WD 1TB Green HDD making weird noise

so i use it as an external drive to store my video files and sometimes it makes a weird noise. i'm just going to call it a low squealing noise. is this a sign of it failing? the noise happens regardless if i leave the computer idle or reading a file from it. it's only been about a few months since i ordered it from newegg.

but right now it's not making any noise. should i be concerned about this?

Does it do it when it's cold, or after it warms up? How are the temps on the drive in the case?

Mine will make a low pitched squeal on spinup and shut down, but that's all.

when the noise happens, it is when i boot up the computer. i would have to reconnect the hdd to make the noise stop. the temperature for my hdds are in the high 30s to low 40s. will defragmenting it help? i haven't defragged it since i got my hands on it.

i believe i leave my hard drives on all the time when my computer is on. i remembered i had to do it because of my ssd in june. maybe that was a mistake to leave my hdds active all the time? lol

ok i just heard the noise happen again for a few seconds, then it stopped. i'm not sure what to think of it.

well i have no idea why, but the noise is getting more frequent now. i talked to my dad and he said he would take it off my hands since he doesn't mind the noise. if the noise keeps getting louder, i'm afraid i'll have to check the policy to RMA it.

time to order a samsung spinpoint F4 2TB for $98 from newegg
i've always had great experience with samsung products, so i'm sure it'll be great. heck, i'm still using a 1TB samsung f1 spinpoint after 2 years and no problems whatsoever.

Most 2TB drives from all manufacturers have reliability problems, so i might hold off a bit on that.

I've never had a WD fail on me, but that being said, i've never owned a Samsung either. I've heard they make good drives, but 2TB is just simply unstable across brands at the moment.

Doco , do you have any ability to make a good audio recording of it?
i would love to hear the sound.

i ran 4 of the Wd Green 1Ts and dont remember a sound that i would descibe that way.,
and am running 5 Wds of green type 2x2t, i would love to know what this sound sounds like, and if later even the drive beings to be a problem.
then there is a bunch of Wd stuff in the other computer too, that will be run for longer years , being second hand upgrades from this one.

i don't own a digital camcorder, so i might have to ask my sister since she is the one who most likely has one. if not, i'll try to figure out some other way to record it.

the noise might not matter to a person who is in a room benching all day, but to a guy like me who has delicate sensitive ears with no headset on, it gets very annoying.

edit: sorry for the sound quality but i believe this should be enough to hear the noise i'm talking about. you can hear the noise when i set the camera down. it's that annoying pitching noise. not the reading or writing sound the hard drive is doing. the video file is 26mb so its not much.

http://www.mediafire.com/?y56jr9bggjy2g5w

it just sounds like it is working.
if its the head passing back and forth , then your question about defragging would apply.
if its the sytem drive , you cant defrag much of it when the system is working. to many items are locked
a cool thing to do is have a defragger lik JK defrag free, ultimate defrag , OOdefrag, and just Look at where stuff is landing on the disk, with those you can also see what File it even is.

did you put the operating system on a terrabyte drive with one partition?
.

Psycogeec said:

it just sounds like it is working.
if its the head passing back and forth , then your question about defragging would apply.
if its the sytem drive , you cant defrag much of it when the system is working. to many items are locked
a cool thing to do is have a defragger lik JK defrag free, ultimate defrag , OOdefrag, and just Look at where stuff is landing on the disk, with those you can also see what File it even is.

did you put the operating system on a terrabyte drive with one partition?
.

Click to expand...

the hard drive is used for multimedia storage as said before. my OS is on my ssd. so you're saying a file on the hard drive can actually cause this somewhat low pitch noise to happen? i usually just use the defrag that comes with windows.

and yes, the low pitch noise is in the video. you have to listen carefully to it and not the background noise or the read/write of the hdd.

the audio had a lot of noise.
i heard nothing from the hard drive that was abnormal, but i dont think i heard what your hearing yet.

do you think it is the high speed motor spin making noise? or the head pitching back and forth?

What operating system? because in Xp many tweakers will stop the AVI "previewing" that the OS does, that causes it to preview the header on every video file in a folder. (that is one thing i can think of) i have it on right now and its a total waste of effort by the OS, and isnt designed for 1000 video files So everytime I go to view a filder full of files, the system doesnt just show file names, it wants to access every one of them, something i dont need, and has a lot of going all over the drive seeking going on.

what version of the WD , EADS ACS or ADS ? the letters right after the numbers?

i'm pretty damn sure it's not supposed to make that kind of pitching noise regardless if the motor is spinning or the head is doing it. and it doesn't matter what OS. i have over 500 video files on my samsung f1 1tb hdd for 2 years and it's working perfectly like the day i got it.

i leave the computer idle. it makes the pitching noise. i read files. it makes the pitching noise. i write files. it makes the pitching noise. this is on windows 7. so i go onto my dads computer which has XP and it still makes the noise. so no, the OS does not matter.

i'm assuming you're talking about the model number? WD10EARS

also, all of these videos im talking about are mkv. not avi. there is only about 20 avi video files out of all of them.

i'm pretty damn sure it's not supposed to make that kind of pitching noise regardless

then just send it back?

i had to know the OS for other reasons too. a EARs is a advance format drive
what methods are you using to adress the issues with an advanced format drive?
and the answer is W7 works with advanced format drives.
so is the sector shift pin in on the drive?

Psycogeec said:

then just send it back?

Click to expand...

the original question of this thread is asking whether or not this noise is a sign of it failing. if it isn't, i don't see any reason to send it back. i also ordered the samsung f4 2tb and newegg shipped it this morning. so i'm giving the WD green 1tb to my dad since he stores way more multimedia on his storage drives than i do and he is not a noise freak like i am.