[affeking]

Well, I do see some good recommendations in the master build sticky that look good, but I was looking for some first hand recommendations and specifics on the sound / heat.


I am running a VMC box that actually sits in a room next to my HT, but its uninsulated and noise does carry. Heat is also a concern since this thing is running pretty much nonstop. Space is a big deal since I'm running Home edition and cannot create virtual drives - I'm looking for a single large physical drive to replace the two 500s I've been flipping back and forth between.


I'd also love to go for a 1.5tb drive, but I've read too many negative things about that Seagate. Not sure if anything else is coming down the pipe, but I don't want to wait much longer.


Right now I'm really eyeing the Samsung Spinpoint F1, but I've never owned a Samsung drive before.

 

[glc001]

i have spinpoint f1 drives in both 750gb and 1tb sizes. they have been great. they are extremely quiet and quite fast (especially the 1tb one). i have had absolutely no problems with them so i'd recommend them without hesitation.

 

[HTPC101]

From what i know all new big HD's are pretty quiet. I have 4 in one HTPC and i can't hear them at all.

 

[gazebo]

I highly recommend the Western Digital Green Power 1TB drive. It draws a few watts less than other drives. It's perfect for HTPC applications. It has no problem recording 4 HDTV programs while playing back another simultaneously.

 

[--Sclaws]



Quote:
Originally Posted by gazebo /forum/post/15454198


I highly recommend the Western Digital Green Power 1TB drive. It draws a few watts less than other drives. It's perfect for HTPC applications. It has no problem recording 4 HDTV programs while playing back another simultaneously.

I 2nd this recommendation...I have 9 of these now for my HTPC...they all sit in currently in my living room next to the TV and there's next to no noise.

 

[rtapia]



Quote:
Originally Posted by gazebo /forum/post/15454198


I highly recommend the Western Digital Green Power 1TB drive. It draws a few watts less than other drives. It's perfect for HTPC applications. It has no problem recording 4 HDTV programs while playing back another simultaneously.

I 3rd this. I have 5 of them.

 

[heaphus]

Another thumbs up for the WD GreenPower drives. I have 4 of them in my WHS. And, the new 10EADS are even cooler and faster and more power miserly than the original 10EACS.

 

[affeking]

Cool - thank you all for the input. I am definitely going to go for one of the two options mentioned here, just crunching a few numbers first.


On an aside, based on heaphus' comment, I looked at the difference between the 10EADS and 10EACS. The newer model has a larger cache, is a little faster, and is supposed to be more energy efficient. Here's the funny thing about the later statement...it is 2X as efficient at idle, but I calced that difference to be less than $3 worth of energy a year (about 22kwh if left on 24/7 for a year). Did I screw my math up somehow (13cent per kwh and a 2.5w difference between drives)? Its also possible the active wattage is a more significant difference, and these drives will be very active!


With all of you having so many drives it makes me really want to install something other than Vista Home so I can create larger virtual drives from a couple physical. Or I guess pick up a RAID card.


Thanks

 

[ilovejedd]



Quote:
Originally Posted by affeking /forum/post/15459728


On an aside, based on heaphus' comment, I looked at the difference between the 10EADS and 10EACS. The newer model has a larger cache, is a little faster, and is supposed to be more energy efficient. Here's the funny thing about the later statement...it is 2X as efficient at idle, but I calced that difference to be less than $3 worth of energy a year (about 22kwh if left on 24/7 for a year). Did I screw my math up somehow (13cent per kwh and a 2.5w difference between drives)? Its also possible the active wattage is a more significant difference, and these drives will be very active!

Nothing wrong with your calculations. Heck, even going from a 7200RPM drive to a 5400RPM drive doesn't really net you much in terms of your power bill. It does however make a difference with heat. As an aside, Western Digital has released newer 3-platter versions of the WD10EACS. It should have similar power consumption, performance and noise characteristics as the WD10EADS model. There's no guarantee you'll get the 3-platter version instead of the 4-platter one, but Newegg seems to be carrying the 3-platter version since November 2008.

 

[garbin]

Have both F1 1TB and WD green 7200 1TB; F1 seems bit faster on various benchmarks, but not really noticable in HTPC use or heavy file moving. Intensive F1 head movement (fast seek) definitely louder than WD, than again in normal use equally silent. Decided to put F1 in HTPC case and use WD in external case...

 

[boykster]

I like the WD green power drives....I have 12 of them in my media server

 

[rjburke377]



Quote:
Originally Posted by affeking /forum/post/15453173


... Heat is also a concern since this thing is running pretty much nonstop.

I have 5 Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000's model number HDS721010KLA330 running in a RAID5 array. They report ~44C and have a fan blowing directly onto the mounting tray ... across the disks.


The other disks in the server are manufactured by Maxtor, Seagate, and Western Digital. They report ~32C. If the data is valid I guess this means you should stay clear of Hitachi.


/R

 

[Fleksnes]

What do you goys think of what's mentioned in this thread about thd WD GP-drives?

http://groups.google.com/group/linux...6f911efd?pli=1


I have 16 of these (mix of the old and new model) in my serves. Any reason to be worried?