what harddrives are best for HTPC?

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AP2

[H]ard|Gawd
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at the current moment i have a raptor-x 150 for the OS and its bit to loud for a HTPC. what do you guys recommend for a fast harddrive where the OS will be installed on?

i also moved my 2 x 1tb drives to a server and was wondering what are some good drives to put inside the HTPC case for recording shows.

thanks
 
I would suggest the Seagate 7200.11 series. Or the Western Digital Green series(I'm not sure if they're called that, but they sure are quiet, and consume less power).
 
You don't need a fast hard drive at all for a HTPC. Hell a slow 5400rpm drive would work fine. That's what you'll find in DVR's from tivo, satellite or cable companies.

That said, I like seagate drives.
 
There is no reason to get a 5400rpm hard drive when 7200rpm hard drives are pretty much the standard for basic drives. Can you even purchase a new drive that is 5400rpm that isn't for a laptop?
 
Seagate has a good warranty and an easy RMA process in case of a problem. Samsung spinpoints are some of the quiter ones lately. The only thing to look for from a hard drive in an HTPC setup is noise, warranty, and capacity.
 
dgafin said:
There is no reason to get a 5400rpm hard drive when 7200rpm hard drives are pretty much the standard for basic drives. Can you even purchase a new drive that is 5400rpm that isn't for a laptop?
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he never told him to buy a 5400. He was making a statement that you COULD use one.

And as he said.
HTPC is no way uses a hard drive enough to need anything over a standard run of the mill drive.

The new Green drives are nice from what i understand.
 
if you are going to use a raid config, you need to take that into account though. some of those green drives are supposed to be not ideal for raid.
 
Western Digital Caviar GP are the silent choice right now. They are available in sizes 500gb-1tb. They are 5400rpm drives, which is great for noise and power consumption.
 
I've used a Samsung SpinPoint in my HTPC and it was very quiet. I do not know how it compares with the WD Caviar GP though.

BTW. If you're interested, my Samsung SpinPoint is up for sell. ;)
 
I have 6x WD se16's in my htpc, it's on 24/7 and is within 3 ft of my bed, very very quiet hard drives.
 
Look for a 80 or 160GB WD or Seagate drive that only has 1 platter.
These single platter drives are Great for OS only disks, they are cheap, and relatively quiet.
I use them all in my builds that are non gaming. Gaming, I use Raptors in Raid.
 
WD just came out w/their 320GB single platter drives.

I still believe for a HTPC, maximum storage is the priority & a 1TB drive (ANY speed / RPM rating) is most desirable.

1 SATA drive holding the largest quantity of data is definitely the way to go... most any other drive (except for a Raptor) would probably work nicely just the same, for most user's needs
 
Western Digital has a new green line of hard drives. Best buy has the 500GB on sale for $119 retail this week. It only speeds up to 7200 rpm when needed. It generally runs at the slower 5400rpm in order to save electricity, increase lifespan, reduce heat, and it's an extremely quiet drive as well. A few of these would be ideal for an HTPC in a raid setup. Lots of storage, low cost, quiet drives as well. I just replaced a 250GB western digital in my HTPC with a 500GB seagate. I wouldn't call the seagate "noisy" per se, but when the hard drive is working, and you stick your ear close to the outside of my computer case, you can actually hear it click if you listen carefully. Not that you'd notice from the couch, but the western digital was sooooo silent, that even with the case open and your ear right next to it, you still couldn't hear it working!! Amazing drive for silence. The seagate's a little faster and a lot bigger, but it's not silent like my western digital, nor the new green western digital drives. They make them all the way up to a terabyte, i think.
 
Silent PC Review is the site to go to for these ratings.

But in a nutshell, the best choices are Western Digital Caviar GP-editions (500gb-1tb) and Western Digital SE16 500gb. In that order. A laptop drive is also a good option for an os drive.

edit:
The Western Digital GP is marked as 5400-7200 rpm, but that is just clever marketing talk for 5400rpm. Which is great, the density of the platter makes up for the slower rpm.
 
AP2 said:
at the current moment i have a raptor-x 150 for the OS and its bit to loud for a HTPC. what do you guys recommend for a fast harddrive where the OS will be installed on?

i also moved my 2 x 1tb drives to a server and was wondering what are some good drives to put inside the HTPC case for recording shows.

thanks
Click to expand...

If you can record to your server (I haven't been able to get this to work yet, WHS and Vista Premium w/ Media Center); I would go the suggested 80GB drive route.

If you'll be recording at all to the HTPC (even if you move content to the server later), I would go with nothing short of a 500GB drive.

I am not a fan of multiple HDDs / RAID / etc in an HTPC and your setup follows that mindset.
 
As mentioned before the GP drives SHOULD NOT BE RAIDED! The variable speed would not allow for proper writes to the drives for parity.

I have a GP 1TB, it's ok but slow. And I do not use it for PVRing.
If you do PVR and going with a single drive the WD500AAKS is awesome.
I have them in RAID on a PCI-E x1 controller for maximum speed as I noticed onboard RAID would not handle my 2 HD streams + 2 SD streams at the same time.
 
GP drives are NOT variable speed. Their rotation speed is static.
 
GP drives are NOT variable speed. Their rotation speed is static.
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Correct ... I'm surprised so many people think otherwise. Never thought WD's little spec-sheet (marketing) pamphlet ever would have been so effective!
 
DrStrangeBrew said:
Correct ... I'm surprised so many people think otherwise. Never thought WD's little spec-sheet (marketing) pamphlet ever would have been so effective!
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Actually I don't know WHERE people are getting the 5400 rpm crap from. I couldn't find it ANYWHERE on their marketing for the new green drives! Here's what it really says:

"IntelliSeek - Calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration."

It doesn't imply that the drive ever changes speed, it just lowers seek speed to save power consumption. The drives are very quiet, indeed, and save an average of 4-5 watts over competitors' drives. I just heard from one of my geeky friends that they can run at 5400 rpm when the strain of the drive is lower, automatically. Where would he have gotten this info from???
 
Western Digital Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500GB 5400 to 7200 RPM SATA-300 Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N=2010150014+1035530282&name=5400+to+7200+RPM

IntelliPower - A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance. Additionally, GreenPower drives consume less current during startup allowing lower peak loads on systems as they are booted.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=338&language=en

IntelliPower™ — A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance. For each GreenPower™ drive model, WD may use a different, invariable RPM.
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2879-701229.pdf

Either way they are the quietest and greenest drives available and would be perfect for HTPC use. :D
 
Yep. They are great, that's why I mentioned them. WD really makes good internal drives for the most part, and these new green ones sure are quiet. Even my old Western Digitals are quieter than my new (and old) Seagate drives.
 
jarrod10 said:
I would get a seagate because they are quite quiet.
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Depends on the Seagate. Seagate makes great drives, but every single Western Digital I've ever had is quieter than every single Seagate drive I've ever had. That means that the loudest Western digital I run is STILL quieter than the quietest Seagate I've ever used. I've never ran the raptors before. I would imagine they're a tad noisier.
 
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