HDDs on MacPro

[Whiteapple]

Hi there,

I am about to purchase a MacPro, but I have some questions about SILENCE.

I would like to purchase additional HDDs which are:

-74GB Raptor (from OWC)
-500GB Seagate 7200.10 with 16MB cache (from OWC)

completing the 160GB Stock HDD (from Apple)

I am concerned about noise, and heat, and fans kicking in, as I will be sleeping right next to it.

Anyone who got one of these HDDs would be pleased to quickly mention their perfomance (transfer rates, ect. but not in RAID) and noise/heat on a MacPro. I really want the raptor, but if it's tooooo noisy and the fans kick in, then I'll check something else.

Thanks!

 

[Glen Quagmire]

Why not turn it off when you go to sleep, instead of wasting electricity?

 

[ammon]

The 74GB Raptor is loud! It also gets really hot.

I have one in my PC and it is by far the loudest component inside. It sits in front so there is a 120mm fan blowing right on it. Even still it gets warm to the touch when doing large copies.

Don't kow anything about the other drives you mentioned...

 

[bob5820]

Why not turn it off when you go to sleep, instead of wasting electricity?

If I wanted to reboot every day I'd be using Windows. Some of us like to keep our systems up 24/7. Not shure the Mac Pro cosumes all that much power while in sleep mode anyway.

If your looking for quiet drive walk right past the Raptor isle.

 

[studiox]

Why not turn it off when you go to sleep, instead of wasting electricity?

Shut down ? That's the worst thing you can do with electronics.

I like to know when i get to work, i just put my powerbook out of sleepmode and all my apps are there, all mails i haven't answered/read etc.

When I get to home it should be the same. No need to start all running apps again

 

[Whiteapple]

The 74GB Raptor is loud! It also gets really hot.

I have one in my PC and it is by far the loudest component inside. It sits in front so there is a 120mm fan blowing right on it. Even still it gets warm to the touch when doing large copies.

Don't kow anything about the other drives you mentioned...

Has anyone got a replacement solution?

It's for the System HDD where the OS will be, with all my apps, so I need something very snappy, yet quiet?
Am I hoping too much?

 

[Grimace]

Put it to sleep. There won't be any noise at all.

 

[TheFuzz]

go with the seagate. i have a 320gb 7200.10 drive in my mac pro and it's very quick and near silent, way quieter than the wd that came with the mac. i'll definitely be picking up two more once my wallet recovers.

 

[icon57]

a single raptor isnt much faster than some wd hd's that are out there with a 16mb cache (the raptor 74gb has 8mb cache)
i have had raided raptors and never found them to be loud or hot!
we have a mac pro coming in on wed...i have 3 wd 320's that i will put in a raid0 array and keep the 250 wd that comes with it as the main drive for the os....also go to new egg...much better prices than owc.

 

[Mundy]

Some things to consider:

OWC's price on Western Digital Raptors isn't particularly good. ZipZoomFly.com has the newer, faster 150 GB model for $229. They sell the newer 74 GB model with 16 MB of cache for $154.90. OWC's price is $186.95 for an older 74 GB model with only 8 MB of cache.

Also, while I normally purchase Seagate hard drives, the quietest and coolest 500 GB hard drive out there right now is Western Digital's 5000KS (SilentPC's review is here). It's also generally less expensive than Seagate's 500 GB offerings.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[TBi]

Hi there,

I am about to purchase a MacPro, but I have some questions about SILENCE.

I would like to purchase additional HDDs which are:

-74GB Raptor (from OWC)
-500GB Seagate 7200.10 with 16MB cache (from OWC)

completing the 160GB Stock HDD (from Apple)

I am concerned about noise, and heat, and fans kicking in, as I will be sleeping right next to it.

Anyone who got one of these HDDs would be pleased to quickly mention their perfomance (transfer rates, ect. but not in RAID) and noise/heat on a MacPro. I really want the raptor, but if it's tooooo noisy and the fans kick in, then I'll check something else.

Thanks!

My friend is actually a bit turned off by hard drive resonance in his Mac Pro. This is where the case amplifies the hard drive vibration. Also where two hard drives resonate at the same frequency and double the noise.

It's worsened by the fact that there is no isolation for the hard drives in the case. They are tied to aluminium racks connected to an aluminium case.

Me thinks i'll be staying away...

 

[dpaanlka]

You can set the hard drives to spin down when not used.

 

[MacsAttack]

Bad points... Mac Pro pumps out quite a bit of heat - vey good at getting it out of the case by the looks of things. It is nocicibly warmer in this room with a Mac Pro than it was with a G4 Mac Mini.

Good points... The Mac pro is not very much louder than the Mac Mini. Indeed under heavy load (rendering a Lighwave annimation) it never made any more noise. The Mini on the other hand would spin its fan (generating far more noise) when performing some processor or graphicaly intensive operations.

The Hitachi disk I have in this Mac Pro is about as noisy as the Mini's hard disk - and the Mac Pro fans can hardly be heard over the disk when it is spinning.

The ambient noise of the central heating (which is not needed in here at the moment with the Mac Pro churning out hot air) is more intrusive.

 

[Keebler]

i have to 2nd the other post about why not turn it off at night?

i know it's nice to have all the apps and emails etc.. there, but really, unless you are processing something, i honestly think it's a waste of energy. why someone can't wait 1 minute to turn it on, wait for the os to boot up and launch some apps is beyond any common sense.

i know...i know...i sound like some environmentalist, but all someone needs to do is look around - we humans are wasting the planet with excess crap and this is one pure example. i know it's only 1 machine, but add all the other machines.....just silly imho.

wrt to the hard drives, i have maxtor's and they are fairly silent. don't know about the other ones.

 

[TBi]

Why not just let it go to sleep? There is an instant wake up on OSX, much faster than rebooting and uses way less energy.

 

[slabbius]

doubtfull your computer will be computing more (thereby causing fans/heat/yada yada) than you while you are sleeping... unless you are a batch render fiend, then I can see noise and heat an issue...

seriously, the most your computer will be doing while you sleep is probably downloading porn...

maybe running a screen saver. i just put my computer to sleep and it's more like 15 seconds for it to wake up.... c'mon now

 

[alien2108]

If you are looking for silent HDD, IMHO Samsung is the way to go. The new 16Mb cache 400Gb drive is fast, silent and cheap! I installed one and compared to Maxtor or WD it is really much quieter.

 

[NATO]

I have found Western Digital drives to be very very quiet, usually the only time I can hear them is in a very quiet room and they're heavily reading/writing, and its a very dull clicking, not a harsh metallic noise. I haven't had experience of other manufacturers, but I have definitely heard louder drives than the WD ones I have.

 

[bytescruncher]

On my mac pro I have mounted an additional internal seagate barracuda 500. It is true. The vibration of this hard disk gets unfortunately amplified from the aluminium case. The disk gets also very hot. To minimize the noise I had to untighten the screws a little, but the problem is still here. Sounds like a far airplane. Really annoying. The case is fabulous but gees, how happened this guy at Apple hadn't a thought about this problem...very disappointing.
The other two disks in the box are two 500 from hitachi, very quiet and cool. My suggestion is to stay away from barracuda.
BTW if someone has a suggestion to lower the noise from my case...will be very appreciated.

 

[NATO]

I've just installed the following Hard Drives in my Mac Pro:

1 x 150GB Western Digital Raptor
2 x 500GB Western Digital Caviar
1 x 250GB Western Digital Caviar

All four drives are very very quiet when idle, the system as a whole is a lot quieter than the Power Mac G5 w/X800XT it replaced. The only thing is the Raptor is quite loud when reading/writing, offset of course by the fact it is screaming fast.... blazing fast. As I said, it's as quiet as the other hard drives when idle so if you're sleeping next to the system it shouldn't be a problem.

The only noise I can hear when my system is on is the whirr of the X1900XT fan, and considering its barely audible that shows you just how quiet these hard drives are. This morning I didn't even think my system was on it was that quiet... usually I had the quiet hum of my old Power Mac G5. These computers are very quiet indeed.

 

[Digidesign]

My experience:

The Mac Pro came with a Seagate 250gb HDD that was VERY loud. I could hear the platters spinning as a high whining noise, and when the heads moved, they clattered around like dropping BBs onto concrete.

I took out my Seagate 300gb SATA drive from my PC, which was in a case with suspension cables (very quiet - definitely the way to go) and which was very quiet. Once in the Mac Pro, it became much louder because every vibration was transferred and amplified through the case.

I just got three Seagate 320gb SATA drives from Newegg.com and all three of them are whisper silent. And a good price too, so I highly recommend these drives.

One thing I am thinking about trying is to to substitute the screws on the sleds with some sort of a cloth band. NOT rubber, as I found out the hard way on my PC case. Rubber elastics will crack and snap over time! My case sent me a replacement for my elastics with nylon bands after all 6 bands snapped. Luckily the drives were OK after falling to the bottom of the case of my PC.

Anyway, for the Mac, I'm thinking of using a band of nylon taken from a neck lanyard. I will criss-cross this band through the indendation/holes where the screws are so that there's an X pattern on both sides. I have a small spring clip that I use for shoelaces that I will run the bands through to make sure they don't loosen up. The drive will be taped to the bottom X criss-crossing of bands, and will hang suspended from the sled.

The drive will still be connected to the board where the SATA connectors are, however, this will hopefully provide 1-2mm of space between the drive and the sled, reducing the amount of noise and vibration transferred.

One major concern is the loosely hanging drive. I am worried that this might strain the SATA connectors, since that will be the only contact point with the system. This idea is pretty ghetto right now and I don't recommend anyone trying it, espeically with such a precision machine as the Mac Pro. This idea is just preliminary brainstorming.

So, I will try this first with one of my sleds to see if it can provide a strong and reliable suspended support with an old HDD before putting it anywhere near my Mac Pro. Will post pics in due time...

 

[Keebler]

My experience:

The Mac Pro came with a Seagate 250gb HDD that was VERY loud. I could hear the platters spinning as a high whining noise, and when the heads moved, they clattered around like dropping BBs onto concrete.

I took out my Seagate 300gb SATA drive from my PC, which was in a case with suspension cables (very quiet - definitely the way to go) and which was very quiet. Once in the Mac Pro, it became much louder because every vibration was transferred and amplified through the case.

I just got three Seagate 320gb SATA drives from Newegg.com and all three of them are whisper silent. And a good price too, so I highly recommend these drives.

One thing I am thinking about trying is to to substitute the screws on the sleds with some sort of a cloth band. NOT rubber, as I found out the hard way on my PC case. Rubber elastics will crack and snap over time! My case sent me a replacement for my elastics with nylon bands after all 6 bands snapped. Luckily the drives were OK after falling to the bottom of the case of my PC.

Anyway, for the Mac, I'm thinking of using a band of nylon taken from a neck lanyard. I will criss-cross this band through the indendation/holes where the screws are so that there's an X pattern on both sides. I have a small spring clip that I use for shoelaces that I will run the bands through to make sure they don't loosen up. The drive will be taped to the bottom X criss-crossing of bands, and will hang suspended from the sled.

The drive will still be connected to the board where the SATA connectors are, however, this will hopefully provide 1-2mm of space between the drive and the sled, reducing the amount of noise and vibration transferred.

One major concern is loosely hanging drive. I am worried that this might strain the SATA connectors, since that will be the only contact point with the system. This idea is pretty ghetto right now and I don't recommend anyone trying it, espeically with such a precision machine as the Mac Pro.

So, I will try this first with one of my sleds to see if it can provide a strong suspended support. Will post pics in due time...

great feedback. maybe try putting 1 or 2 rubber screws in along with your criss cross idea. that would definitely lessen the load on both over the long run and maybe maximize what you are trying to do..

keep us posted.

 

[Abulia]

Something to mention here. Most hard drives come with some kind of acoustical setting. Essentially your sacrifice a bit of performance for the heads to seek slower (ie. "silently"). In real-world tests the decrease in performance isn't that much. If you're serious about quiet, these acoustical settings can make all the difference.

Now the bad news: nearly all drives ship from the factory with these settings set to "off" or "high performance." To change the acoustical settings you need a 3rd party piece of software to access the drive BIOS (for lack of a better name) to turn on the acoustical settings. These programs, invariably, are Windows DOS programs.

If you're really serious about silent computing I recommend http://www.silentpcreview.com . These guys are the die-hards that go for silence over everything. You'll find a ton of knowledge and dB ratings on everything, including hard drives.

 

[MikeDTyke]

On my mac pro I have mounted an additional internal seagate barracuda 500. It is true. The vibration of this hard disk gets unfortunately amplified from the aluminium case. The disk gets also very hot. To minimize the noise I had to untighten the screws a little, but the problem is still here. Sounds like a far airplane. Really annoying. The case is fabulous but gees, how happened this guy at Apple hadn't a thought about this problem...very disappointing.
The other two disks in the box are two 500 from hitachi, very quiet and cool. My suggestion is to stay away from barracuda.
BTW if someone has a suggestion to lower the noise from my case...will be very appreciated.

I'm particularly interested in this as i'm intending to stuff 4 x 250GB drives into my MacPro when it arrives . You should try some rubber washers between the drive tray and the HD. If its as you say, this is what i'll be doing.

M.

 

[NATO]

I've noticed that there is a bit of a hum which is the tiny vibration from the hard drives being amplified through the case. The way I solved it was to keep the case latch unlocked, as it immediately stopped the extra noise I was getting.