[SOLVED] Brand new HDD grinding noise (both original and RMA)

[blademagic]

I would like some advice regarding an issue I'm having with a new WD Black 8TB HDD. I got it on sale a couple months ago, but when I plugged it in, it started clicking after about a week of usage. The clicks started becoming more frequent and by the time I took it out, there was a click every 5 or so seconds. I ran a SMART test on it before I took it out, everything came up good using CrystalDiskInfo, Hard Disk Sentinel, and WD Drive Utilities. Despite this, when I ran the tests, there was a major grinding sound on the drive (see video) that was significantly louder than the general read/write noise. I submitted a ticket to WD and they issued an RMA, but I had to pay return shipping.

With the replacement drive, the first thing I did when I installed it was to run a SMART test, and the grinding noise occurs again. I even had my friend test it on his Mac and his PC, so I don't think it's my case or my cables. Here is the noise from his test (see audio).

At this point, I'm wondering if I should do another RMA or just refund it. The shipping back to WD is not exactly cheap, and I asked for a shipping label, but they just said it was my responsibility to pay. I'm worried that I will get another defective drive and just lose out on the savings that I got from buying this drive on sale in the first place. If anyone knows the cause of this issue and can help me sort it out, I would greatly appreciate it. My specs are:

Ryzen 5600x

Asus Tuf RTX 3080

AsRock Steel Legend B550

2 x WD SN550 1TB SSD

Corsair 4000D Airflow

WD Black 8TB HDD

Thanks.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Normal noise.
Your HDD is heavily fragmented, so read head has move forward/backward over spinning platter very quickly.
Also - your HDD is hard screwed into pc case (no rubber dampening). That's why, it is so loud.
You can hear your pc case vibrating.

Put rubber washers on HDD rails. You can cut them out from some old bike tire inner tube.

Or you can buy them also.

 

[madmatt30]

Wd blacks are notoriously noisy mate seriously.

I have a 8tb internal in the pc, and a 12tb external for the xbox series x.

The internal one is bad enough, the external?? I've tried sound dampening foam and allsorts, its in a cupboard aswell and it vibrates the whole tv unit when its reading or writing.

That bad I now have to power off at the plug when Im not using the xbox as it doesn't shut down fully in fast start mode.

What you bought is both the fastest and the noisiest traditional platter drive on the market, you are just going to have to put up with the noise like I do ;-)

 

[blademagic]

Thank you for your replies! This puts me at ease to know it's normal.

Normal noise.
Your HDD is heavily fragmented, so read head has move forward/backward over spinning platter very quickly.
Also - your HDD is hard screwed into pc case (no rubber dampening). That's why, it is so loud.
You can hear your pc case vibrating.

I currently have it on the quick insert rails that came with my case. I will try putting rubber washers it to see if that helps. Also, the replacement is a brand new drive, and I tested it before I even put any media on it. How can it be fragmented? I'm not familiar with how fragmentation works, so sorry if that's a stupid question.

 

[SkyNetRising]

How can it be fragmented? I'm not familiar with how fragmentation works, so sorry if that's a stupid question.

Fragmentation occurs, when you delete a lot of smaller files and write some new larger files.
Those large files then fill up freed up space from smaller deleted ones. Result is - your new large file is not in continuous block. It is divided in lot of small pieces.
When system reads this large file, read head has to reposition itself a lot to read all the different fragments, that are stored on different parts of the disk.

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-fragmentation-defragmentation-2625884

 

[blademagic]

Fragmentation occurs, when you delete a lot of smaller files and write some new larger files.
Those large files then fill up freed up space from smaller deleted ones. Result is - your new large file is not in continuous block. It is divided in lot of small pieces.
When system reads this large file, read head has to reposition itself a lot to read all the different fragments, that are stored on different parts of the disk.

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-fragmentation-defragmentation-2625884

I see, thanks for the information. I'm still confused as to how my disk could be fragmented though. It's brand new and freshly formatted when I ran these tests, so there shouldn't be anything on it. Should I defrag it anyway?