Brand new hard drive making sound (video inside)

[Tomass]

Hello,

So my hard drive who I bought 2 days ago (Western digital black edition) have been really quiet up untill some hours ago when it suddenly started making sounds like "old" hard drives sometimes do durring read/write.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0qPtkp0Lvo

Not my video but it sounds just like that (You might have to turn up the volume). And it's far from quiet, i can hear it from 3-4 meters away quite clearly.

Considering it's such a new purchase should I return it for a replacement or is that sound "part of the package"?

 

[Solandri]

That's just the read/write heads moving back and forth. If it really bugs you, you can defragment your drive. The heads have to move back and forth more if your files are fragmented, so defragmenting can help reduce (but not eliminate) the noise.

Some drives are noisier than others. So if you were to replace it, you should replace it with a different brand/model drive. Some drives have less pronounced clicks, but a more audible whirring which can be annoying in itself too. So you may be trading one annoyance for another. If you want silence, get a SSD.