Loud hard drive [Archive]

Digiface

27th July 2007, 19:04

Is it normal that hard drive's access (activity) sound is much louder, than in my other drive, that is from same manufacturer, but model is different? Both drives are Seagate Barracuda s-ata "storage" drives. Are some drives/models just louder and that's it? It doesn't make any "failuring" sounds, when it's idle. Those normal access sounds are just louder, you can really here them.

Drive has been louder from the beginning. I've got it now about couple of months. Drive seems to be just fine; S.M.A.R.T. info says it's ok, and i also have ran a Seagate's hdd diagnostic tool (SeaTools for Dos) test and it passed it. Also have ran chkdsk and defragged it. Drive contains only video files.

mitsubishi

27th July 2007, 19:07

Is the louder one smaller?

It could just be one is having it's noise amplified more by where it is in the case. Make sure it is secure.

Digiface

27th July 2007, 19:19

Is the louder one smaller?

It could just be one is having it's noise amplified more by where it is in the case. Make sure it is secure.

Nope, it's bigger.

It's a center drive on the hard drive "cage". My drives are like this: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/2394/levytgr4.jpg "Tyhjää" means "empty".

What you mean secure?

microchip8

27th July 2007, 19:23

Under Linux you can adjust the acoustic management of the heads with hdparm -M. A higher value will speed up read/write operation but will also make the heads louder while a lower acoustic value will make read/write operations a bit slower but will reduce head noise

I don't know any tool for Windows, since the last time I used Windows was back in 2001

foxyshadis

27th July 2007, 21:40

In windows you have to use manufacturer-supplied tools to do that. Different model lines, and even variations of the same line, definitely have wildly different acoustic properties. It's perfectly normal, but annoying, certainly. Besides slowing down the drive heads, the most common method of dampening the sound is to affix the drives to the case with rubber stoppers between them. They're available online, or easy to make yourself. (More advanced methods include suspending the drive entirely, most commonly done with 2.5 drives.) This will reduce the heat transfer, though.

SPCR forums has lots of do-it-yourself methods of quieting things down.