Anyone ever compared the noise levels, or the nature of the noise, of different 2.5" HDDs?
I was preemptively avoiding 7200rpm drives because of noise, but it hadn't occurred to me until now that I should pay attention also to the differences between 5400rpmers.
I replaced a Samsung/Seagate Spinpoint M8 500GB with a Toshiba L200 1TB, and the idle noise is more prominent. The root cause may be that the Toshiba is 2 platters rather than 1. I can't find exact specs for the old drive, but extrapolating from various specs it should be 2-4dB quieter. But I don't know, maybe the problem is the noise spectrum.
Any thoughts?