Western Digital WD1600AAJS: 160GB Served on Single Platter

Hard Drive Performance: Acoustics

Our acoustic test utilizes our standard test bed components but we implement AMD's Cool'n'Quiet technology and turn off the case fans to isolate as much case noise as possible during testing. Our OCZ power supply is nearly silent in these tests and our fanless ASUS 7600GS video card provides a further decrease in our case's ambient noise levels. Our drives are attached to the drive cage with rubber bushings to assist in isolating the noise of the drive without resulting harmonic changes due to the case design

Our acoustic tests are designed to measure the decibel levels while the system is at idle and also under load while running the General Hard Disk Drive Usage benchmark within PCMark 2005. We found through trail and error that this particular benchmark produces controlled readings across a wide range of applications within the benchmark. This particular benchmark utilizes 60% reads and 40% writes within the trace playback file.

The measurements are taken at a distance of 5 millimeters from the rear and front of the drive being tested in order to minimize surrounding environmental noise. We have noticed that unless we run a completely silent system in a silent room that measurements taken from 1 meter are generally not meaningful due to ambient noise levels. There are exceptions like the Raptor series of drives but overall most modern desktop drives are quieter now than the other components in the system.

The reported measurements are based on an A-weighted decibel score that measures frequencies similar to the way the human ear responds to sound. We take a total of three measurements for each test. We then subtract the high and low scores and arrive at our findings by reporting the remaining score.



Our Western Digital and Maxtor 160GB samples are overall the quietest drives we have tested to date. Our subjective opinion is that the seek requests on the Maxtor drive are a little more pronounced than the WD 160GB drive but it was difficult to notice the drive's noise levels over the power supply fan during the majority of intensive read/write requests. Our base dB(A) level in the room at time of testing was 24 dB(A).

Hard Drive Performance: Thermals

Our thermal tests utilize sensor readings via the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) capability of the drives and are reported by utilizing the Active SMART 2.42 utility. We test our drives in an enclosed case environment without the front fan operational to simulate temperatures that could conceivably be reached in a SFF or HTPC case design. We typically find the reported numbers drop anywhere from 18% to 25% on average when the front fan is operational.



We expected the WD1600AAJS to run cool based upon our test results with the other Western Digital drives. It did not disappoint us in either test as even the casing remained cool to the touch after hours of continuous testing. The same held true for our Maxtor drive although under load it was slightly warmer than the WD drive over the course of testing. Looking strictly at the acoustic and thermal benchmarks we definitely would recommend the Western Digital drive for a SFF or HTPC system if capacity is not an issue.