Good HDs for Drobo to keep fans @ min?

[Chupa Chupa]

I've had a Drobo V2 (USB + FW800) for about year and a half. The fan has always roared. I contacted support while it was on warranty & they said it was normal. I just sucked it up after that.

I've read people here and elsewhere saying their Drobos are dead quiet though. I'm jealous b/c I can't take the noise anymore. I have 4 drives in my Drobo: a 1TB Seagate 7200.11 that is moderate warm, a 1TB Hitachi Deskstar that is blazing hot, and two 500GB Seagates that are stone cold. So I'm putting the blame on the Seagate and Deskstar.

Here is the rub: my Drobo is solely a backup device. During the day it is 100% idle. So I have no idea why the drives are even spinning. I'd think they would be sleeping.

Anyway, are there some cooler running 1TB or greater drives that I can replace these with? Ones that will not activate the fan every 5 min?

 

[Hellhammer]

Western Digital's Caviar Green series is probable the best buy for you. They are 5400rpm but their speeds match FW800 speeds so you won't see any difference. AFAIK, they are the quietest HDs available and very power efficient plus price is great too

 

[kaltsasa]

Western Digital's Caviar Green series is probable the best buy for you. They are 5400rpm but their speeds match FW800 speeds so you won't see any difference. AFAIK, they are the quietest HDs available and very power efficient plus price is great too

I used the WD Green's (2 750s and 2 1TBs) and it's quiet as a mouse. I've never had any issue with the speeds editing photos, iMovies etc, I'm sure a power user might notice the difference but it's fine for me. They work great, and are priced well.

 

[Hellhammer]

I used the WD Green's (2 750s and 2 1TBs) and it's quiet as a mouse. I've never had any issue with the speeds editing photos, iMovies etc, I'm sure a power user might notice the difference but it's fine for me. They work great, and are priced well.

If you aren't using them internally (so either USB or FireWire), it doesn't matter do you have Caviar Green or Black as the interface itself is limiting the speed. FW800 maxes out at 100MB/s while in real life you get bandwidth of ~80MB/s. Caviar Greens top out at ~78MB/s if I recall correctly. Blacks top out at ~110MB/s but it doesn't matter as the interface is limiting the speed thus you would just waste money by getting Blacks which are noisy and hot. Only benefit from other than Green would be if you have eSATA or SATA available but anyway, for storage the quietness and power efficiency matter more than the speed IMO thus Greens are the best drives for storage i.e. non-boot drives

Just to clarify some more, should have included this in my first post already

 

[pastrychef]

I have two Drobos. In one of them, I have four Seagate 2TB 5900RPM drives. In the other, I have two Seagate 2TB 5900RPM drives and two Hitachi 2TB 7200RPM drives. The Seagates run extremely cool. The Hitachis are noticably warmer, but not hot (in my opinion). Both run 24/7 and are silent.

My first Drobo (the one that has four Seagate 2TB drives in it now), started with four Seagate 1TB 7200RPM drives and I upgraded to four Seagate 1.5TB 7200RPMs before ending up with what I have now. It has always been silent so I don't know if simply changing the drives will help your problem with it being noisy...