Question Annoying PWL "clicking" sounds in WD drives - Ultrastars too...?!

[thomas81br]

Hello

So im in a search for a new HDD and almost bought WD Gold 10 TB (WD Gold DC HA750 10TB, WD102KRYZ ).

But then i found out reading the internet that there appears to be this "problem" (feature ) of rather annoying (loud?) "clicking" sound from the HDD, every 5 seconds or whatever...
Its a feature called "Preventative Wear Leveling" (PWL)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQRq3nJmNSk

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksgOgrbRPOo



My questions are:

1) Does the "WD Ultrastar 10TB HC330" do it too...? ( i know they are SUPPOSED to be somewhat "same" drives, but they probably arent)... do they do it too...?

2) Do almost all 8-10TB + WD newer HDDs do it...?

3) Is it really that annoying and loud...? I read that you can even feel the "click" if you have a hand on top of your PC case (or just probably anywhere on the PC case - uff... If true, then im not sure if its that "healthy" for other HDDs in close proximity...)... So is it really that annoying and loud...? Can you "feel it"? (wont it impact the life of other HDDs in my pc case?)

4) I read it does it only when the HDD is iddle, when its not iddle (and the drive is "doing something-reading/writting"), it doesnt do it...? (correct?)

5) Can you turn it off...?

6) Drives of other brands (Toshiba for example "Toshiba 16TB, MG08ACA16TE" ) dont have this "feature" (noise)?

 

[Leptir]

I've been using hard drives since the mid-80s (or thereabout), a clicking noise was always a sign of a dying/dead drive. Strange new world we live in when a clicking noise is suddenly a feature.

If you think it's gonna bother you, just get a different brand/model hard drive. WD has been fraudulently sneaking SMR into their drives so, personally, I wouldn't buy a drive from these crooks.

 

[USAFRet]

But then i found out reading the internet that there appears to be this "problem" (feature ) of rather annoying (loud?) "clicking" sound from the HDD, every 5 seconds or whatever...

You can find 'complaints' about every single hard drive make and model.

 

[fzabkar]

It's called "Pre-emptive Wear Leveling". Remember IBM's DeathStar? These drives failed in droves due to head crashes. IBM's firmware fix was designed to prevent the heads from flying over the same track for too long.

Pre-emptive Wear Leveling (PWL)

This WD feature provides a solution for protecting the recording media against mechanical wear. In cases where the drive is so busy with incoming commands that it is forced to stay in a same cylinder position for a long time, the PWL control engine initiates forced seeks so that disk lubricant maintains an even distribution and does not become depleted. This feature ensures reliability for applications that perform a high incidence of read/write operations at the same physical location on the disk.

I would be happy to know that my drive was doing this. For the same reason, I like to hear the computer fans working.

BTW, the WD Gold is probably a rebadged HGST model.

 

[thomas81br]

It's called "Pre-emptive Wear Leveling". Remember IBM's DeathStar? These drives failed in droves due to head crashes. IBM's firmware fix was designed to prevent the heads from flying over the same track for too long.



I would be happy to know that my drive was doing this. For the same reason, I like to hear the computer fans working.

BTW, the WD Gold is probably a rebadged HGST model.

)

yeah from the spec sheets i saw, the WD102KRYZ (WD Gold 10 TB) should be identical to WD Ultrastar 10TB HC330 (also known as 0B42266 , also known as WUS721010ALE6L4) (f**k the name changing btw ).