| Basics of a quiet pc - Hard Drives |
Hard drives have tradionally been a quite noisy component of computers, both with the noise of the disk spinning and the clicking or chattering of the heads moving across the platters.
With the demand for faster hard drives, the spin speed of drives has increased, and so has the noise. But manufacturers have recently realised that users want peace and quiet, and have started to produce disks that cater for this.
Hard disk manufacturers are moving away from ball bearings in the hard drives to fluid dynamic bearings, which are vastly quieter. The noise of modern hard drives can be as low as a mere 21db, which is almost inaudible from 1m away. Some manufacturers are also providing utilities to tune the hard drive for either maximum performance or maximum quietness. Setting to maximum quietness slows down the heads as they move across th platters and reduces the clicking or chattering noise. These advances in hard disk technology have done away with the need to encase hard drives in sound damping enclosures, that usually resulted in the drive overheating.
When buying a hard drive now, always check on the manufacturers web site for the noise levels of the drive. Anything below 30db is quiet and below 25db is very quiet indeed.
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