[nycbone]

My Dell netbook should arrive in the next few days and I'd like to transfer my music files from my noisy desktop to an external hard that will be used with the new machine.

I'm looking for recommendations for a very quiet drive that's ready to use out of the box (don't want to fuss with enclosures, etc.).

Portability is not a requirement. Reliability and silence are essential.

300-500GB would be sufficient.

Thanks.

 

[fishpatrol]

Even though portability isn't a requirement, 2.5" drives need the least amount of power and generate the least amount of heat, so they can operate more safely without a fan. However reliable a drive is, you still want a backup in case it dies--no drive is immune. What's your budget? 500GB portable drives can be had for $100, if that's really all the space you need.

 

[ShinyFalcon]

Yep, laptop drives (2.5") are pretty quiet. You can buy one along with a SATA->USB enclosure and have a slim and portable external drive!

I have this and this as my "external" hard drive. I wanted to use this (hard drive minus the enclosure) for one of my laptops but I no longer have one to put it to good use.

 

[Headphony]

Any external hard-drive without a fan should be pretty much dead silent. I have both a Western Digital Passport (320GB) and Lacie Little Disk (160GB). Both are very very quiet. I also have a bigger Lacie 500GB external drive with a fan and it is too noisy to keep powered on - only good for back-ups.

 

[krmathis]

For low noise you should definitely look into 2.5" ones. With the bonus that they usually don't need external power supply, but draw what they need through USB or FireWire.
...or go solid state.

 

[iriverdude]

Could always fit a NAS under the stairs, they're not silent but pretty quiet. Useful if you have more than one computer in your LAN or WAN, and have Xbox, PS3 or other media devices.

 

[Joelby]

LaCie - Hard Disk, Design by Neil Poulton - Hi-Speed USB 2.0

I have this Lacie Drive. Fanless, very quiet.

 

[AmanGeorge]

I have one of these, totally silent and pretty small

 

[twylight]

My 4tb is damn near dead silent - buffalo Link station quad - its 4 feet from me on the ground and I have silent PC rig. Its actually very impressive for its size, silence, and basic functions.

 

[matanoosh]

looking at things slightly differently - in my own setup i unintentionally detected noticeable differences in sound quality between my desktop's internal drive, a network drive (a remote lan computer accessed via file access) and a local external usb disk.
Playing back from the USB disk achieved the best results.
All I'm saying is - don't be oblivious to this issue. It MIGHT or might not have an effect on your system.

 

[aCuria]

gotta be careful with those 2.5" HDDs. They rely on air pressure to float the disks so if u drop the disk while its in operation you could damage the disk and lose all the data. The larger capacities dont really make things better. As far as 2.5" external HDDs go, reliability = fail

The better notebook manufacturers (IBM, for example) have a sensor that detects when the notebook itself is moving and locks down the internal 2.5" HDD to prevent damage. No such luck with the external ones.

IMO the best solution is to connect a NAS to your network.

 

[krmathis]

^ How do that differ from 3.5" ones?
I bet they don't handle a drop much better than the smaller 2.5" ones...

 

[classicalguy]

joelby: I have one of those LaCie hard drives by Neil Poulton (750gb), and it has a VERY loud fan. Strange that yours is quiet. I bought it because the reviews said it was quiet. But it is very loud.

 

[rock&rollfrenchfries]

I got my WD Elements 500gb external for 68 bucks at target (after christmas sale). I'm guessing no fan because its dead silent. works great. my only gripe is fat32 format. no one file can be more than 4gb.

 

[Scrith]

silentpcreview.com has a comparison of the two most recently introduced 2.5" 500GB drives (from Seagate and Western Digital).

In general, if you are interested in quiet computers or computer components, you really should check out the reviews and forums at that website...it's the best.