Quiet Homeserver drives?

Trig · 27 Apr 2024 at 11:32

I've moved my 'server' from upstairs under the TV to next to my PC in the office, however now its sat next to someone, rather than at the other side of the livingroom one of the drives is a bit noisier than I would like.

So, anyone on here running something similar where they have compared WD/Seagate drives for noise levels while in use?

I was going to swap all of the spinners for SSD's but prices have shot up over the last few months and there's a Seagate 7200 drive in there that's noisey AF so want to replace it..
Thinking something in the 6-10Tb range as I can then probably get rid of an older drive that's got 4 years on it, no SMART Errors so doesn't need replacing but while I'm in there faffing...

5abr3 · 27 Apr 2024 at 12:35

What are you using as a server? Are the drives in tool-less bays/trays?

I am using WD Gold 12TB drives and they only make any notable noise during seek. I think that's the movement overcoming the foam tape and isn't too bad but in the quest for quietness I am currently printing some dampers currently to see if that improves things any further.

Trig · 27 Apr 2024 at 12:51

5700G, 64Gb, iTX build in an NR200.

I've got rubber grommets on the drives so its not a vibration thing, its the physical drive that's noisey, think its cos its a 7200 enterprise drive (ST4000NM0115) so not really designed for being sat 1m from someone..
I've got a mix of other drives in there, SSD and WD Reds and everything else is quiet enough, just putting the feelers out on what might be a nice drive to replace it with, looking at spending no more than £200 any open to the idea of shucking ..

5abr3 · 27 Apr 2024 at 13:43

OK, I suspect you are looking at more WD Red's at that cost and density range.

Whilst you might just about get a 10TB Gold if you can spot one of the occasional 20% discounts that pop up occasionally, they are a bit louder than Red's.

The quietest Reds are 12Tb or more at idle (20dBA, 29dBA seek) and the quietest in the range during seek is the 6TB WD60EFPX at 27dBA (23dBA idle) followed by the 8TB WD80EFPX (28dBA seek, 24 dBA idle); there ae other, louder 6TB and 8TB Reds and I cant spot why from the datasheet so I guess its just part binning by noise and power consumptio n. The 10TB is the loudest out of the red range so I would avoid that one.

I have seen a few IronWolf's that have been quite quiet but from what I have read it is a bit of a lottery with Seagate in terms of noise.

Trig · 27 Apr 2024 at 14:41

Drives I have in there at the mo are..

Samsung 845D 1Tb - Drivepool cache drive.
Samsung 870 QVO 4tb - Data
Seagate ST4000NM0115 4Tb - Data
Seagate ST4000VN000 4Tb - Data
WDC WD80EDAZ-11T 8Tb - Data
Samsung 256Gb NVME - Boot
Samsung 512Gb NVME - VM Storage

All of the 'data' drives are pooled under Drivepool, the noisy drive is the ST4000NM drive, the rest are fine.

I'm not tied to Seagate or WD, I did look at Toshiba drivers but apparently they're loud...

5abr3 · 27 Apr 2024 at 14:47

You've covered pretty much the whole nin-SSD manufacturer base there. Seagate make the most but also seem to have the most conpliants, how much of a linear relationship is hard to tell unfortunately. WD are second biggest by number of drives shipped.

Trig · 27 Apr 2024 at 15:31

Think I'm gonna go WD Red Plus 8tb, I'll pull the noisy Seagate drive and look at what runtime are on the others and maybe pull something else as well, might as well swap out that drive and whatever the oldest one is at the same time, even if the 10Tb is the loudest of the WD Reds that's also a possibility, just depends what I can get for <£200...

Had a quick look at external drives as well, doesn't seem to be much in the way of price difference tbf and not guarantee I'll get a decent drive to shuck anwyays, might as well just buy the right drive to start with..

5abr3 · 27 Apr 2024 at 19:14

I agree there's not enough benefit to shucking now, especially as warranty can get "entertaining".

Can definitely get 8TB Red Plus' for that budget atm.

Snapshot · 28 Apr 2024 at 07:24

I have some 6TB Seagate Ironwolves with only 13,000 hours that I can put in the MM if that's of any interest.

Hostile_18 · 28 Apr 2024 at 16:46

I'm selling 3x 4tb gen 4 Lexar nvmes that I had in my NAS for 170 each on MM now.

But in answer to your question I've being getting Exos drives. 18tb seem to be mixed 1 almost silent, 2 relatively noisy.

Two 20tb drives very quiet, almost silent.

It depends on a few factors though. What case you put them in, what are they doing i.e are they constantly doing heavy work or just holding media files etc. Are they in raid or unraid etc.

My all SSD nas was completely silent in every respect. Have only gone to HDD due to massive size of 4k content.

Spudgun · 28 Apr 2024 at 21:19

Wd red pro of no more than 6tb are quiet as after that you get 7200rpm drives

5abr3 · 28 Apr 2024 at 21:42

Spudgun said:
Wd red pro of no more than 6tb are quiet as after that you get 7200rpm drives

10TB is the point where they switch to 7200 RPM according to their datasheet for the plus range:

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-red-plus-hdd/product-brief-western-digital-wd-red-plus-hdd.pdf

Edit: corrected which line I was referring to

Edit #2: all current red pro's are 7200 rpm https://documents.westerndigital.co...duct-brief-western-digital-wd-red-pro-hdd.pdf

Trig · 28 Apr 2024 at 22:08

Snapshot said:
I have some 6TB Seagate Ironwolves with only 13,000 hours that I can put in the MM if that's of any interest.

I think I'm gonna go down the WD Red+ route tbf

Trig · 28 Apr 2024 at 22:10

Hostile_18 said:
I'm selling 3x 4tb gen 4 Lexar nvmes that I had in my NAS for 170 each on MM now.

But in answer to your question I've being getting Exos drives. 18tb seem to be mixed 1 almost silent, 2 relatively noisy.

Two 20tb drives very quiet, almost silent.

It depends on a few factors though. What case you put them in, what are they doing i.e are they constantly doing heavy work or just holding media files etc. Are they in raid or unraid etc.

My all SSD nas was completely silent in every respect. Have only gone to HDD due to massive size of 4k content.

Need to be SATA drives, I've got headers for 12 drives, but wouldn't be able to fit that many 3.5's in the case..

Trig · 29 Apr 2024 at 12:47

Spudgun said:
Wd red pro of no more than 6tb are quiet as after that you get 7200rpm drives

Looking at the specs, the 6Tb Pro's are 7200, presuming that the 7200rpm part is what gives them the better transfer speeds..

Trig · 29 Apr 2024 at 13:05

Think I'm gonna go down the 6tb or 8tb route.

Theres 1dB difference between them, but the 8Tb's are 35Mb/s faster transfer rates..

Hostile_18 · 29 Apr 2024 at 13:53

I'd go with a place with easy returns. Even in the same range there can be substantial variance between batches, as I found out recently.

Spudgun · 29 Apr 2024 at 18:38

Trig said:
Looking at the specs, the 6Tb Pro's are 7200, presuming that the 7200rpm part is what gives them the better transfer speeds..

Sorry about that - looks like they have updated the specs, the older 6TB WD Red Pro (WD60EFZX) drives were 128mb cache and 5400 rpm and are extremely quiet as I have 4 of them in my NAS

Trig · 29 Apr 2024 at 19:18

Whats this '7200 class' thing, that marketing gumph that means its not really 7200rpm but "in our specific tests it's got the same performance as a 7200rpm drive" kinda thing?

5abr3 · 29 Apr 2024 at 19:49

Trig said:
Whats this '7200 class' thing, that marketing gumph that means its not really 7200rpm but "in our specific tests it's got the same performance as a 7200rpm drive" kinda thing?

Which exact model(s) are you seeing that on?