2x WD RED 10TB both making loud clicking noise

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

Building a Streaming/Editing/Gaming computer all in one, it will also act as storage for two external computers recorded to it by a capture card. It’s going to be a youtube video as wwell.

However my two RED PRO 10TB’s are making very loud clicking every 5-7 second, it’s even so violent that a grill rattles.

Any way to get rid of it or do i have a bad batch of disks?

-Robbaz

2

Hello robbaz,

As your drive is making clicking noises, please follow the instructions below to check a WD drive for damage:

  1. Turn off your computer system

  2. Disconnect the data cable from the drive making noise (Do NOT remove the power cable)

  3. Turn the computer back on

  4. If the clicking noise persists, your drive maybe defective and needs to be replaced. Otherwise, continue to step 5
    For information about in-warranty replacement, please see Answer ID 8: How can I replace a product under warranty?.

Replace your data cable. If the problem returns, this could be a system hardware related issue. Please contact your System or Motherboard manufacture

4

I have been having this same issue, if this is permitted here are a couple of videos.

You can hear the noise here (they are at 5s intervates starting from 3s but there are 2 louder noises which is my arm on top of the case)

Check out 3s, 8s, 13s, 18s, 23s, 28s (You will need the volume up loud)

This is also with JUST the 10TB drive plugged in (This happens with both my current running and backup drive) the first few seconds is just everything powering on including fans but after a few seconds you hear the drive. It is outside the case next to my phone.

It is extremely annoying considering I paid ~£750 for the pair.

The clicking noise is at idle and its just storage for media streaming so no installed programs.

PS I have no idea about smart info but spinup time on the one in my machine has changed from 0 to just under 30mil and the backup spin up time on HDSentinel had no bar there but on the left it went up to 100,000,000 so I am not sure if that is the max HDS can show.

I am off to bed now after restarting my computer over 20 times today to unplug drives one by one to narrow the problem down and its 3am but I may try leaving the sata cable unplugged and keep the power in.

One of these drives holds 6TB of content, the second is a backup of the first and I couldnt afford a third so if there is anything wrong I cannot send both off at once to get sorted.

If this is just common with these drives then I am going to have to live with it because I cannot afford another 2 10TB’s from a different maker, I have had nothing but WD drive since they have served me well including my 640GB WD Black thats been running over 10 years pretty much 24/7 I am going to be extremely disappointed if this is the end of the road of the relationship.

PS
Note that I tried these drives in 2 different machines which means different leads.

Edit
I even tried playing back a video from the drive itself so it wasn’t idle anymore but still made that noise every 5 seconds.

Edit god knows what number this is now lol

On these 10TB Drives the Power Off Retract Cycle Count and Load/Unload Cycle Count are exactly the same every time they go up and since the 20th of September 2017 (Last month) when I installed them they are at 4,029 after 21 days power on time.

The 6TB Drive I have also in my machine which has been running for 901 Days is showing Power Off Retract at 15 and Cycle Count is 24,436 which at a daily rate is 10x less than the 10TB but as I said I have only had 2 so am unsure of what all these smart details are or how the 10TB drives operate.

5

Tried them in different computers as well, they just tick away every other second. Seeing how many people having issues with this I rather RMA it to a completely different line of drives with the same space. But it seems like all your high capacity helium drives ticks as well.

Do you guys at WD have any helium drives that don’t make loud clicking?

6

Yeah that second Video is pretty much spot on to what i’m experiencing, but a tad louder but it might sound louder for you as well in RL. It can even resonate into the grill or any loose parts. The disks makes my old 2x seagate enterprise 6tb’s disk seem silent once i tried them in my hotswap pc.

7

This is what i hear, for every 5 second.

So i moved the disks into the hallway and put them in a NAS so i wouldn’t go insane. Nope! I can still hear them, now i even hear them while taking a ■■■■ in the toilet or eating in the kitchen. Thud thud… thud thud… thud thud… thud thud…

Honestly this has the be the worst 800 dollars i ever spent ever and since i was building a sponsored computer i had too wait for more then 30 days for parts so i can’t even return them and get my money back.

The entire new line of high capacity drives from WD feels like a scam.

8

Woke up to Thud… Thud… Thud… for the last time this morning, i ripped the fuckers out and replaced them with my old Seagate 6TB enterprise drives now that i finally backed them up.

Is there any last chance for a fix? Anyone found a mircale cure? Or will high capacity wd drives forever make these idle noises?

10

i am also having this clicking issue with 2 x WD101KFBX-68R56N (brand new/factory sealed) in my NAS enclosure, configured as RAID1 array. i plugged the drives into the NAS for the first time today, and started to hear the clicking as soon as i powered on the NAS- my natural reaction is that hard drives should not operate so loudly, especially when there’s no drive activity happening- plus, i’ve used many other WD/other brand drives in the NAS, and none of them made noises like these red pro drives- the only time i ever heard other drives make noise (not to mention brief and subtle noise) was when the NAS was being powered up or the drives were woken from sleep mode. i just finished running a scan disk and quick SMART test directly from the NAS- both passed, now running an extended SMART test.

since i’ve never used these particular red pro drives before, i can’t know for sure how they are supposed to sound when they operate, however i find it hard to believe that these noises are “normal”. i also noticed when running the quick SMART test (and initially during the extended test), the drives made what i can only describe as a consistent grinding noise, and they did this more than once during the tests- that can’t be good, can it?

is it possible that WD sent out a bad batch of drives or something? the passes on my test results so far are the only things keeping me optimistic at this point- like was mentioned previously, these are very expensive drives and i can’t afford to get new ones at this point.

also, the only WD support response i’ve seen in this thread suggested steps on how to determine if the drives are bad or not, but didn’t indicate if this noise is in fact considered abnormal for these drives or not- does this imply that some degree of noise is to be expected?

hope i can get some answers here, was very much looking forward to getting my NAS in use until this happened…

thank you in advance

11

update: my extended SMART test finally finished and passed for both drives, so that’s good. someone mentioned the possibility of the noise resonating with grills/loose parts, which i’m wondering about now- when i plugged the red pro drives into my NAS, they were a bit harder to insert than previous drives- i wonder if this has anything to do with the noise? i’m thinking i might plug the drives into a computer and leave them sitting outside the case, free from any materials that may contribute to vibrating, rattling etc.

has anyone received a straight answer from WD about this issue? if i could only get an answer to confirm that yes, some amount of noise (ie clicking, grinding etc) should be expected with these drives, then i could move on… i read about how these drives are filled with helium? what does that mean? i also took some measurements vs my old NAS drives and found that the red pros are a bit heavier than previous drives, maybe that’s a contributing factor?

12

More platters inside and bigger read head would make it heavier and might cause extra noise by design, but i’m certain the thud/thicking can be fixed i bet it isn’t healthy either. Just moved my two 10tb WD PRO’s disks into a NAS also raid 1, tested them outside the case once more and they do make quite much noise just by holding them, they feel more violent then usual drives so cases could probably make them louder if somethings loose or rattling.

They are in a closet right now, had them on a table in the hallway. Could hear them thudding/ticking while taking a dump. Now they can have a private rave inside the closet until one dies.

13

i powered up my computer with one of the red pro drives connected outside the case- the clicking/grinding is more subtle but still audible, so it seems like the NAS does contribute to/amplify these sounds- these drives still seem to produce more noise vs my previous WD hard drives…

one other interesting note- i held the red pro drive in my hand as the computer was powering on (drive was vertical vs laying flat), and as i tilted the drive from side to side, i could “feel” the weight of the drive shifting, as if it was being thrown off balance and had its own momentum- the drive felt wobbly in my hand- i wish i could think of a good analogy here… my first though was maybe there’s a faulty platter, but i don’t think this would cause such an experience? i don’t know… maybe the helium is doing this?

this wobbly movement alone doesn’t seem right to me, so this has kinda trumped the noises in terms of my concerns- what’s the best way to confirm the status of these drives beyond quick and extended SMART tests? i guess i can reach out to WD support but i feel like they’ll just suggest i run these tests, then what?

pretty sure at this point i have no choice but to RMA the drives if i want to replace them, but i don’t want to do that if there’s a chance that these “issues” are all by design, only to receive replacement drives that do the same thing… help please??

14

The wobbling effect will occur with any drive of significant weight that is rotating at high velocity while being manually held, which you shouldn’t do by the way.

It’s a gyroscopic gravitational effect. I do believe the drive itself will have some kind of vibration protection, so this may also effect the force you feel through your hand. Either way, it’s not a ‘fault’ with the drive, it’s just simple physics.