I am looking for a single HDD for my HTPC that sits behind my TV in the living room. Currently I have a shucked WD Elements 12TB in there. Looking to replace it with an 18-20TB HDD.
The noise of my 12TB is largely unnoticeable and I am happy with it. Does anyone know if the 18-20TB Exos, Ironwolf Pro, WD Red Pro, or WD HC550/HC560 drives would be as quiet?
I have a 14 TB Exo and it sounds like a muffled popcorn bag cooking in my Fractal R5, which has decent sound dampening.
if noise is your primary concern, don’t pick exos or the WD DC HC series, they’re data center/enterprise hard drives and those guys don’t care about noisy drives or heat and they use crazy loud fans so you wouldn’t hear the drives anyway.
your 12tb is 5400rpm, when you go bigger they start using 7200rpm drives and they’re typically louder but not always. 5400rpm is usually quieter and cooler running.