Gizmodo had a blurb on the new Western Digital 500GB HD which they carried from the Inqurier. Both sites gave a big meh to the what WD calles thier WhisperDrive technology, not because it doesn’t work (it’s not out yet, so no one knows if it works), but because they don’t see the need for trading a bit of performance for less sound…

Gizmodo:

Not sure how much you need such a quiet drive, but most people I know would rather have the speed.

The Inqurier:

I’ll take the speed, and put the NAS box in the closet.

Personally, I hope these drives really are quieter. Sure I could care less about the noise of the drives in the closet, but something really needs to be done about the local HD on the Motorola DVR in my bedroom, I’ve been woken up by that thing spinning up to record. Hard drives are in a lot more places then just the server closet.