Hitachi 7k100 owners: how loud is it?

I'm planning on building a laptop from a barebones Z96Js and I have pretty much gotten everything figured out except the hard drive. I was thinking of getting a 100GB SATA 7K100 but I'm seeing a lot of reviews saying it is "loud". I was wondering if anyone has one of these, or has one in a Z/S96j and could let me know how much noise it produces. Personally I don't mind a constant whurr one bit but the loud clunky seeking bothers me. How does it sound?

 

I have one of them in my Sager NP5320, and I can barely hear it. Only if I listen for the noise, can I hear it. I have never found the drive to be bothersome or intrusive.

We have a review of that drive on this site as a matter of fact:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2840
And a comparison vs. the Seagate 100GB 7200RPM:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2884

 

My thinkpad t60 came with this drive. It is fairly loud. You can hear a lot of "clicking" most of the time, even when not much is going on. If I were you, I would highly recommend staying away from this drive, and spending a little more for the Seagate (it comes with a 5 year warranty, which is pretty much worth the increased price anyways).

 

eek, maybe it depends on the laptop that it is going in, or maybe even the individual drive? Haha it seems I'm just as torn as I was before, one thing is for sure though the Seagate is like $40 more expensive (if I manage to find a SATA one) Hopefully someone with a S96J can compare from experience, the review and input was nice though, thanks Chaz and thanks for your opinion too mbrockma.

 

On pricegrabber it is only $20 more for seagate (145 vs 125), both sata

 

Haha whoops, I just discovered that my self too, thanks for pointing that out though, maybe I should quit using froogle.

 

I had the 80GB 7k100 which I found to be noisy, but the 7k60 I had in my T42 was very quiet. I have the Seagate now. It is very cool and quiet.

 

Yeah, I think i might just be better off going with Seagate. It seems for all practical purposes that Seagate is about the same speed as Hitachi but not as loud or power hungry. I have heard that I could change the Acoustic setting on the Hitachi it though to make it quieter, hmmm decisions decisions...

 

Id get the Hitachi since it is cheaper and it is a bit faster. The noise level is pretty small. Its audible but no where near annoying.

 

I would say it is not loud enough to warrant getting a new drive to replace the one that came in my t60, but if I were to buy a new one, I would definately pay more for a quieter seagate.

 

Hmmm, anyone seen any benchmarks of the Hitachi with acoustic management on? I think I'm gonna go on my parents computer for a little bit (which is loud as hell) and remember what its like, I think I might be swinging towards Seagate now however.

 

how do you turn on acoustic management?

 

just found this... http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=92&part=full&page=17

 

I found the drive to have a lot of clicking noises, but in a V6j, that isn't surprising because the computer is very thing and has an aluminum chassis, so noise would transmit very well.

 

I was talking to someone and they said that you can do it with notebook hardware control, I know Hitachi has some utility for it as well, (however I'm not sure if its compatible with SATA drives?) hmmm.... Now I'm thinking maybe go with Hitachi and use the acoustic management (if I can with SATA) cause it still beats Seagate even with acoustic management on.

 

I have a 7K100 60GB in a HGL30 and it seems pretty quiet to me. I've never really noticed any sound coming from it.

 

Yes, if you use NHC with the Hitachi, you can change the acoustic settings and it's barely audible. I have it set on "Quiet (128)" and it is still very fast. Just don't enable spin down whatever you do, it is bad for both your HDD lifespan and performance at the cost of very little power saved.