WD My Passport Pro 4TB fan noise NOT for professional use!

Hi WD Team,

I recently purchased the WD Passport Pro 4TB as it seemed to be the perfect solution for me. Capacity wise, safety (Raid1), portability and speed (TB) combined in one product was just as if someone read my mind! The Ideal solution!

The problem is the fan inside. When this little ■■■■■■ starts to turn it brings up a high pitched whistle sound which is not only annoying, it makes the whole drive unusable in a pro environment!

I mostly produce for the J-Pop top artists and record music and vocals as a pro. I travel a lot to different countries for co-writes etc. With a drive this loud, I can’t record anything thats in the same room. I’m getting a headache when exposed to this annoying whistle tone and surely, if you listen to it over a long time, it might cause you a tinitus.

So I did the only possible thing and returned the drive. Then I went on the net to read about it, if I was the only one with this problem, but NO! There’s not much out on the web yet, as the drive is pretty new, but theres a lot of reports, also in almost every Hardware test I saw or read,they were talking about an unnormal noisy fan.

So dear WD Team, I know it’s stupid to think my post would change anything, but I will say it anyways. A revision 2 modell with a SILENT fan would be very much appreciated and I believe more people would buy it. I know a lot of music production guys like me who thought this might be the holy grail for portable storage, but I tested and it just isnt so they wont buy it. I guess the same goes for video guys and photo guys.

To perfect the product for pro needs:

Please think of a solution how to have access to the data in case the cable breaks. If the cable breaks the whole drive and all the data is useless and cant be accessed easily. In my business, this data means tens - hundreds of thousands of euros. Fast service for the client is everything.

Solution 1: make the TB cable detachable

Solution 2: (even better) add a second TB port! The drive wouldn’t terminate the TB chain which is a very important thing when working on a Macbook Pro with the need of an audio interface etc…

I don’t know if anyone from the WD staff will read this or consider this important. But if you work for WD and really want to have an ear for the customer, you strive to make the best product possible, please send this to someone who can really make a change.

PS. just so you know: I’ve been a WD user since day 1 of my pro carreer. Started with MyBook Studios and now my Passport Studios store several #1 hits :wink:

Please feel free to contact me via e-mail. 

Best regards

Tommy

The drive does not coming with a fan so it looks like you had a defective unit.

The suggestions you are making seem more suitable for the Ideas Board.

http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drive-Ideas/idb-p/external_ideas

Dear John,

you are simply wrong. Please read carefully, as a staff member you should have easy access to manuals and specs. The 4 TB version indeed has a fan. What I experienced is NOT a single event in a defective unit. There are many reports on the net.

So again, please read about your companys product before posting so users wont get confused.

Best regards

Tommy

1 Like

theGOODcustomer wrote:
Dear John,

you are simply wrong. Please read carefully, as a staff member you should have easy access to manuals and specs. The 4 TB version indeed has a fan. What I experienced is NOT a single event in a defective unit. There are many reports on the net.

So again, please read about your companys product before posting so users wont get confused.

Best regards

Tommy

Sorry for the inconvenience.

You are correct, the 4TB version does have a fan. However, it should not have a high pitch sound as the one you mentioned.

Unfortunately you no longer have the drive for us to troubleshoot this incident.

Feel free to create a new thread on the ideas exchange with the suggestions you have.

Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention.

Thanks,

I will post my ideas in the suggested forum too.

The fan noise occurs when you move bigger files and the fan starts to run. If it helps I can find sources with similar reports for you. Maybe you could test this internally at WD. Take a few drives and copy a few GB of folders and files…

theGOODcustomer wrote:
Thanks,

I will post my ideas in the suggested forum too.

The fan noise occurs when you move bigger files and the fan starts to run. If it helps I can find sources with similar reports for you. Maybe you could test this internally at WD. Take a few drives and copy a few GB of folders and files…

We will try to reproduce this issue.

Hey John,

I thought a firmware update might be a quick and cheap solution for now. Apple had a problem once where the fans didn’t run until a high temperature was reached, and then went on to full rotation and were extremely loud. A firmware update was the solution and the fans started to turn earlier but with a slow tempo. Very effective and convenient for the consumer. 

I believe the Passport Pro has the same issue. No fan noise during “normal” use or idle, but when you copy large files which takes a few more minutes or probably hours (when backuping or cloning a drive) the fan goes from zero to full rotation.

best regards

Tommy

1 Like

Drivers and frmware can have a big effect good and bad. A few years ago updated my video card drivers. There was a bug where the fan ran to slow and I fried the card. 

Joe