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Originally Posted by Dean
I've spent little time researching SATA 'cause nothing I have uses them. My WD comment was based on the StoageReview.com performance numbers I looked at yesterday and a couple articles i scanned on them. The WD Raptor SATA drives are at the top of the performance charts in almost every test, beating out many of the High end SCSI drives.
And just for you Scott, they do a idle noise test... The Baracudas Did well except the 160Gb SCSI. Check out the Idle noise comparison... They also did temp tests which would impact how fast your fans have to run.
You mentioned your fans are throttled... Is that manual, or heat controlled?
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WD might have started building true SATA drives... at least I would hope they are by now! I'm sure they're fast, but I'm still suspect on quality, as I've seen nothing but issues on WD drives made in the last year or two... my roommate's had 4... He bought 2 identicle drives... one failed, and was replaced by a 2nd under warranty that failed, followed by a
third. Around then the 2nd drive of the original purchase also failed. He just tossed 'em and said "fuck the warranty"... it wasn't worth all his time and money for shipping... just easier to pick up a pair of Maxtors.
And I think that 160GB SCSI is like a 4 platter drive! No wonder it's loud!
Regarding fan control: both Antec cases have a heat monitor in the PSU. The case fans are automatically throttled by the special fan only power connectors according to temp in the PSU and power load. So if your stepping processor kick up, and the video card starts drawing a butt load of power for 3D gaming, then the case fans throttle up. I've installed two 180mm fans in the cases, but ended up disconnecting one, since it wasn't needed... the single, giant exhaust fan doesn't even need to kick up to high speeds! Also, the PSU's own fan is throttled by this same mechanism.
On my newer PC, the MB has auto-throttled fan headers, so my cooling tower (heat-pipe w/ a 100mm IIRC fan) is throttled by the MB. On my older PC, the MB doesn't control the CPU fan, so I have a manual throttle controller installed. Since that system is a file server, I can run the rpms pretty low... basically I run the fan as fast as possible w/o any whine.
In both systems, I removed the heatsink/fans from my video cards (which are some of the noisiest fans in the system because they're small and fast). I installed a larger fan unit that takes up the next slot over from the video card and vents out the back of the case. The fans are two speed units that throttle based on temperature.
So, that's a total of 4 fans in each case... 1 100mm PSU fan, 1 180mm Case fan, 1 CPU cooler, 1 video card cooler. All throttleable via some method.
/geek