Hard Drive Sounds - explained

Hard Drive Sounds - explained

What Can I Do When My Hard Drive Makes Unusual Noises?

Western Digital - How To Tell If The Noise or Sound An Internal Drive Makes is Normal.
https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=568&s=

Western Digital - WD hard drive makes a repeated clicking sound (Answer ID 197).
https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=197&lang=en&lang=en&lang=en

Western Digital Hard Drive Normal Sounds.
Whirring noise during drive spin-up when the computer is starting up, waking from sleep, or the drive is transitioning from idle to full speed to resume normal operation
Occasional drive clicks occurring at 4 or 5 second intervals, and the drive is functioning normally and passes diagnostics
Occasional clicks during data access
Hard clicks during a head park operation (shutdown or sleep mode)

Normal hard drives make noises they are not silent. The question is how loud is a normal hard drive? See DataCent (Failing hard drive sounds) Failing hard drive sounds - Datacent.com - Datacent

To Troubleshoot the hard drive goto
Western Digital - How To Tell If The Noise or Sound An Internal Drive Makes is Normal.
https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=568&s=

Skip down to Step 3. - Try the drive in a new location

Install the noisy hard drive into another computer if the problem presists (RMA the hard drive).
Install the noisy hard drive into a usb external hard drive dock if the problem presists (RMA the hard drive)
Place the noisy hard drive on a secure surface connnect the data and power connectors and power up the computer.
If the problem presists (RMA the hard drive).

If the noise problem went away or to minimize normal hard drive sounds see the following links.

Sound Proof Your Hard Drive

HDD Silencers

Himuro Aluminium 3.5in Hard Disk Drive Cooler

HDD Silencers
http://www.performance-pcs.com/hdd-silencers

Hard Disk Drive Anti-Vibration Screw Kit (4 Pack)

Defragment Hard drive
normal-hard-drive-clicking-sounds
http://harddriveclicking.net/hard-drive-clicking/normal-hard-drive-clicking-sounds

NotaCanada

Here is some additional Information

http://www.noisehelp.com/noise-level-chart.html

WD Black Spec Sheet (36dB Average on Seek) (30db Idle)
https://www.wdc.com/content/dam/wdc/website/downloadable_assets/eng/spec_data_sheet/2879-771434.pdf

WD Gold Spec Sheet (36dB Average on Seek) (30db Idle) 6TB Hard drive
https://www.wdc.com/content/dam/wdc/website/downloadable_assets/eng/spec_data_sheet/2879-800074.pdf

WD Blue Spec Sheet (28dB Average on Seek) (25db Idle)
https://www.wdc.com/content/dam/wdc/website/downloadable_assets/eng/spec_data_sheet/2879-771436.pdf

NotaCanada

Stop powering your hard drive, you don’t want any platter damage and that sounds shows head/arm of your hard drive is bad. If you will need to get your data back you need to contact professional data recovery company.

If your data is not important then check for your warranty for free HDD replacement.

Hi: Jerry1987

I am guessing that you replied to the wrong thread.

NotaCanada

I could tell you what can you do If you face issues with Hard Drive Sounds. If it always sounded like this when reading or writing, and is still working correctly, then it’s ok. On the other hand, if it is making a noise as the disk spins, but no activity is taking place, I contacted them to help me with this problem https://www.salvagedata.com/ and they helped me to solve it. Its hard drive unusual sounds. Also, the motor bearings could be worn, which will allow wobble of the disk, which will enable it to rub against the heads, which have tiny clearances.

There are two possible reasons for grinding noise coming from Hard Drive or the computer. Let’s look at each:

Reason 1: Firstly, the buzzing or grinding noise could be because of the CPU FAN. FAN is embedded to cool down the heated system and prevent overheating damages. There are computers designed to run all the fans simultaneously and at the maximum speed initially . This is to check if the fans are working properly and to remove the accumulated dust. The speed of one fan is not strong enough to remove the dust; hence we need multiple fans to operate simultaneously.

If there is something that obstructs the normal functioning of these fans in the PCs. It could be their blades hitting each other as they do not necessarily spin at an even pace. Therefore, resulting in a grinding noise . If this is the reason, you can easily detect it. It requires you just to open your computer and check the blades of the fans, whether or not they hit each other when in the running mode.

Reason 2: Secondly, it could be the grinding noise from the hard disk . In fact, this indicates something bad or negative, and you should be worried about this. The reason is, severe internal damage is what may follow. To be specific, the grinding noise from the HDD is a symptom of hard drive failure in the future. This indicates that components in the hard drive have turned faulty.

Effects of Hard Disk Drive Failure

If the HDD in your computer fails, all the data stored on it becomes inaccessible or is lost. This indeed is a big setback. Nothing can be worse than losing access to all your important data. Therefore, you should fix the hard drive grinding noise issue before it leads to complete hard drive failure. A hard drive failure will result in a data loss situation. Even if you have a failed hard disk, you should take the necessary steps to recover the lost or inaccessible HDD data.