Soundcheck

This is more a personal impression then a realistic test since, as I mentioned at the beginning of this roundup, I don't currently have a sound level capturing device (dBa-meter)

From my own point of view, the Seagate Barracuda IV is one of the most silent hdd's for sale at the moment but what did I think about the other drives in this roundup?





Noiselevel wise, the Seagate still rulez, closely followed by the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 (the Fluid Dynamic Bearing really make noise disappear) and the WD800JB. The Maxtor DiamondMax takes fourth place and the WD800BB comes last here.


Conclusion

The Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 is THE device for the moment closely followed by the WD 800JB (both the 8Mb buffer drives) These are the drives you want to be looking for when you want performance and what's more their pretty silent operation comes for free.

When you are really after silence and don't need that last drop of performance you should buy the Seagate, it is fast enough for daily usage.

The two other testsubjects aren't bad either, they are good mid-end products for a reasonable price.

One last thing I forgot to mention is the warranty period for the drives: the two Maxtors and the WD800BB carry a 1 year limited warranty, the WD800JB and the Seagate seem to be less reliable (as in "they escaped the new cost reducing policy by the hdd manufacturers ;)" ) and still carry a limited three year warranty!!

Well, that's all folks! Hope you enjoyed reading this and find the results usefull if you're considering buying a new hard disk drive at this time. With a 10.000rpm IDE drive already announced by WD and the SATA drives around the corner, waiting some time before buying a new storage device might be a good idea :)

Specials thanks go to Wim from Loveno Webstore for kindly supplying the test HDD's used in this roundup.

If you have any questions or remarks you can mark them @this thread on our forums.

//biCker