New Toshiba hard drive - loud when accessed - should I be worried?

[Super Grover]

I just got a new hard drive, a 5 TB Toshiba X300, 7200 rpm. And it seems fine...except its on the loud side. It often makes quite audible grinding noises when loading large files and whatnot. It reminds me of an old IDE hard drive of 15 years ago. Its far louder than my other hard drives, including a 2-year old 3 TB Toshiba 7200 rpm. The only competitor is a 6-year old Samsung, and its maybe half as loud.

Its similar to the kind of noise other hard drives make, and it happens at the same times, its just a fair bit louder than usual for a new hard drive.

The noise isn't the end of the world, as I'm using it for storage rather than as a system drive, but I don't want a drive with problems that's going to die on me. Should I be concerned and return the drive? Unfortunately I didn't get around to installing it within newegg's one month return period (stupid, I know), so it would mean an RMA with the manufacturer.

UPDATE:

Also noticed the thing is running kind of hot. Its usually around 38C - my other drives are in the 28-31C range.

 

[JaredDM]

The newer Toshiba 3.5" drives (first ones actually built by Toshiba) are a bit on the noisy side. They're also much more heavy duty inside than their Seagate and WD competitors. Even their consumer grade drives look more like enterprise drives inside. I'd guess this is the reason why they're noisy. Bigger magnets, actuator, etc.

If you're not seeing any performance issues, I wouldn't be concerned about it.

 

[rkzhao]

Enterprise drives aren't really louder. So I wouldn't chop up loudness to better components. Noise is rarely a sign of higher quality, especially if that noise is from increase vibration or mechanical movement.

That said, it's also hard to assess what counts as noisy over a forum. If it's actually grinding noises, that's never good. It's more likely just head movement and seeking since it's a new drive. Without any similar first gen in house Toshiba drives to compare against, I can't say for sure whether it's just due to their manufacturing process and components or if it's abnormal. But like Jared said, if you're not seeing performance degradation or noticing any drastic increase in physical vibration or anything, it's probably not a huge concern.

 

[JaredDM]

Enterprise drives aren't really louder. So I wouldn't chop up loudness to better components. Noise is rarely a sign of higher quality, especially if that noise is from increase vibration or mechanical movement.

If all the OP is talking about is the normal accessing noise (which seems clear from his description) then YES! heavy duty drives are louder in most cases. Simply put, their actuator arms weigh more being of higher gauge construction. Therefore they do have more potential to vibrate, especially in a flimsy consumer grade computer case which doesn't have heavy duty support brackets holding it.

I work on failed & failing hard drives all day, and I can assure you the enterprise ones are much louder on average.

 

[rkzhao]

Umm, not really trying to get into an argument or anything, just trying to better understand your view since we agree on the final answer anyways.

How does it make sense that a higher guage, more rigid piece of material, vibrate more than a thinner, flimsier piece?

Or are you saying that the servo arm is actually seeking around enough instead of just track following to cause audible vibration against the computer case? I guess I did assume that the OP was talking about noises from the actual drive and not noises from the drive against the computer case. If the servo is moving so much that it's enough to even offset the increased gyroscopic stability of the heavier spinning disk stack of a 5TB drive, isn't that a bad thing?

 

[JaredDM]

Listen, I'm not looking into a theological debate. All I know is I work on hard drives all day every day, and the heavy duty ones are much louder. If you don't believe me just look at the dB rating of them, it's across the board. WD Blue is louder than Green, Black is louder than Blue, Enterprise is louder than them all. The one exception being NAS drives (WD Red), which are specifically built with features to reduce vibration in multi-drive flimsy enclosures.

If you want to get technical though, the actuator of an enterprise drive is about two or three times the weight of a consumer grade drive, and it seeks at an even faster rate. So you've got more weight moving at higher speed. Anyone with a sixth graders understanding of physics can get why it'd create more vibration. It's a simple case of Newton's third law of motion.

Here's some actual graphs if you're still in doubt:
http://techreport.com/review/25391/wd-red-4tb-hard-drive-reviewed/3

And some more references:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article29-page2.html

You see that the enterprise grade drives all tip the chart at around 20dB from 1M. While the consumer ones are usually 17dB or less.

 

[rkzhao]

Thanks for the links. One thing I do have to note though. From what I understand, the biggest correlation to noise levels is usually rpm, then it's maybe the number of platters. Like you said, faster + heavier can lead to higher noise and the majority of the motion and weight in a drive comes from the platters. That trend is also reflected by those links, ie. the 5400 rpm drives are quieter than the 7200 rpm drive which are quieter still that those 10000 rpm WD velociraptors.

I can see how the same servo optimized for speed may be louder than a slower seek though. It's probably all the loud music I listen to but I'm not really sure if I personally could tell the 1dB idle difference or even the ~3dB seek difference between the 5400rpm WD RED NAS drive and the 7200rpm WD Se enterprise performance drive, but I'm sure some people can.

I appreciate the info. Thanks for bearing with my little tangent.

 

[pnClaudiu]

For those confronting with HDD noises, read my comment below.

I have a 12TB Toshiba X300 HDD and it makes clicking/ticking noises, which are not extremely loud, but they're quite distracting and annoying. I ran multiple diagnostics with different programs (including the Toshiba diagnostic tool) and they all showed that the HDD is fine. But I found a solution. I noticed that the noise is actually caused by the case, by the fact that the HDD transmits the vibrations to the case, to be more specific. So, instead of fixing the HDD with screws to the HDD "drawer", I somehow attached it with some small soft rubber cylinders, in a way that the HDD doesn't have any direct contact with the drawer. I also moved the HDD in a way that the sides of the cables that go into the HDD won't touch the case. The cables still touch the case, but further away from the HDD, and the vibrations fade away enough so the the cables don't move and hit the case. My HDD is now completely silent (well, not completely, obviously, but you can't hear it even when the fans run at 30%). You can purchase noise dampeners / shockproof screws, which are basically screws made out of rubber/silicone. There are also some metallic screws with rubbers over them, but they will still transmit the vibrations to the case through the screws, so, avoid those. And be sure to check the description and the comments, make sure that the rubber is soft. Also make sure that the HDD doesn't directly touch its drawer or the case, and keep in mind the cables thing too.

 

[USAFRet]

For those confronting with HDD noises, read my comment below.

Please don't dredge up ancient threads.