Question "crackling" sound normal for 8 TB firecuda seagate 3.5 mechanical drive?

[andrepartthree]

Hi guys sorry back with yet another question... it's possible I'm worrying too much but.. well let me start out with the build on my PC

-AMD Ryzen™ 7 5700X 8-Core, 16-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor

-Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE CPU Air Cooler, Dual Tower 6 Heat Pipe,Dual 120mm TL-C12C PWM CPU Fan, for AMD AM4/AM5/Intel LGA1700/1150/1151/1200, AGHP Technology, Aluminium Heatsink Cover

-Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2X16GB) DDR4 3200 (PC4-25600) C16 1.35VDesktop Memory - Black, 2 count (pack of 1) (so two sticks of 16 GB ram)

-Asus TUF Gaming B550-PLUS AMD Chipset Socket AM4 ATX Motherboard

-ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Dual-Fan OC Edition VR Ready Dual HDMI DP 1.4 Gaming Graphics Card (DUAL-GTX1060-O6G)

- three 2.5 form factor SSD drives, a crucial MX500 1 TB ssd drive acts as the Windows/boot drive

- one Seagate Seagate Exos 7E10 ST8000NM017B 8 TB Hard Drive which is behaving itself and working fine , not the hard drive I'm concerned about

- one " Seagate FireCuda ST8000DX001 8TB 7200 RPM 256MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD Bare Drive" which is the hard drive I'm concerned about

- three 140 mm fans, one 120 mm fan

- CD/ROM tray

- Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 850w Fully Modular Power Supply 80 Plus Gold Certified + Riing 14 RGB Fan

And here's a link to the newegg product description page for it if this helps at all

https://www.newegg.com/seagate-firecuda-st8000dx001-8tb/p/N82E16822185036?sdtid=16570832&Item=N82E16822185036&nm_mc=AFC-RAN-COM&cm_mmc=afc-ran-com-_-Slickdeals+LLC&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=afc-ran-com-_-Slickdeals+LLC&utm_source=afc-Slickdeals+LLC&AFFID=208164&AFFNAME=Slickdeals+LLC&ACRID=1&ASUBID=61dac7b0d81011edb81a76a70f53cfb20INT&ASID=&ranMID=44583&ranEAID=208164&ranSiteID=lw9MynSeamY-_io0KKqE72tKqpIZpTvktw

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out if this sound that I'm hearing from the hard drive is normal.. it happens whenever the hard drive is in use.. I would describe it as a crackling sound, or like the sound something makes if you push it over plastic.. hopefully this youtube video works as far as being able to give you a recording of the sound

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gTM7iVkqQlM


The hard drive passes the seagate seatools "short self test", "short generic test", and the "two minute generic test".. I tried running the longer test on it but seagate seatools takes a long time for the longer tests to the point where I'm not sure if the test is even running (given it's an 8 TB drive I'm guessing the longer test might take a very long time to run anyways?)

I also tried using HDDscan's "smart, offfline, short " test on it which also reports the drive doesn't have any problems (that is it passed HDDscan's test too).

The 8 TB drive is used for data/file storage only not to run programs.

A noisy drive doesn't bother me in that I don't find it irritating, just more worried than anything else in case this is not a normal sound for a hard drive.. if anyone has any thoughts it would really help to reassure me one way or another.

It's definitely a sound linked to the new 8 TB drive.. the PC was not making that sound before I installed the drive and when I put my ear right next to the PC I can definitely hear the sound coming from the 8 TB firecuda drive in question.. the sound occurs only when the firecuda drive is in use so it's definitely the hard drive and not some other strange thing like a fan going bad or at least that's what I'm thinking

As always a very big thank you to anyone who reads this and responds

 

[Lafong]

Noises are tough to deal with.

You say you've put your ear "right next to the PC".

Can you do better....like put your ear right next to the drive?

Can you use a megaphone type device (cardboard insert in a paper towel or toilet paper roll) to possibly isolate or amplify the noise to get a better sense of it?

Can you detect any variation in the sound that might lead you to believe it has a rotational component? Or is it seemingly more random, like a cooking steak might be noisier right now than 4 seconds later?

Have you looked as SMART data that you might get from Crystal Disk Info?

Is the drive beyond the allowed RMA period? Out of warranty?

Doesn't help you much, but barring further info I'd say ignore it since you say the noise is not bothersome. It may or may not develop into something more obvious.

I assume you have more than one copy of whatever is on it.

 

[andrepartthree]

Hi Lafong thanks so much for your quick reply

I agree as far as the noises being tough to deal with/diagnose ! I usually do a bunch of research on the internet before coming on tom's hardware and bothering you guys so I don't feel quite so much like I'm wasting anyone's time ... and internet results were all over the place, there were a zillion different threads with people worried about whether hard drive sounds were normal and a zillion different diagnoses of said sounds.

I will definitely grab a cardboard insert from the next empty toilet paper roll - easily enough done we go through that fairly quickly here in a four person household .. and try that to se if I can amplify the sound.
The drive definitely is within the RMA/warranty return period , I just installed it into my desktop PC a few days ago (April 27th 2023 so today is 3 days later) .

What's really driving me nuts is wondering if it's just making noise because it's a bigger hard drive? One thing I did notice in my internet research is comments about larger hard drives being noisier like this thread.

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

Although in the OP's case in that reddit thread his comment was on the sound being made every 5 seconds for all three of his 8 TB drives that were different models, if I'm reading the other comments correctly.

Here's a screenshot of the Crystaldisk SMART data (my apologies I should have attached that as a screenshot).... Crystaldisk along with seagate seatools and HDDscan all appear to be giving it a thumbs up so I'm hoping all three programs agreeing is a good sign ... given the price ($117 for an 8 TB drive) I'm definitely tempted to take a gamble on it and just keep it and hope it doesn't deteriorate as time goes by or create problems for the other PC parts (motherboard, power supply or what not) .. totally speculating here don't know if a faulty hard drive can even do that to begin with or not


Oh and yes sorry I should have mentioned that too.. having found out the hard way many years ago how easy it is to lose all your data off a hard drive I've made a point of keeping an exact same copy of all my files on two different hard drives in my desktop PC and then on top of that periodically backing up changed or new files onto a third hard drive not connected to the PC "all the time" (a hard drive in an external usb 3.0 enclosure basically) plus the free cloud storage that comes with my Norton subscription is used to backup another copy of files that are changed and/or new files (the Norton backup is "pointed" at a usb thumb drive I put all those changed or new files onto then I periodically copy all the new/changed files onto the external drive and "empty out" the thumb drive again by deleting all the files on it and repeat the process). Sort of a poor man's version of a better cloud backup, can't afford the online automated cloud storage others use , I hoard way too many files for that to be economically feasible


And actually Lafong your comment does help me a lot .. you didn't say anything like " Oh my gosh that drive is going to die replace it NOW " after listening to the sound (I'm hoping my youtube link works and you guys can hear it ? ) so that gives me some much needed comfort re: my $117 gamble on this hard drive


General comment about newegg.. they offer some great deals on hard drives as far as prices but their packaging leaves something to be desired.. I actually had to return the first firecuda drive I bought from them when I installed it into the PC, turned the PC on and heard a continuous clicking sound from the drive .. should have known better, the box it arrived in was badly dented and torn and some of the air bubbles in the protective air bubble wrapper type thing were flattened from the impact , but I didn't see any obvious damage to the hard drive itself and gave it a chance which was a mistake.. got smarter after that and after returning that obviously bad drive plugged the second firecuda I ordered (the one I'm asking about right now) into a usb 3.0 / sata dock and made sure Windows could recognize it and tried writing files to the drive first before installing it ..

The really strange thing is the other hard drive , also Seagate but a different model (Seagate Seagate Exos 7E10 ST8000NM017B 8 TB Hard Drive ) isn't nearly as noisy when it's in use. There's an on again off again whine, very quiet, which apparently is due to the drive automatically powering itself off when not in use but not the sound I recorded in the youtube video above.. so I'm sitting here wondering if the 8 TB Seagate firecuda's are just "noisy by nature".

 

[andrepartthree]

https://i.vgy.me/9Tgnlx.png

crystaldisk smart info firecuda

vgy.me is a free and easy-to-use image hosting service hosted in the UK. Upload anonymously or create a free account to manage your uploads.

vgy.me

 

[andrepartthree]

Actually just thought of another question.. I know the normal procedure if a drive is within warranty is to send it in to the manufacturer and see if seagate will ship out a replacement drive, say if the drive does die months or years down the road past the "return to seller" window.

My problem is this though... I do have some very sensitive files that are saved onto the drive that could result in disaster if someone got a hold of them (financial disaster I mean, not doing anything illegal or anything like that ) .. I'm guessing by the time I would want to use the warranty the drive will have deteriorated to the point where I wouldn't be able to use say the eraser file shredding program or DBAN on the drive.

In a situation like that do you guys still feel comfortable sending a drive with sensitive info like that on it to seagate? I would like to think and hope the techs there wouldn't take advantage of a situation like that ...

 

[Lafong]

Actually just thought of another question.. I know the normal procedure if a drive is within warranty is to send it in to the manufacturer and see if seagate will ship out a replacement drive, say if the drive does die months or years down the road past the "return to seller" window.

My problem is this though... I do have some very sensitive files that are saved onto the drive that could result in disaster if someone got a hold of them (financial disaster I mean, not doing anything illegal or anything like that ) .. I'm guessing by the time I would want to use the warranty the drive will have deteriorated to the point where I wouldn't be able to use say the eraser file shredding program or DBAN on the drive.

In a situation like that do you guys still feel comfortable sending a drive with sensitive info like that on it to seagate? I would like to think and hope the techs there wouldn't take advantage of a situation like that ...

I think most people here would try to use the warranty.....but I've made the decision that I will never make a warranty claim on any storage device.

I'm unable to make the required leap of faith, considering the current cost of storage.

 

[Bob.B]

Actually just thought of another question.. I know the normal procedure if a drive is within warranty is to send it in to the manufacturer and see if seagate will ship out a replacement drive, say if the drive does die months or years down the road past the "return to seller" window.

My problem is this though... I do have some very sensitive files that are saved onto the drive that could result in disaster if someone got a hold of them (financial disaster I mean, not doing anything illegal or anything like that ) .. I'm guessing by the time I would want to use the warranty the drive will have deteriorated to the point where I wouldn't be able to use say the eraser file shredding program or DBAN on the drive.

In a situation like that do you guys still feel comfortable sending a drive with sensitive info like that on it to seagate? I would like to think and hope the techs there wouldn't take advantage of a situation like that ...

If the data on that drive is that important you do not let it out of your possession while it is in one piece.

 

[andrepartthree]

Lafong, Bob B thanks very much for your replies .. that confirms what I suspected, honestly if the data on a drive can ruin you it's best to just go after it with a hammer when the drive becomes unusable ... I do hope the drive will last me for a while at least (paid $117 for the darn thing ! Which I know is a good deal for an 8 TB drive but still it's a lot of money ! )

After posting this on tom's hardware forum I've had someone else in another forum tell me who has a lot of hard drives that he has never heard a hard drive make a sound like that before in his collection of 35 to 40 drives he has up and running at one time (pretty sure he works in the computer industry) which is discouraging he's not optimistic about the drive ... my online research shows some people have ended up buying drives which are just plain noisy but they work, and I've seen some complaints from others who have the bigger drives (the 8 TB drive I have I'm guessing would fall into the bigger category?) are noisy to begin with.. so sincerely hoping this noise is just normal