Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, morphine, Steel
FireGryphon wrote:Reading this thread reminded me of when hard drives were so loud and slow that they sounded like you were dragging a piece of card stock over 20 grit sandpaper.
cphite wrote:The description you're giving sounds pretty normal for a drive that size, and a quick Google reveals folks asking about the same thing... basically as JBI says you've got a massive (relatively speaking) set of platters and those are going to make some noise as they stop and start. Also as a result of the drive density it is always going to be doing self-checks for consistency.
Aranarth wrote:FireGryphon wrote:Reading this thread reminded me of when hard drives were so loud and slow that they sounded like you were dragging a piece of card stock over 20 grit sandpaper.
I have a 13" platter drive on the desk behind me. It is partially disassembled so now it is "Modern Art".
I've been asked if it is clutch assembly, important piece of an UFO (yes seriously) or just general questions like "What the hell is that?!"
morphine wrote:Aranarth wrote:FireGryphon wrote:Reading this thread reminded me of when hard drives were so loud and slow that they sounded like you were dragging a piece of card stock over 20 grit sandpaper.
I have a 13" platter drive on the desk behind me. It is partially disassembled so now it is "Modern Art".
I've been asked if it is clutch assembly, important piece of an UFO (yes seriously) or just general questions like "What the hell is that?!"
"Is that what you call a vinyl record, dad?"
just brew it! wrote:morphine wrote:Aranarth wrote:I have a 13" platter drive on the desk behind me. It is partially disassembled so now it is "Modern Art".
just brew it! wrote:Does the noise happen even if you power up, go straight into the BIOS, and leave it sitting there? If not, then it is something in the OS accessing the drive, not the drive itself.
That drive is an 8-platter design (16 heads); seeks are going to make some noise as that massive head stack accelerates and decelerates. Since it's 7200 RPM, it is also going to be tuned for performance, not quietness.
If you absolutely need an 8TB drive but need something quieter, you may want to look for a lower RPM model; these will be tuned for lower performance and power usage, which will also reduce seek noise, since the heads won't move as fast. But an 8TB drive is gonna have a lot of platters no matter what, so there is going to be a limit on how quiet it is going to be. There may also be some drives with higher platter densities (so lower platter count) which should help a little; but even with bleeding edge densities, I think any 8TB drive you find is still going to have at least 6 platters.
just brew it! wrote:Well, as I noted, a lower RPM drive would probably be quieter. And as continuum noted, you've bought an enterprise-grade drive; this should be great for reliability, but it also means HGST was probably assuming the drive would be put in a server rack in a datacenter, where the seek noise will be drowned out (many times over) by the sound of the A/C and cooling fans. IOW this drive was likely not designed to be quiet!
If you have a second open drive bay, another option would be a pair of lower-RPM 4TB drives. That would probably be even quieter than a low-RPM 8TB, but it'll use more power.
Techtree101 wrote:The one type of drive that's gotten excellent reviews and seems to be low noise are the WD purple surveillance drives... but I'm not sure they would work?
just brew it! wrote:Techtree101 wrote:The one type of drive that's gotten excellent reviews and seems to be low noise are the WD purple surveillance drives... but I'm not sure they would work?
If you're just using it for bulk storage it'll probably be fine. AFAIK the main difference with the "purple" series drives is that the caching algorithms have been optimized for recording multiple simultaneous video streams. Since you've said you're not really concerned with performance, a caching algorithm which may be non-optimal for your use case is probably not going to be a big deal.
Techtree101 wrote:What's interesting is there doesn't seem to be a reliable plus low powered/noise drive, at least at 8TB. All of the HGST's for example are 7200RPM, and WD Red and others are a combination of noisy and somewhat unreliable... at least from what I've read from reviews.
The one type of drive that's gotten excellent reviews and seems to be low noise are the WD purple surveillance drives... but I'm not sure they would work?
Techtree101 wrote:
What's interesting is there doesn't seem to be a reliable plus low powered/noise drive, at least at 8TB. All of the HGST's for example are 7200RPM, and WD Red and others are a combination of noisy and somewhat unreliable... at least from what I've read from reviews.
The one type of drive that's gotten excellent reviews and seems to be low noise are the WD purple surveillance drives... but I'm not sure they would work?
Techtree101 wrote:I ended up getting a Best Buy easystore 8TB for $149 (which oddly enough had a WD Red inside), and it's almost entirely quiet. There IS a seeking sound every 5 seconds or so, but you have to really be paying attention, and it's only audible outside the case anyway.
New problem now... these 8TB seem to be overloading my motherboards I/O abilities. Even when hooked up to a USB dock, they will disappear from Windows after trying to copy files for a few minutes. A computer shutdown and bootup is needed to get them to appear again.
I have a MOBO from 2007... which I'm guessing is messing up these transfers, as the drives seem to function perfectly fine otherwise.
uni-mitation wrote:Techtree101 wrote:I ended up getting a Best Buy easystore 8TB for $149 (which oddly enough had a WD Red inside), and it's almost entirely quiet. There IS a seeking sound every 5 seconds or so, but you have to really be paying attention, and it's only audible outside the case anyway.
New problem now... these 8TB seem to be overloading my motherboards I/O abilities. Even when hooked up to a USB dock, they will disappear from Windows after trying to copy files for a few minutes. A computer shutdown and bootup is needed to get them to appear again.
I have a MOBO from 2007... which I'm guessing is messing up these transfers, as the drives seem to function perfectly fine otherwise.
1- Please be a little more descriptive. We need at least links to or the actual model names of what you have today. We need a clear & concise view of your equipment including your Windows version and if it is up-to-date. ETC.
2- What are your goals? It seems you want one 8TB Hard Drive with low seek noise. Would you be interested in a Network-attached-Storage unit? Do you feel confident in your technical-know-how or at least do some research on that venue? Are you interested in or at least be satisfied with an online back-up service like Backblaze? Do you want to make the current Best Buy drive work? Or do you want to return it? We need clear instructions on what you want.
3- We are unable to effectively help you unless we have at least the history and vitals of the patient. And anything else would be for naught and a waste of time.
uni-mitation
Techtree101 wrote:I ended up getting a Best Buy easystore 8TB for $149 (which oddly enough had a WD Red inside), and it's almost entirely quiet. There IS a seeking sound every 5 seconds or so, but you have to really be paying attention, and it's only audible outside the case anyway.
New problem now... these 8TB seem to be overloading my motherboards I/O abilities. Even when hooked up to a USB dock, they will disappear from Windows after trying to copy files for a few minutes. A computer shutdown and bootup is needed to get them to appear again.
I have a MOBO from 2007... which I'm guessing is messing up these transfers, as the drives seem to function perfectly fine otherwise.
Waco wrote:Techtree101 wrote:I ended up getting a Best Buy easystore 8TB for $149 (which oddly enough had a WD Red inside), and it's almost entirely quiet. There IS a seeking sound every 5 seconds or so, but you have to really be paying attention, and it's only audible outside the case anyway.
New problem now... these 8TB seem to be overloading my motherboards I/O abilities. Even when hooked up to a USB dock, they will disappear from Windows after trying to copy files for a few minutes. A computer shutdown and bootup is needed to get them to appear again.
I have a MOBO from 2007... which I'm guessing is messing up these transfers, as the drives seem to function perfectly fine otherwise.
So via both SATA and USB the drive is disappearing after sustained transfers? Even when powered externally via the USB dock?
I'd try on another computer, because that almost sounds like a suspect HDD to me.
Techtree101 wrote:I bought a new 8TB HGST Ultrastar He8 | HUH728080ALN604 hard drive. Fired it up and without putting any files onto it after formatting, the drive was already seeking. It doesn't necessarily get worse either when copying files or running files. It just does this regularly at somewhat consistent times.
I have a video up on YouTube with the sound, but unfortunately I cannot link it here. The noise is just as I describe though, a brief seeking sound. It's not exactly repetitive, seems like it's partially random, as if someone is opening up random files on a drive... except I'm not doing that. It's brief small bursts on regular intervals of every few seconds.
The drive seems to be operating 'normally', but this noise is still unacceptable. I have never owned a drive before this one that had this randomly seeking noise while idle.
Anything I can do? I'd be more than happy to return the drive for something that doesn't seek like this, if I could find such a drive (I need at least 8TB).
Thanks
Techtree101 wrote:I bought a new 8TB HGST Ultrastar He8 | HUH728080ALN604 hard drive. Fired it up and without putting any files onto it after formatting, the drive was already seeking. It doesn't necessarily get worse either when copying files or running files. It just does this regularly at somewhat consistent times.
I have a video up on YouTube with the sound, but unfortunately I cannot link it here. The noise is just as I describe though, a brief seeking sound. It's not exactly repetitive, seems like it's partially random, as if someone is opening up random files on a drive... except I'm not doing that. It's brief small bursts on regular intervals of every few seconds.
The drive seems to be operating 'normally', but this noise is still unacceptable. I have never owned a drive before this one that had this randomly seeking noise while idle.
Anything I can do? I'd be more than happy to return the drive for something that doesn't seek like this, if I could find such a drive (I need at least 8TB).
Thanks