Should I be noticing this much noise with my 320GB 7200.10?

I just got it today and got it up and running, and when it seeks, it's very noticeable in my case along with 6 fans. Idle it's much quieter than my 80GB WD that it's replacing (although that's because it's over 4 years old, it used to be very quiet IIRC). I've just seen so many people describe this as being silent, that you won't hear it in your case, but the "chatter" I guess you could say when it's seeking or reading or whatever is definitely audible. I can deal with it I guess, but I just want to make sure I didn't get a bad one because I don't see how you can describe it as quiet or silent.

I just compared it to my old 80GB and if I put my ear up to it I can barely notice the chatter I'm talking about when files are being moved, so with the Seagate it's like 10x louder.

Strange, try remounting it in your case. It could be some wierd harmonics or even something loose that's rattling when it seeks. I certainly can't hear mine above case fans and they aren't loud.

I can't hear much from mine ... but it's got 3 other drives in there with it.

Enabled SMART and see if you get a failure from the drive. If it fails, RMA, if it doesn't keep an eye on SMART status, sounds like the drive isn't completely healthy.

Flix

http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/sounds/hddnoise/seagate-7200.10-24-34dba.mp3

If you listen to that (from more than halfway through) that's the kind of noise I'm talking about... it sounds pretty much like that but it's definitely audible from outside the case. Now there is some vibration that maybe I can fix (if I apply pressure to both sides of the case then there's less idle noise), but this noise I believe is just the drive itself and I don't know if anything can be done about it.

Yep, I get very similar cracking, a little softer thought (may be because you put a mike right close to them) on my 1 month old 2x320s ..

I know that if you listen for it you're always going to hear some crackling/clicking when the hard drive is seeking, but compared to other drives (I'm now on another computer with a 120GB Western Digital), the Seagate has much more pronounced and harsh of a noise. With say this WD drive, it's a dull/muted noise that is very easily ignored. It's also more of a continuous soft noise rather than a random loud chatter.

Oh and that sound clip wasn't mine, it was from silent pc review's review of the 750GB 7200.10 drive. I just used it as an example for what I hear from my position outside of the case.

Just visit storagereview's forum on 7200.10 thread, there is a post that mentioned there are difference between the one made in China and Singapore, and it came with pics too to show the difference.

Yeah, the one made in China has the noise problem, but I'm not sure too since never really faced both of them for comparison.

Mine 2 X 250GB made in Singapore are almost quite, just some hint how quite they are, if you have an Intel stock cooler set it to run on 1000-1500 RPM and that fan noise is basically mask off the hd noise while on heavy benching for average seek time. Finding the seek time usually will bang those poor heads a lot !

Yeah I've been reading it... mine has the label on it though. But, that might not necessarily mean anything. Are you saying though that even during seeking you don't hear anything over the stock cooler? Or that just moderate seeking is that quiet.

Still, though, I can very clearly hear the seeks such that they're annoying over my 6 case fans, CPU fan (Thermaltake Venus 7), video card fan (NV Silencer 5), and PSU fan (Fortron Blue Storm 500W).

I haven't heard a peep from mine with or without the side of the case on, and I got 3 drives in RAID.

So even when the drive is seeking you can't hear any clicking or chattering or anything?

Gregory_WE said:

So even when the drive is seeking you can't hear any clicking or chattering or anything?

Click to expand...

No but my case dampens the noise very well IMO. So if it is even audiable its not easy to tell. Mind you I do have 6 120mm fans in the case, and while those aren't really audiable either it might dampen the noise as well.

I'm taking into account that its idling so the GPU fan isn't spinning up, and as soon as that did the is no way I'd hear it.