The Seagate 7200.7 (up to 200Gb) are quiet. The 7200.8 (250Gb+) have loud seeks.

Seagate 7200.7 200GB is NOT quiet. I have two of them in my PC. Great for PC, not for TiVo.

For quiet high capacity drive, I would consider WD and maybe Samsung.

You can greatly reduce the seek chatter on any drive by decoupling the drive from the hard drive bracket in your TiVo. I use Sorbothane that I purchased from McMaster-Carr, but the gel from aftermarket shoe insoles should work OK too. However, you won't be able to screw the drive into bracket -- you'll have to twist-tie it or something. Sorbothane is very tacky and prevents the drive from sliding.

How about this drive, it's a WD 250G drive that I could exchange at Fry's for the Seagate.

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/3620115

So are you guys saying that WD drives will be a lot quieter right out of the box, or is there acoustic management software I will need to run...

That WD drive is fine. You need to run the Hitachi Features Tool.

Ok...got it. That's what was confusing me. So the Hitachi tool is compatible with WD drives then. Looks like I'll be making a return trip to Fry's!

I would never put a Maxtor drive in a TiVo

They're cheap and fine for desktop usage but simply not engineered to stand up to the 24x7 thrashing they will get in a TiVo, IMHO. Spend a few extra $$ and save yourself the hassle of a broken TiVo and repeated RMA cycles.

so what do you think about the Maxtor QuickView hard drives that weaknees is selling for replacment HD's?.. well these handle the thrashing from a tivo or will they fail in a short time compaired to the other HD's mentioned in this thread?

--Bill

Just noticed the WD drive only has a one year warranty. Is this the standard for WD? Seems kinda short compared to the five year coverage from Seagate.

If you buy an OEM WD drive from newegg.com, ZipZoomFly.com, etc., it comes with a 3 yr warr'ty.

My western digital 300gig caviar special edition (newegg for about 120) is whisper silent.

I have to be within a foot of it and actively concentrate to hear it (and I have really good hearing).

I have no problem with Maxtors. Had them in my Series1s for years and have two of them in my Series2s. I'm staying away from the current Maxtors because they changed something (most likely just firmware) early this year that causes stuttering problem when used in the TiVo.

I don't believe in QuickView vs. non-QuickView. For the desktop drives, I don't believe that one brand is more reliable than another brand. Any drive can fail at anytime. Longer warranty does not mean higher reliability; its just a period of time they'll replace the drive without charge.

I'm getting a strange sense of deja-vu here....

Still, it's nice to know somebody agrees with me

Actually it can, sound has a distance factor. From 10' away, it's silent in my Tivo. from 1' away and actively listening, it's barely audible!

So do you think the QuickView drives that weaknees is selling will have this stuttering problem?

I have a Tivo S2 I got in 2003 and been thinking about installing a larger HD in it. I have an old PC that will only see up to a 32gig HD so I don't think I would be able to use instantcake. I was thinking about getting a 120gig HD from weaknees but with all this talk about maxtor hard drives Im wondering if I should try shopping on another site since weakness only sells maxtor quickview.

--Bill

No, the drives weaknees are selling cannot have the general stuttering problem, or they'll be out of business very quickly. The stuttering drives aren't "bad" -- they're just not compatible with TiVo for some reason.

Kewl! Thanks for the info, c3!

--Bill

Not sure where that's coming from. All the review sites I've read place the Seagate 7200.7 drives as number 1 for quiet... and the two I have in both my TiVo's say the same thing... not a sound.

http://www.seagate.com/cda/products...081,578,00.html

Idle is not the same as seek - maybe that's the source of differing opinions.

Seek noise is 2.8 when set to quiet.

Seagate 7200.7 does not support acoustic mangement, at least not the ones I have encountered. Also, in the 7200.7 family, the 200GB model has much noisier seek noise compared to the 120GB and 160GB models.

Seatools should let you set that (if I remember correctly. It's been about a year).

Just for clarification, the 7200.7 family of drives stop at 200gb and the noise ratings were the same for that drive as the 160 and 120. The 40 and 80gb drives were quieter however.

Seagate removed acoustic management sometime ago due to patent infringement.

Don't trust the datasheet specs. Try the drives themselves. I've used many 7200.7 160GB and 200GB drives.

Maybe it's the Maxtor's I remember setting the acoustics down on then. Like I said, it's been a while.

Anyway, the 160gb 7200.7's I have now are indeed quiet. I haven't seen/heard the new Samsung drives that claim 2.6 bel seeks but it sure "sounds" quiet.

If you're referring to the HA250JC then yes, they are very quiet

Not sure if they're available in the US yet though - although we've had them in Europe and the UK for months...

(Amazing, something we got before the US!! Still, I expect when you get them they'll be half the price we're paying - did you know that unleaded gas is currently $5.68 per gallon here? )