[ale] Quiet spinning drives?

[Jim Kinney]

On Tue, 2017-02-14 at 14:53 -0800, Alex Carver wrote:
> I do have backups of all the data and some configuration files
> (automatic rsync every night) but it's annoying to restore.  One of
> my
> Pis runs a spinning disk, too, and that one will likely get an
> update,
> too, since it's currently running an old 20 GB IDE laptop drive (I'll
> switch to a pocket sized SATA drive over USB).  That one makes some
> bearing noise since it's fairly old (having been in three laptops) so
> two 2.5" drives is probably not such a bad option.  Only need an
> enclosure for one and a cable for the other.
> 
> At some point I'll get a big NAS box and dump all the backups on
> that.
> 
> Now if only there was a way to image the whole machine while it was
> still running. :)
> 

Force it to suspend, boot with a live disk, rsync EVERYTHING except
/proc elsewhere. In /var/<somewhere> will be the hibernate file(s) with
the runing memory dump.
> 
On 2017-02-14 14:41, DJ-Pfulio wrote:
> 
Just to be clear, I'm not a big user of SSDs.  Only have 1 system with
an SSD.  R-pi uses a microSD card.  All the others are on spinning rust.
 Have some 320G seagates that will probably work longer than I'm alive,
but all the larger disks are non-seagates (all those seagates have died
prematurely).  I prefer Hitachi over all other brands (2TB and 4TB
models), but have Toshiba and WD disks spinning too.

Regardless, I'm religious about backups so any failure is just a slight
inconvenience. Nothing more.

However, if I need 128G or less in storage - sometimes you just don't
want more for a number of reasons, then SSDs are cheap enough.

If you want more storage than that, getting almost any 2.5in HDD will be
fine. None are really THAT noisy.  Picked up a 750G for a laptop and
don't hear it.

On 02/14/2017 05:24 PM, Alex Carver wrote:

Hah , yeah, the fans are already pretty loud which is why it's sitting
in a closet instead of out in the open. :)  But the thing that comes
through the most is the whine of the drives.  They're both quite old.  I
think I bought them in the very late 90's, but I'm fairly certain
they're at least 15 years old so the bearings are probably a bit wobbly.
 I don't think mounts are going to help me in this situation.  Right now
both drives are suspended inside the case with long zip ties.

I may just give in and go SSD anyway but I had hoped there was some
quiet-ish spinning drives around.  reviews never seem to comment on
noise other than "quiet" without really being specific.

On 2017-02-14 13:29, Jim Kinney wrote:

If you turn up the fan speed you won't hear the drive(s). If you run the fan 
long enough like that, you won't notice the drives when the fan runs at normal 
speeds

What? Speak louder!

:-)

Acer had a case with drive mounts to absorb the sound. The case was rather 
dense, plastic over steel. It made for a very quiet system. All the fans were 
large - 6" and up. I think I saw it originally at Frys. The mounting was 
basically a longer screw with a soft silicon grommet that prevented direct metal 
to metal contact between the screw head and the case.

On Tue, 2017-02-14 at 10:50 -0800, Alex Carver wrote:

Anyone have a suggestion for a quiet spinning drive?  I've got a few
that need to be replaced but due to a variety of factors an SSD may not
be the best option.  I could potentially be swayed.

The machine is one of my home servers.  It's always running but the disk
I/O isn't huge.  It's not a fast machine so I don't need an ultra fast
drive.  I'll have to add a SATA PCI card to it to support new drives anyway.

I was thinking one of the WD Blue 5400 RPM drives as they seem to be
fairly quiet from reviews.  I also considered using a smaller 2.5" drive
instead of the 3.5" drive.

Capacity doesn't need to be huge, 500GB-1TB is more than sufficient for
this machine (it currently has two 8 GB drives).  It's primary functions
are data collection (writing sensor data to various databases, currenly
using only 1 GB) and log storage from various devices (logs are rotated
so they don't consume large amounts of storage, about 100 MB).
Secondary function is serving that data either via web page or direct
database access.  The web pages use only about 1 GB as well.




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-- 
James P. Kinney III

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you
gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his
own tail. It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain

http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
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