What is the best drive to use to upgrade drive in the new DT Tivo?

[TalShyar]

Hi,
Anyone have any opinions on the best drive to use to upgrade drive in the new DT Tivo? In the past, I have used Maxtors but the new ones come with just 1 year warranty. I would like to use Seagate drives since they come with 5 year warranty?

Please feel free to weigh in. Thanks

[supasta]

Ok, here goes.

I got a 500GB Seagate for my DT and it sounded like a freight train. FAR too loud to have even in the house, let alone in my living room. It was literally too loud to hear the TV over. I had it in my DT for a week, yanked it, returned it to BestBuy and then purchased a 320GB Western Digital HDD from New Egg.

Now, to clarify, WD HDDs from the retail outlete will only get you a 1 year warranty - the one I got from New Egg is an OEM drive with a 3 year warranty.

The drive was quiet, but then I ran Hitachi Drive Tools and activated the AAM setting. You can hear a pin drop next to the TiVo now. Very happy with the change.

Now, some people swear by nothing but Seagate drive, and it is possible that I got a bad apple, but.....

[SteelersFan]

I put a Seagate 120gb drive in almost a year ago. No problems so far and its very quiet. I bought a 400 gb Seagate drive from Outpost.com for $110 + tax + free shipping and am awaiting its arrival. I'm not too worried if this one's a bit nosy as it will go into the office unit and will be watched mostly while working out.
Also, I like the fact that they have a better warranty and that they have come highly recommended from many on this forum.

[wscannell]

I have 300 GB Seagates. They do have a bit more seek noise than the drives that I replaced. However, they are in the den and it does not bother anyone. They might be a little loud for a bedroom application though.

[bnm81002]

which Seagates drives were lower in noise again, 7200.7 or 7200.8 or 7200.9?
also would the buffer affect the noise as well, 8MB or 16MB?

[rainwater]

Lately, I have been using the WD OEM drives from NewEgg. They come with a 3 year warranty and support acoustic management so you can lower the noise with the Hitachi Feature Tool.

[Double-Tap]

which Seagates drives were lower in noise again, 7200.7 or 7200.8 or 7200.9?
also would the buffer affect the noise as well, 8MB or 16MB?

Different sizes/models of hard drives will have different acoustic measurements (number of platters, heads, etc.) You can usually find acoustic information in the drive's technical specifications at the manufacturer's web site. Keep in mind this is all subjective. What bothers one guy wouldn't faze another.

The hard disk buffer or cache is an area of built-in solid-state memory, and is much faster than accessing data on the physical hard disk. New hybrid drives will have even larger buffers than current drives and that means faster and less disk access, and quieter drives as well. Technically, the larger the buffer the less you'd hear it clicking due to reduced physical access. However, until buffer sizes increase substantially as explained with the hybrid drives, the small difference probably wouldn't be noticeable to most people.