[SOLVED] Hard drive a bit noisy until warmed up

[koslaw]

I have an older computer that I use as a basic media server for my house. It still has the older rotating hard drive in it. I noticed that it it's off for awhile so it cools down, and I turn it back on the hard drive sounds a bit louder. Not the actual heads moving but just the rotating of the platters. It just has a louder high pitched sound but after its been on for around 15min it quiets down. Everything still seems to load and work fine but was just wondering if this is a common thing on older drives.

 

[velocityg4]

I'd say it's quite normal for older drives to get a bit noisier. Sort of a raspy sound. I'd guess if it quiets down when warmed. It's from the heated metal expanding a little. Tightening the fit of whatever is worn.

Recently I got some new old stock 10K RPM drives. I'm guessing spares from data centers. These drives are over 20 years old but never used. As they haven't been used. They are much quieter than the 15 to 30 year old 7200 RPM drives I have, which have many years of use.

 

[koslaw]

That makes sense, the drive I have was made in 2004 so it's got some use on it. The boot drive in it, (which probably makes most of the noise) was originally used in a windows 98 SE computer, 4.3GB of storage haha. The other one is a 250GB drive for my main storage. Once they warm up they are pretty much silent though.

 

[fzabkar]

The bearing lubricant probably needs to warm up. In fact there was a particular Toshiba (?) model which had difficulty starting unless the motor was warmed up beforehand.