[SOLVED] Loud clicking from Seagate Ironwolf HDD ?

[Oasis Curator]

I've had WD green drives for years so am accustomed to their noise when accessing the drive (which is very quiet). All have been around the 2TB mark, so this new hard drive is quite a big jump at 10TB.

Literally a brand new drive in a new system and there's this sort of clicking:

I'm not alarmed as it does sound like normal hard drive clicking but it's pretty loud (louder than in the vid).
Granted, this is without the case lid on AND I have some better-than-stock fans now, so the whole system is quieter than the old one but is this normal for Seagate drives?
Would there be any other 10TB drives I can look at that are quieter?
I don't want to waste time putting on huge amounts of data only to decide the clicking will annoy me.

This is for a HTPC, so playing long large files is it's game.

 

[USAFRet]

Being mechanical devices, each one is different.
Another 10TB Ironwolf may be quieter.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Granted, this is without the case lid on AND I have some better-than-stock fans now, so the whole system is quieter than the old one but is this normal for Seagate drives?
Would there be any other 10TB drives I can look at that are quieter?

Drive operation sound gets exaggerated, because there's no sound dampening between drive and pc case. Case acts as a resonator here.
In modern pc cases rails with rubber dampening get used, so noise from drive doesn't travel to pc case.

 

[Oasis Curator]

Hmm.

I may see if I can butcher anything in for sound dampening. However, I also get this when starting the PC...

Sounds like a terminator.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Hmm.

I may see if I can butcher anything in for sound dampening. However, I also get this when starting the PC...

Sounds like a terminator.

And I thought my WD Black was noisy Never had a hard drive sound like either of those videos but never owned an IronWolf. Did you check Crystal Disk Info to see if there was anything out of the ordinary?
Seagate also does some pretty good diagnostic tools which can help check the drives for any issues. I had a dud Seagate once and the software told me that it was screwed, and sure enough I lost all my data

SeaTools | Seagate UK

SeaTools - Quick diagnostic tool that checks the health of your drive.

www.seagate.com

Seatools is what I would recommend trying.

 

[Oasis Curator]

Seatools checks out as okay and Crystal Disk info is fine too.
I've ordered another drive so will compare them both. Hope it's just this one as there's a regular clicking when playing a video.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Seatools checks out as okay and Crystal Disk info is fine too.
I've ordered another drive so will compare them both. Hope it's just this one as there's a regular clicking when playing a video.

Ok, I guess that's encouraging. I get very nervous with hard drives. I've sent them back before without trying them just because they were packaged so poorly.

 

[Oasis Curator]

Drive operation sound gets exaggerated, because there's no sound dampening between drive and pc case. Case acts as a resonator here.
In modern pc cases rails with rubber dampening get used, so noise from drive doesn't travel to pc case.

Had some more thoughts on this and it's not particularly transferring much noise to the case as I physically held the drive in my hand and it was just as loud.

Disappointing as it's my first forray into Seagate. Even when watching a film, there's the seek clicking every second or so as it reads a bit more of the file - quite distracting.

The old Western Digital Green HDD (that I note they don't make anymore) are half as loud, if that and I had four of them running! Problem with WD is they're a bit on the expensive side and the Blue versions don't come in a 10TB size. Their Black do but that's even more cost. The Red are okay cost wise but they're built for NAS (like the IronWolf), which I'm shying away from as the PC will be off more than it's on.

On that basis, I re-looked at Seagate and their Compute range, which some websites say are pretty quiet. The Compute 6TB are £120, so two of them would give me an extra 2TB than I budgeted for for the same price as the 10TB I originally bought. Only downside is they're not the "pro" range. They do a 10TB Compute Pro for £240, but then I miss out on 2TB. Either way, they'll be here tomorrow so will give one a whirl and see if it's the drive, the line or the brand.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I'm not entirely sold on this drive being normal. I've found higher capacity and higher performance drives to be nosier, but I've never had one sound like that. If your still able to I would consider returning it. I have WD Black, Blue and Seagate Barracuda. The Black's are louder, though again not like what you've got there.

There's also:
https://www.cclonline.com/product/3...ItLttE6sbPaaVr75NjzIalNqCyQ9Q_nQaAsisEALw_wcB

https://www.ebuyer.com/1125882-seag...LEJgrG_4HIYhxmmfDtp5C4AAV5EKjHlkaAv6kEALw_wcB

 

[Oasis Curator]

There's also:
https://www.cclonline.com/product/3...ItLttE6sbPaaVr75NjzIalNqCyQ9Q_nQaAsisEALw_wcB

Well those prices have put a cat among the pigeons...
The other Compute ones I ordered are £23 per TB, but the 16TB one works out at ~£17.
Would they be suitable for on/off operation though? They won't be stored in a NAS per se. And I wonder if because it's an enterprise drive, the failure expectation rate will be higher. I have a lot of data to backup - I can lose most of it, but the greens have been as reliable as anything.

Perhaps the single 16TB drive would be a better shout than 2 x 6TB, certainly from a noise / power point of view too.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Well those prices have put a cat among the pigeons...
The other Compute ones I ordered are £23 per TB, but the 16TB one works out at ~£17.
Would they be suitable for on/off operation though? They won't be stored in a NAS per se.

When you say on/off what do you mean?

Also I assumed this was for the HTPC?

 

[Oasis Curator]

When you say on/off what do you mean?

Also I assumed this was for the HTPC?

We only turn the PC on when we want to watch something (through Plex).
Then turn the PC off again.
Sometimes it'll be off for a few weeks, other times we may watch something every night for a few hours, three or four times in a week. It's really sporadic.

Although the more I read about Seagate, it seems they can't seem to shake off their reliability woes, which worries me a little.

Sorry, I'm a bit all over the place!

 

[Oasis Curator]

Just to bring this to a close, the 2 x 6TB "Compute" drives are much quieter (although still have a slight "scratching" sound when booting). They're more like the WD Greens so sending the 10TB IronWolf back. Maybe it was just a bit of a dud.

I am very tempted to send the 2 x 6TB back and get one larger 16TB but not sure I can be bothered with the hassle vs gain in price per TB and potentially noise / power increase of the EXOS. I can always add much larger capacity later on although I am a little worried the 6TB drives won't be worth a huge amount later down the line - the 2TB versions they replaced are struggling at £25 so probably will use them as backup for media files.

Cheers all - fully appreciate the help with this