WD Black normal noise?

[GeneralScott]

Hello, I just bought a brand new WD Caviar Black 1 TB and installed Windows on it as my boot disk. It was then (when the computer was booting) that I noticed that the fast high pitched clicking, the normal noise that hard drives make, was much louder than the noise that my old Caviar Blue made. I could slightly hear this noise through my noise cancelling headphones. The computer seems to perform fine, though.

But the most annoying noise comes with the high pitched clicking. There is also a bass clicking, quieter but definately not something i've heard in any other drive before. So this drive has a dual tone noise, which I couldn't find anywhere on the internet.

Since both of my drives are 7200 RPM, I figure that the noise difference between the two shouldn't be all that dramatic, so I just wiped the drive and prepared to use that 5 year warranty to my advantage. But just asking out to the community; How loud are these drives SUPPOSED to be, compared to, say, a Caviar Blue.

 

[egilbe]

Clicking in drives is always bad. The black series of drives are high performance and spin faster. That is probably where the increase in noise level is coming from. But the clicking? Not good. You can run WD diagnostic tools on it to double check.

 

[GeneralScott]

See, the high pitched clicking that I was talking about sounds just like normal, but slightly louder hard drive noises. I'm not too worried about that. What I AM worried about is the lower pitched noise that comes along with it. The best analogy I can make is a bag of popcorn in a microwave. When it pops, that's the same pitch as this noise, and it accompanies the normal hard drive noise. I notice that both noises only occur when reading the drive; writing to it is completely silent.

 

[GeneralScott]

It says on WD's website that the max noise level should be 33 decibels.
That's the same as the Caviar Blue I also have. So there's definitely something wrong with the Black.

 

[profkefah]

can u record the noise that come from hdd

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hello,

Here is a URL with sounds of the different manufacturer's HDDs, good, bad, and ugly, to compare your WD Black to theirs.

http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

They have 9 examples of red flag sounds.

From your description, I agree, send it back for a warranty replacement

 

[MidnightDistort]

I would replace it ASAP. The drive isn't up to specs & it's under warranty so i'd replace it. That's what warranties are for! .

 

[John_VanKirk]

I would replace it ASAP. The drive isn't up to specs & it's under warranty so i'd replace it. That's what warranties are for! .

If you have or can download HD Tune Pro (free eval), run it against the drive, check the Info Tab, then the Health Tab for any SMART flags, then run a benchmark test across the whole drive. It will show you if there are any problems.

I had a WD older IDE 500GB HDD last year used for backup. Began taking a much longer time to backUp. Ran HD Tune and found instead of ~30MB/s, it's transfer rate was ~ 2-3 MB/s.
Sent it in with the screenshot it copies to the clipboard, got a new one back in 2 days, no questions asked.

 

[MidnightDistort]

^ well that's one way of doing that! Although a screenshot won't work for the noise.. unless he sends a video with the drive. Most outlet stores will exchange the drive long as the serial number matches with the box it came in.

 

[GeneralScott]

Well, this drive is AT LEAST twice as loud as my blue version, so regardless on whether the sounds indicate failure or not it's far out of spec so has good reason to be replaced.

 

[GeneralScott]

Well I RMA'd it, got another one. It does the same thing. However, I found that it was the vibration that was making the low pitched noise, so I suspended it with some rubber bands. But now my question is about vibration.

My Caviar Blue vibrates constantly, and doesn't increase in vibration when it's making noise. The Black, however, vibrates noticably more when it's seeking (making Geiger counter noises) and the vibrations are in time with the noise. Is THIS normal?

If it is, how can I make the drive quiter than simply suspending it with rubber bands? Hard drive noise drives me crazy!

 

[DeusBellum]

I just got a Western Digital Black 1Tb and I have the same problem. I am really upset because now it is the loudest component in my silent pc 🙁

If i find a solution I will tell u

 

[unplanned bacon]

I just got a Western Digital Black 1Tb and I have the same problem. I am really upset because now it is the loudest component in my silent pc 🙁

If i find a solution I will tell u

Same. Sorry is necropost. Also makes a weird noise just as computer turns off 🙁