yeah, guys, i'm not by any means ignorant to quiet pc construction. been researching and building for awhile. setting apart electrical noise from non-moving components (which is just something you must deal with), the only things that make noise are what is moving. of course that's:
hdd
fans: case, psu, cpu
and that's it. as far as samsung VS seagate, perhaps it's not such a big difference, but i'll tell you: i was really shocked how loud my seagate was while seeking in my FANLESS external enclosure. so much so that i realized that i'd have to put the enclosure somewhere out of earshot.
rubber washers all around help a lot. my antec case has these nice big rubber plugs that the hdd is held with (special screws, don't tighten all the way, less vibration noise), and putting a nice stack of soft rubber washers between your case fans and case (and to a lesser extent cpu fan and heatsink if possible). also, undervolting all one's fans is key. i have a sunbeam rheobus that i was planning to use for a gaming pc, as i could crank the voltage up when gaming, down when listening to music. however, if one does does not need to adjust fan speed, then zalman fanmates, or even cheaper, 5v-modding one's fans will do the trick. i hear what y'all are saying about "silence one, hear another." i removed my case fan for awhile, and found that the cpu fan suddenly became annoyingly audible. the noise with the case fan in place was not neccessarily less DB, but rather it wasn't a "whine", more of an acceptable "whir".
in the end i think i've learned a few things, and they go like this:
1. quieting a pc is NOT DIFFICULT if you take that line from the get-go. it'll cost you to retrofit for a different hdd or chipset fan if need be. for basic pc's, things are quite simple. you needen't worry about chipset fans, gpu fans, 10000rpm hdd's, or high-wattage psu's. but a gaming pc can easily be made reasonably quiet with a fan controller like the rheobus: you simply need to crank things up and down depending on what you're doing. speedfan solves all problems by letting you know how close to the "unsafe temperature" line you're getting. my pc generally runs at about 50c mobo and cpu, and about 40c hdd, which are perfectly acceptable temps for safe usage. i think people are overmuch worried about heat; i think these components can take a lot more than we give credit for. i wouldn't be opposed to having a pc that run up to 70c, though i'd generally avoid it; certainly for the hdd.
2. it's not worth spending your life savings on. basic quiet components are perfectly cheap. you don't need the best of everything. a few good desiciions and you'll be fine. at some point as your collection becomes larger you might start considering a dedicated music server
3. where you put the damn box can be MUCH MORE important than your components. just putting it under my desk makes a world of difference, to the point we all want where i cannot hear it even when everything else is quiet and i'm trying to hear it. i'm considering building a sort of enclosure, closed on top, sides, front (with holes for optical drive, power switch, and usb ports), and open on the back (but extending back a ways)
anyway, all in good fun. i might change a few things, but then again...
one thing i've learned is that everyone has a different level of ambient noise in their home, and this makes all the difference in the world. my place is reasonably quiet, but there's certainly audible noise from the fridge, clocks, etc. in my listening spot
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