Loud Hard Drive

[powerplayer75]

So I have a 1TB WD Caviar Blue 7200RPM drive and I feel like it is unusually loud considering that it is new. On full load, in a silent room, I very well hear it from 2 meters away and it makes a grinding noise. 

 

Also, when it turns on, it makes a very loud spin up sound. I tested it with SMART and everything seems fine but I just want to know if this is how loud it normally should be?

[Ryujin2003]

6 minutes ago, powerplayer75 said:

So I have a 1TB WD Caviar Blue 7200RPM drive and I feel like it is unusually loud considering that it is new. On full load, in a silent room, I very well hear it from 2 meters away and it makes a grinding noise. 

 

Also, when it turns on, it makes a very loud spin up sound. I tested it with SMART and everything seems fine but I just want to know if this is how loud it normally should be?

Yes, on load in a silent room you're going to hear the drive spinning. And it's going to make a spin up drive when it hits from zero to fast in a second.

 

Seems normal to me. Spinning sounds are fine. Audible clicking and scratching is when I'd worry.

[ProjectBox153]

Some drives are very loud when spinning up and under full load. If you're worried about it, just replace it. As long as it checks out fine in something like CrystalDiskInfo, you should be good. 

[powerplayer75]

What about if I can still hear small grinding even at 10%?

[ProjectBox153]

23 minutes ago, powerplayer75 said:

What about if I can still hear small grinding even at 10%?

Quote me so I'll see your response sooner, please. It depends on your perception of "grinding". It is bad sounding?

[powerplayer75]

Just now, Jamiec1130 said:

Quote me so I'll see your response sooner, please. It depends on your perception of "grinding". It is bad sounding?

Sorry, I think It would be best if I got an audio file so let me try that.

[ProjectBox153]

1 minute ago, powerplayer75 said:

Sorry, I think It would be best if I got an audio file so let me try that.

Ok, do that. 

[powerplayer75]

20 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

Ok, do that. 

Ok this is the sound and at the end thats what it sounds like when it shuts off. You'd probably have to turn up the volume though.

Voice_170527_4.3gp

[GuruMeditationError]

7 hours ago, powerplayer75 said:

Ok this is the sound and at the end thats what it sounds like when it shuts off. You'd probably have to turn up the volume though.

Voice_170527_4.3gp

Sounds okay to me, although you might want to look at how it's mounted in your case? If you can get something to dampen the vibrations it might help matters. 

[powerplayer75]

3 hours ago, GuruMeditationError said:

Sounds okay to me, although you might want to look at how it's mounted in your case? If you can get something to dampen the vibrations it might help matters. 

Ok. Its been the loudest part in my whole system which is why it bothers me so much. Fan whirring sounds so much better than hard drive grinding,

 

[GuruMeditationError]

12 hours ago, powerplayer75 said:

Ok. Its been the loudest part in my whole system which is why it bothers me so much. Fan whirring sounds so much better than hard drive grinding,

 

The thing is, with this kind of thing it's often subjective. It sounds like it's okay from the file but that might not really show how loud it is or if it's louder than it should be? (e.g. if it's making all of the right kinds of noises for an average HDD but at the wrong decibel level for the specific drive, it could mean that there's a problem.)

I'm basing the assumption that it's okay on the chirp from the drive (which spiked my audio), unless that chirp coming from the drive (not from the sound-file, from the drive) is ear-piercing where you are, then I'd say the drive is okay...it just might be that it happens to be louder than you're used to.

How many HDD's have you had in the past? Also, what fans do you have in the system, how many, and are they being voltage or PWM controlled (or in some other way slowed down from their maximum speed) ?

[powerplayer75]

10 hours ago, GuruMeditationError said:

The thing is, with this kind of thing it's often subjective. It sounds like it's okay from the file but that might not really show how loud it is or if it's louder than it should be? (e.g. if it's making all of the right kinds of noises for an average HDD but at the wrong decibel level for the specific drive, it could mean that there's a problem.)

I'm basing the assumption that it's okay on the chirp from the drive (which spiked my audio), unless that chirp coming from the drive (not from the sound-file, from the drive) is ear-piercing where you are, then I'd say the drive is okay...it just might be that it happens to be louder than you're used to.

How many HDD's have you had in the past? Also, what fans do you have in the system, how many, and are they being voltage or PWM controlled (or in some other way slowed down from their maximum speed) ?

1

I have had another WD and Hitachi drives in the past. They sounded slightly better than this but the Hitachi drive is about 8 years old so the new WD's shouldnt sound like that. But I have fully determined that the only noise from my pc is from the power supply and hard drive because I temporarily turned off every other fan (including GPU fans) and there was no difference in noise level. Fan noise from PSU and grinding from HDD.

[smashman2000]

Upgrading to an SSD will make your case a lot quieter.

[GuruMeditationError]

11 hours ago, powerplayer75 said:

I have had another WD and Hitachi drives in the past. They sounded slightly better than this but the Hitachi drive is about 8 years old so the new WD's shouldnt sound like that. But I have fully determined that the only noise from my pc is from the power supply and hard drive because I temporarily turned off every other fan (including GPU fans) and there was no difference in noise level. Fan noise from PSU and grinding from HDD.

If you're that concerned about it then maybe you should return it? if it's still under warranty?

Also, as smashman2000 says upgrading to an SSD will make your system quieter, and will help it feel faster and smoother, but people often also use HDD's for storage space (because SSD's are still quite expensive), so it might not solve the problem unless you fit a new HDD anyway?

 

[powerplayer75]

7 hours ago, GuruMeditationError said:

If you're that concerned about it then maybe you should return it? if it's still under warranty?

Also, as smashman2000 says upgrading to an SSD will make your system quieter, and will help it feel faster and smoother, but people often also use HDD's for storage space (because SSD's are still quite expensive), so it might not solve the problem unless you fit a new HDD anyway?

 

Thats what I plan to do. Since I have other drives, I will temporarily clone my drive to another one, then I will RMA the drive to WD and then reclone it and see if the noise changes and if the spinup/spindown sounds go away. If it does then great, but if it doesnt then I guess Ill just have to live with it.