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Quietest 500GB Firewire drive?

I'm researching external drives for my music room (Firewire drive > PowerBook G4 > [USB DAC when I have more $] > Arcam FMJ). I want it to be as quiet as possible. (I would be very happy if it were as quiet as the PowerBook.) I have an older Lacie Big Disk in my office and, even though it is fanless, it isn't sufficiently quiet for my music room (I can hear the disks spinning and electrical hum).

Here are the drives I'm comparing so far:

- LaCie d2 Quadra Hard Disk
- Western Digital My Book Studio Edition
- Seagate FreeAgent Go for Mac

Can anyone speak about their relative noise levels? Lacie tells me the Quadra is much quieter than my older Big Disk, but I would like to hear from actual users.

Thanks!
syncrasy
ejlif's avatar
ejlif
1,366 posts
 
I just ordered a 2TB WD my book studio to replace a stack of 6 Lacie drives I am using now. I have been searching all over the net trying to decide what to get. From the data I gathered the Drobo looked very interesting, but was to noisy to consider. I don't really hear my 6 stacked drives at all in my system now and I'm hoping with fingers crossed that the WD drive will be as good in that regard and hopefully better in the reliability.
prpixel
876 posts
 
Guido,

I use Western Digital Scorpio Blue drives with my music server. Music server consists of a Vulcan Flipstart UMPC running Vista business. The Flipstart and two external drives only draw about 15 watts in low power mode which is fine for serving music. Cost pennies a day to run.
macdadtexas
1,794 posts
 
For Drobo, if you get the Droboshare and make it a network storage resource, as I have done, you have redundant storage and backup, no worries about failing drives, and you don't need it in the same room as your audio gear. No noise, no data loss, an near infinite expandibilty.

BTW, when I bought Drobo, I bought 4 Western Digital 500MB Caviar drives, 2 of which failed right out of the plastic and had to be replaced, at no cost. So...
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,413 posts
 
I use very quiet NEPTUNE 500GB Firewire from OWC.
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
It appears Lacie may have released a 1Tb external drive in the 2.5 inch format. The device actually contains 2 500Gb hard drives in a single box package weighing 1.4Lbs. It is sold by NewEgg for $575.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822154295
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