Strange noise coming from 10TB drives (WD100EFAX)

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
121

To add my experience for the benefit of others…

“The noise” has OFTEN appeared in the following conditions:

  1. Single drive in 1-bay QNAP NAS formatted with EXT4
  2. Two drives in RAID1 in 2-bay QNAP NAS formatted with EXT4

“The noise” has NEVER appeared despite many weeks of tests in:

  1. External SATA USB3 single drive enclosure formatted NTFS
  2. External hardware RAID unit with two drives in RAID1 and NTFS

The above is consistent across five different WD100EFAX-68LHPN0 drives with Firmware 83.H0A83 from retail, shucked and direct from WD via their RMA process, all of which were manufactured between February and August 2019.

So the mystery continues; the above suggests that RAID itself cannot be the cause - unless the 1-bay NAS has the same board as multi-bay models & so a RAID controller is still between it and the SATA. Or perhaps it’s EXT4 - I don’t know enough about that. I’ve also now ran out of care and suitable equipment to do more tests, and accepted “the noise” for what it is - an occasional downside of an otherwise great product. Until the disks fail in a few years and WD announce they built them with problems.

The most common occurence is after a large amount of data movement. When the NAS is just running or carrying out its various tasks, I hardly notice it’s there. Overall happy with the drives and in my opinion still the best on the market even with this issue.

122

Thanks for your contribution, it’s appreciated.
The one thing every NAS has in common, is that they all use a software raid. Perhaps the raid unit you testet were using a raid card(hardware)?
I’m using BTFS, so I don’t think EXT4 is the problem. As you said, the mystery continues :frowning:

I have looked at the competition, several seagate models for example, but they have so mixed reviews. Some say the noise level is ok, others say it’s very bad. Either way, I can’t afford enough drives to replace the WD drives anyway, so I’m stuck with these drives with the absurdly annoying noise.

123

I just noticed the same problem. Just sharing my experience so far.

I recently set up a new NAS and have been running it for maybe a month. QNAP TS-653B with 6 x WD100EFAX. I have it set up in a large closet, so I don’t notice it much. It is quieter than my previous unit, so sometimes I stick my head in there and marvel at the silence.

Not so much this morning. I heard this beeping noise and it was coming from 1-3 of the drives at a time it seemed, at slightly different pitch. I agree that it seems to happen when there’s no particular I/O going on. Perhaps it’s just idling, or perhaps it’s falling back on some internal routine the drive is supposed to do.

I was coming down from a ~30 hour RAID scrubbing activity, so it might be related to some internal maintenance task after a lot of data had been shuffled around.

This was in the morning. When I got back from work in the evening the noise was gone… Just the regular sporadic seek noises and the faint spindle spinning sound in the background. No beeping.

I’ll be sticking my head in the closet more often now for a while and see if it comes and goes under normal operation, or after heavier tasks only. I feel sorry for you guys having this noise in your living room. :frowning:

124

Uploaded a clip with the noise.

125

I’m hearing the same noise at this very moment. Sadly I live in a small apartment, I don’t have a place where I can place the NAS without being bothered with the WD symphony :cry:
Thanks for sharing your experience, really appreciated. The more people that report this issue the better.

126

Yesterday morning I heard the noises again. And yesterday evening they were gone again. So a gap of 6 days. Have barely used the NAS in this time, so I don’t think it was anything special I did that would have caused it.

127

Hello All,

Can some one give me some advice for following similar question:

I have bought new Synology DS218j and two WD Red 4TB drives and used as Hybrind RAID (SHR). The problem is the vibration type sound, which happens in every 5 seconds despite that there is none of the two Disk LEDs blinking i.e. I do not use any data from the NAS drive at that time. For example while in night time the sound is quite audible :frowning:

This sound can be listened in the audio [audio link:
https://app.box.com/s/yo60lcz19z6g2c78geeh1hk6cc846tiq]
at following timestamps:

00:05
00:09
00:13 - 00:14
00:19 - 00:20
00:24
00:29 - 00:30
00:39 - 00:40
00:45
00:50

Initially I thought the problem is in Synology DS218j device but I thought to do following tests before I sent the Synology DS218j device for replacement:

  • By removing both the drives and then powering on the Synology DS218j and there was no such noise present.
  • After that I fitted only one of those 2 HDDs and such sound was audible again.
  • After that I fitted only second HDD (as single HDD) and such sound was audible again.

I consulted Synology DS218j chat support and they kind of gave me a hint that this is issue in WD Red since 2015, after suggesting me to do above tests, which I had already done.

So clearly the sound belongs to WD Red from above testing however is it normal sound and others also hear same sound especially anyone having 4TB HDD?

Can someone help to point out which of the following installed applications might be the source for using disk every 5 sec.

EX-Internet, File Station, Universal Search, OAuth Service, Hyper Backup, Audio Station, Download Station, Media Server, Synology Drive ShareSync, Video Station, Moments

Following are probably default installed applications:

Synology Drive, Synology Drive Admin Console, Storage Manager, iSCSI Manager, Resource Monitor, Control Panel, DSM Help, Package Centre, Log Centre, Security Advisor, Support Centre,

Any suggestions?

Thanks for your time!

128

Your post has nothing to do with the topic, it’s sounds like normal operating sounds. But I will answer you anyway :slight_smile:
Vibrations are reduced using the velcro method. It has no negative effect on thermals and reduces the noise, I can attest to that.

129

Quite the thread, can’t believe WD doesn’t have a solution yet. I literally can’t be in my office without noise cancelling headphones at some points in the day. QNAP TS-653 Pro, had a failing WD Red 5 TB (circa 2017 drive) and replaced it with a WD Red 10 TB drive, this is a RAID 5 array. After the rebuilding and some other activity, this drive shows the same symptoms of the beeping noise. I think it’s actually making me crazy. I also have another WD Red 10 TB drive connected externally via USB 3.0 as a backup destination (non-raid) that doesn’t have the beeping/high pitch noise.

Thinking I may RMA with Newegg, but don’t want to go with a degraded array really. Anyone know if WD or Newegg do advanced replacement?

130

WD seem to ignore the problem, I have yet to see any acknowledgment from WD regarding the noise. They claim it’s “normal”. Like you, the sound is driving me insane, it’s far from a normal sound.

131

I had already 3 10TB disks, first disk was replaced with advanced RMA, now I have 2 10TB disks, all disks have same issue. WD said that is normal behavior and I don’t need to worry about it, but it is really annoing. WD technician said that this sound is when drive indexing data??? Did anyone tried 12 or 14TB disks? I’m thinking about replace thoose two drives with bigger capacity drives. Are they have same issue?

132

I think it’s safe to assume they produce the same noise, considering WD claims the noise is “normal”, they probably haven’t made any changes to the bigger drives.

133

I stumbled upon this thread by accident. I just wanted to share that in november 2018 I’ve installed a new Synology DS2415+ with 4 also new WD Red 10 TB disks (in SHR-1 / Btrfs setup). And just last week I added 2 more new WD Red 10 TB disks. I never heard this noise and the unit sits right under my desk at about 1 meter away. If needed, maybe I can help investigate.

134

Interesting. What do you use your NAS for? is it cold storage? or is it actively in use, if so, what type of software/services do you use?

I recently made a sound dampened box to keep my NAS in. I bought the box from Ikea(“Tjena”) and lined the sides and bottom with sound dampening material and cut out some holes for cables and some big holes for the NAS to blow out warm air. As long as I don’t put on the lid, the temperatures stay the same and the noise is lower. Making the noise episodes much easier to endure, where it was unbearable before.

135

I just use it for dumping video on it and either view that directly from my pc, or my family streams that to the TV. No use for VM’s etc. yet. I’ve enabled Media server and Plex media server, but have not yet configured it further. So yeah, just storage basically.

To add, it runs on just one network cable, and I’ve put it behind a small UPS. Maybe the UPS makes the difference?

136

Thanks for the feedback :slight_smile:
So far in this thread guys have reported the noisy coming in all kinds of conditions, from the drives doing nothing to medium load. So it doesn’t seem to be directly connected to the type of load. Generally the sound seem to show up during times of low activity on the drives.
So I’m not sure how to interpret it to be honest.

Maybe the UPS plays a part, I open to most things. It’s a mystery, so random :frowning:

137

I have NAS (QNAP) behind UPS and it doesn’t make difference. Noise is heard only with small load. When noises starts I’m running bad block check on disks and noise stops immediately.

138

That’s exactly my experience as well, give the drives a big job to do and the noise goes away. Only to return after a while when the drives goes back to normal operation.

139

Hear this. Yeaterday bought… https://photos.app.goo.gl/BRTGvLy6mL7CCmEaA?fbclid=IwAR2_5fz5g6qdv0g6w9yQLaEpyEom9XezrkTMqLXVpqc-PQR_26ZCqAcNmWQ

140

That’s the clearest case of DOA I’ve ever heard, and you must RMA the HDD at once. But it’s not related to the problem we are discussing in this thread though :slight_smile: