WD Black 1TB is noisy...

I dunno, with my system at idle, and my fans turned down in speed including my case fans the only thing I can really hear in my PC is this new WD black drive I have.. The whole computer is new only a week old, and all im hearing is this low level hummm sound from the drive.. I have a 7 year old Caviar 640GB drive this thing is dead silent..

Is this normal for black drives ?

So, its not spinning down on idle I take it?

What's your Windows power settings on?

Cnaydmancangt said:

I dunno, with my system at idle, and my fans turned down in speed including my case fans the only thing I can really hear in my PC is this new WD black drive I have.. The whole computer is new only a week old, and all im hearing is this low level hummm sound from the drive.. I have a 7 year old Caviar 640GB drive this thing is dead silent..

Is this normal for black drives ?

Click to expand...

Hi there.

Can you upload a recording of the noise so I can hear it? Other than that, I have 2 Black drives myself and they are a little bit noisier (29 dBA when idle and 33 dBA average when seek) compared to WD Blue for instance (29 dBA when idle and 30 dBA average when seek).

However, just in case, you could also check the SMART readings to see if there are any internal problems or errors identified on your WD drive by running a test on it using Data Lifeguard Diagnostics. Just backup any important data if you decide to go with an extended test because if DLG finds something wrong with the HDD it will try to fix it automatically:

http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=8gNd92

Let me know how it went.

First Mae see you drive is healthy to your satisfaction ( I don't know how to do that, my drives either work or they don't )

Second, I read an article a while back about decoupling your HDD from your case that looked very promising. I did not use it myself due to there being no room I my hdd cage but.....

So the article explained how to take bungee straps and used them instead of screws to hold the drive in place. The idea being to not allow contact with the case and inhibiting noise transfer. It seemed to say that all hdd noise come from amplification of platter spin, which happens through the contact with the case. I will see if I can dig the link up of you need, but the whole thing was real simple. It did caution against the use of rubber bands because the heat of the drive will dry them and they will eventually break.

I thought this may interest you if you've never heard of it before. I know I was sad my cage wouldn't allow it.