How noisy is a WD Red 8tb NAS drive supposed to be?

kstr · September 19, 2019

Hey gang!

I need a sanity check here.

I've recently bought a Synology ds918+ for video graphics work, storing workfiles, image sequences, and synchronizing project files with a remote office.

It's my first NAS, and it's working great.

I decided on buying two WD Red 8TB NAS drives, running SHR setup.

From the first moments of them spinning up and doing HDD stuff, they both made a lot of noise. More noise than I've heard from my 4+ old HDDs in my desktop.

It sounded like the old computer lab at my grade school from the late 90s, or a water boiler.

I've attached a recording of the sounds the drives made. The audio is boosted a bit, as the phone microphone isn't the best, but it's audible in the office over normal music listening volume. I can provoke the sounds by running a quick S.M.A.R.T scan.

I assumed they were damaged in shipping, so I got an additional pair of drives. They also make the same noise.

So either I get unlucky with 4 drives, or is some noise expected with large capacity HDDs?

The drives were shipped enclosed in two foam "C-brackets" for cushions, taped stuck to the cardboard box, if that makes a difference.

The local store only offers Seagate Ironwolf 8tb drives, should I just get two of those instead to ensure no shipping damage is caused?

Thanks!

-K