Hi,
I have two Western Digital MyBook 1230 6TB external hard drives. They are working fine, but every 4 seconds (almost exactly) they make a very brief sound. Not a clicking, not a buzzing, it sounds like a normal hard drive sound, like something is accessing it. But it’s only 0.1 seconds long. I know for sure nothing is accessing it, as it spins down after 10 minutes as per settings.
It seems to make this sound most when the drive is idle, not when it has recently been accessed.
Luckily I have two of the exact same drive, as I switch between them for backup purposes. They both make the same sound, and I’ve tried them on different computers where they also make the same sound.
It’s very distracting as I try to have a quiet PC. It’s not a loud sound, but relatively speaking it’s easy to hear over my case fans and PSU, and I am wondering what it could be. I have the most recent firmware, I can’t tell you if it was happening before as I only recently quietened my system.
Thanks,
Dave
Just to clarify, it’s a short sharp burst of disk activity noise. Close to 0.1 second. It sounds the same every time. It wouldn’t sound unusual if something was accessing the HD every 4 seconds, but the fact that nothing is makes me unsure how to fix it. The fact that two identical drives make the same sound no matter what PC they’re connected to makes me think its a firmware issue.
Hope someone can help!
Any WD support staff able to help?
I’d recommend taking a look at the following article. It may be able to help you identify if this noise is to be expected and normal (For this hard drive model).
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/568/
No it’s definately not normal. Especially as I have an internal hard drive which is the exact same model, but it does not make this sound.
Maybe you should try contacting WD’s Technical Support about this. You can do so either by phone or email.
To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en
Support by Country
http://support.wdc.com/country/index.asp
