[SOLVED] Loud HDD, sounds almost like a case fan?

Pollin

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Oct 22, 2013
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So, I recently installed some new fairly silent case fans in my PC. After doing so, I started hearing what I thought was just the CPU fan being loud, or maybe a case fan that wasn't quite so silent after all. Instead, I discovered that the noise is coming from at least one, possible several, of my HDDs. I have three 7200 RPM 1TB Western Digital drives, two of which are five years old and might need replacing soon anyway. The noise is loud enough to be heard through my case even while wearing headphones, though not loud enough to overshadow audio while gaming and such. S.M.A.R.T tools report no issues whatsoever, and I haven't had any actual problems with the drives yet. The noise is pretty much exactly what a case fan spinning sounds like.

Am I just being paranoid? Is it normal for a 7200RPM drive to be that loud and I just never noticed because it blended in with my old case fans?
 
Solution
Most likely that is the case. I know my new 10Tb 7200RPM drives are loud but once I put them in the case I can barely tell they are running.