these things down to toss 'em in an external enclosure? And how much does a 2-drive LVD enclosure cost (not to mention an external LVD cable, ack!)?

Or should I just be happy with 9ms seek and 2mb buffer on the EIDE's?

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[thecurse]

take the performance over the noise loud is sitting at home with an old hp netserver lh 5/133 next to your real computer

[Brian R.]

Gurm - I have a 10K IBM SCSI drive and a 7200 IBM IDE drive (HPT66) in the same computer. I wish I could get rid of the SCSI drive. Not enough speed increase to make a difference to me. Considering how little computer time is used by HD access, the difference between the two is insignificant to me.

[Gurm]

Yeah, I think if I had a dual-athlon gigahertz system I'd be more concerned. Right now the celerons are my bottleneck more than the hard drive speed.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Brian R.]

Yeah, even then, if you have enough memory to minimize caching, the difference in normal performance is small (at least to me). I only access the HD when I'm loading the programs or Windows.

[Jorden]

How much does a box of cotton cost over there, Jason? I wonder if you will put your future kid in a seperate enclosure as well, if s/he is making too much noice

Seriously though: If the sound of the drives starts to annoy you, I think it's time to insulate your case, or put them in a seperate (soundproof) casing. Do watch out that they do need good cooling though. The only way to get 10k's silent is by frying them

Jord.

[Gurm]

Jord,

If they're loud enough for Julie to bitch about them ("this sounds like my machine at work!") they're too loud.

No seriously, I know I am picky about noise levels. I mean, I'm putting in an insurance claim because the tube hum of my brand-new TV got noticeably louder when the movers moved it... and most women can't even hear it at all! (don't yell at me ladies, it's an anatomical difference, just like you can see the difference between 8 shades of off-white and we can't).

But if Julie starts complaining from the next room ("what are you RUNNING in there?") it's time to axe them.

*sigh*

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Paddy]

have you head of those cooler master thingies? They supposedly cool your drive and cut down the noise....

It would eb a shame to throw away your SCSI disks!

[Greebe]

Patrick, they cool them, but also add more noise, not reduce it (impossible)

[Paddy]

er... thats not what it says here mike!

Plus at £20, it sounds like a bargin!


--edit--

Cooler Master™ CoolDrive™ DCD 4002


For maximum system reliability, today's high performance hard disk drives demand a high performance thermal solution to help them dissipate the generated heat.
Most hard disk drive mounting frames have plastic casing with poor heat transfer properties and noisy sound.

Cooler Master's CoolDriveTM has been designed from the ground up with heat control and noise reduction. Its tough aluminium outer case deals with heat and noise; moreover, in the advanced models, a heat activated fan and layer of thermally conductive gap filler will provide further heat and noise control.



[This message has been edited by Paddy [MU] (edited 26 October 2000).]

[Genom]

Hey Greebe, whats so impossible about making it quiter? I am extremly lucky and have access (for free) to quietdrive cases from Avid. These suckers work so good, you pop in a 10,000 Cheetah (also a noisy drive) and it quierts down to the point where you only hear the small fan in the units power suplly. You hear NO drive noise at all. Reason for these was Avid sell's NLE systems, and many people bitched about the fact that if you had a nice system with 4 drives on it, you couldnt hear any audio detail while editing. And work they do! I have 4 18GB Cheetahs in these enclosures (not available for sale, sorry guys) and all together, my CPU fans make more noise.

[Brian R.]

Then the question is: How much does the drive temperature change in this type of unit? It had better cool the drive substantially since the drive is now enclosed. That fan looks inadequate.