What are the Quietest hard drives for NAS

Posted on 15 Jul 2022 📧 Subscribe

What are the Quietest hard drives for NAS

I work with a lot of photo and video files, therefore I need a way to store everything. I have two 5TB Toshiba X300 drives, bought around 5 years ago, which have been rarely used in an external enclosure.

Recently I built a new desktop PC and decided to put the two drives inside for convenience. Apart from the two Toshiba drives, I have a 500GB Nvme system drive and a 1TB SATA SSD for current projects and games. This setup satisfies me for now because I have everything easily accessible, however, as I suspect you know the X300 are quite noisy drives.

To minimize the time I have to keep up with the noise I have set up the PC to turn off the drives after 15 minutes, however, this works sporadically – sometimes they will spin up every 15 min for 15 min, then go to sleep for 15 min, and so on, which drives me crazy. When the drives are spinning they are indeed too noisy and distracting, especially within a modern silent PC tower. I have been thinking to replace the two Toshiba drives with a single drive of size 12 or 16TB.

And here is my question – from your experience, which is the quietest 3.5 HDD? It can be for desktop use or for NAS – I don’t mind. It won’t be on 24/7, but sometimes I can leave the PC on for quite some time. I have been considering the option of an external NAS device, but to be honest, for now, it is too much hassle, and can’t justify the cost. Speed of the drive is not a priority as all the projects I’, working on are always moved to the SSD.

It is not always about the decibels. Sometimes data scrubbing on those drives can be really annoying. Somehow WD Red plus drives seem to be the most tolerable drives regarding the noise.

I have also added some specs to compare. I hope this helps.

 

modelserialcapacitynoisewattsrpmspeed
IronwolfST2000VN0032TB21.03.15,400180MB/s
IronwolfST2000VN0042TB21.04.35,900180MB/s
IronwolfST1000VN0081TB21.03.15,400180MB/s
IronwolfST1000VN0021TB23.03.765,900180MB/s
IronwolfST4000VN0064TB25.03.75400202MB/s
IronwolfST4000VN0084TB25.04.85,900180MB/s
IronwolfST3000VN0063TB25.03.75,400202MB/s
IronwolfST3000VN0073TB25.04.85,900180MB/s
IronwolfST8000VN0028TB26.05.35400202MB/s
IronwolfST6000VN0066TB26.05.35,400202MB/s
IronwolfST6000VN0016TB27.05.35,400190MB/s
IronwolfST12000VN000812TB30.07.37200210MB/s
IronwolfST10000VN000810TB30.07.87,200210MB/s
IronwolfST10000VN000810TB32.010.17,200210MB/s
IronwolfST8000VN0048TB32.010.17,200210MB/s
Ironwolf PROST22000NT00122TB26.07.97,200285MB/s
Ironwolf PROST20000NT00120TB26.07.77,200285MB/s
Ironwolf PROST20000NE00020TB26.07.77,200285MB/s
Ironwolf PROST18000NT00118TB26.087,200285MB/s
Ironwolf PROST18000NE00018TB26.087,200260MB/s
Ironwolf PROST16000NT00116TB26.07.67,200270MB/s
Ironwolf PROST16000NE00016TB26.07.67,200255MB/s
Ironwolf PROST14000NT00114TB26.07.67,200270MB/s
Ironwolf PROST14000NE000814TB26.07.67,200255MB/s
Ironwolf PROST12000NT00112TB26.07.87200270MB/s
Ironwolf PROST12000NE000812TB26.07.87200240MB/s
Ironwolf PROST10000NE000810TB26.07.87,200240MB/s
Ironwolf PROST10000NT00110TB30.010.17,200263MB/s
Ironwolf PROST10000NE00010TB30.010.17,200240MB/s
Ironwolf PROST8000NT0018TB30.010.17,200255MB/s
Ironwolf PROST8000NE0018TB30.010.17,200240MB/s
Ironwolf PROST6000NT0016TB30.09.37,200250MB/s
Ironwolf PROST6000NE0006TB30.09.37,200220MB/s
Ironwolf PROST4000NT0014TB30.08.77,200250MB/s
Ironwolf PROST4000NE0014TB30.08.77,200220MB/s
Ironwolf PROST2000NT0012TB30.06.77,200226MB/s
Ironwolf PROST2000NE0012TB30.06.77,200220MB/s
Red PlusWD10EFRX1TB22.03.35400150 MB/s
Red PlusWD60EFPX6TB27.04.75400180 MB/s
Red PlusWD40EFPX4TB27.04.75400180 MB/s
Red PlusWD40EFZX4TB27.04.85400175 MB/s
Red PlusWD30EFZX3TB27.04.85400175 MB/s
Red PlusWD20EFZX2TB27.04.85400175 MB/s
Red PlusWD140EFGX14TB29.06.57200210 MB/s
Red PlusWD140EFFX14TB29.06.57200210 MB/s
Red PlusWD120EFBX12TB29.06.37200196 MB/s
Red PlusWD80EFBX8TB29.08.87200210 MB/s
Red PlusWD80EFZZ8TB30.06.25640185 MB/s
Red PlusWD60EFZX6TB30.06.25640185 MB/s
Red PlusWD101EFBX10TB38.08.47200215 MB/s
Red PROWD2002FFSX2TB31.07.87,200164 MB/s
Red PROWD221KFGX22TB32.06.87,200265 MB/s
Red PROWD240KFGX24TB32.06.47,200287 MB/s
Red PROWD201KFGX20TB32.06.97,200268 MB/s
Red PROWD181KFGX18TB36.06.17,200272 MB/s
Red PROWD161KFGX16TB36.06.17,200259 MB/s
Red PROWD141KFGX14TB36.06.27,200255 MB/s
Red PROWD121KFBX12TB36.067200240 MB/s
Red PROWD101KFBX10TB36.05.77,200240 MB/s
Red PROWD8003FFBX8TB36.08.87,200235 MB/s
Red PROWD6003FFBX6TB36.07.27,200238 MB/s
Red PROWD4003FFBX4TB36.07.27,200217 MB/s
Red PROWD102KFBX10TB38.08.47,200265 MB/s

 

 

 

 

 

 

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