Seagate BarraCuda Pro 6TB weird noise at startup?

[NixieFreak]

Hello friends,

 

I have recently added two BarraCuda Pro 6TB drives to my system [ https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/BDVpnn ], configured in Raid 1 via Windows 10's two-way mirror. They are used as an auxiliary drive: Windows 10 is on a 250 GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2, and my other data is on a Samsung 1TB 850 SSD.

 

Strangely enough, the HDDs make a very weird sound when the system boots up: it is not a clicky noise, it sounds more like a few 8-bitty notes from an old in-case 90"s speaker in rapid succession with increasing frequency. These sounds also occur every now and then when the drives start spinning after being idle for a few minutes. S.M.A.R.T. data is OK, and Windows Storage Spaces lists everything as OK as well. Write and read speeds are good as well.

 

What could this be? Would it be helpful it I recorded the sound so you guys could listen to it, or is this a known phenomenon?

 

Thank you for your help, and best wishes,

Jens

 

// edit: see the video here.

[ColdSteel]

since you've recently added them, can you return them? Amazon?

Also, it's good to hit new drives with a few hundred gigs of writes when you first get them. They tend to fail within that if they're gonna fail early I've noticed.

[NixieFreak]

Well, I do not have the original (cardboard) boxes anymore unfortunately. This morning I checked if the individual drives have the same behavior, and they both make that sound when starting up the system, independent from whether they are configured in Raid 1 or not: it hence seems unlikely that they are both suffering an identical issue.

 

Also, I have successfully written some 800 GB of data on the Raid 1 array to test if there is a failure, which so far there hasn't been. S.M.A.R.T. data is still OK, with the drives being listed as "Good" in CrystalDiskInfo.

[NixieFreak]

Important addition: The file system of the two individual drives is ReFS.

[NixieFreak]

I recorded a video of it, see here:

 

[seagate_surfer]

We are sorry to hear about the noise you're experiencing here. If you'd like to further check your drive just to make sure there's no issues with it, you can find our free diagnostic tool SeaTools here. One advantage of the BarraCuda Pro is a longer warranty period, so if you do feel like your drives may need to be looked into for warranty information, you can find our warranty validation page here. 

[NixieFreak]

Thank you for the message. So I assume this noise is not to be expected from a healthy drive?

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, NixieFreak said:

Thank you for the message. So I assume this noise is not to be expected from a healthy drive?

Amazon should accept a return without the box, when you start filling it out it says something like shipping it back either with original packaging or in a study box. Probably faster than rma

[NixieFreak]

Thanks! I am still somewhat confused: it is blatantly obvious that there is a mechanical issue with the drives that will surface in the future? Again, all the checks I can run (CrystalDiskInfo as well as the Seagate software mentioned above) show no problems.

[demonix00]

TBH that sounds pretty normal for hard drives starting up when a computer is powered on since all you're hearing are the motors spinning up and the read/write arm going through its self test process.

[NixieFreak]

Interesting. Just to make sure: I am talking about the sound at 0:02 into the video. Is that what you mean?

[demonix00]

20 hours ago, NixieFreak said:

Interesting. Just to make sure: I am talking about the sound at 0:02 into the video. Is that what you mean?

I'm referring to all of it as that's pretty much how my toshiba 2TB HDD acts when the system is powered on (except for the noise those two make just after power is applied, but there might be differences depending on the manufacturer or it could be an imbalance of some kind).

[NixieFreak]

Hmm I see. Since the SMART data is fine I may hold on to them for now (I have a 5 year warranty anyway with the BarraCuda Pro drives).