Hard drive whining, should I buy an enclosure?

hillelslovak

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Jan 13, 2014
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http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c03639067-12&source=aw&aid=7168&jumpid=af_6mrc7uxaeb&awc=7168_1488405312_23446c3bdceeaf3f88ad4a1b25f65d8b&aoid=35252&pbid=85386&siteid=VigLink%20Inc

pc above, swapped in 2-3tb Toshiba internal hard drives, an r9 380x gpu, Asrock H170m mobo, G Skill 16gb ddr4 ram, i5 6600 cpu.

Ok, I've been hearing whining coming from inside my rig. It's a really high pitched whining noise. I thought it was the psu, replaced it, and it was still there. I isolated it down to one of my 3 tb toshiba hard drives. I have the stock metal hard drive enclosure that came with the console. It contained both 3tb drives, and the 1.5 tb seagate one was in the expansion port one. I assumed it was these two bigger drives vibrating at the same frequency or something. I put the OS containing 3tb one into the expansion slot, switched the noise making one into the other slot on the enclosure, and put the 1.5 seagate in with it.

Now, I took the 3tb one out of the enclosure, and I could not hear the noise. Only when it is in the enclosure do I hear the noise.

So, I lined the enclosure where the drive was touching metal, along with all the edges of the enclosure with electrical tape to dampen the noise. No luck. Still the whining.

So, would a new enclosure maybe remedy this problem? I've done a whole slew of tests on all my drives this week, and nothing is wrong with any of them, no bad sectors, no unreadable sectors, nothing. This noise is kind of annoying, and I would really appreciated help with what I would do.
 

schaft

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Jan 24, 2012
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"Now, I took the 3tb one out of the enclosure, and I could not hear the noise. Only when it is in the enclosure do I hear the noise. "
Do you mean you have took out Toshiba and run it outside?
If you do, then it means your HDD is fine. Its just an unwanted vibration. Just play around with your location of that toshiba in the case. Try using cloth or rubber available and put it between HDD and the case.

If you just take it out without running it, then it means your HDD is near end of life.
 

hillelslovak

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I dont really have room to put it in different spots. The case is kind of a tight fit. Also, what do you mean by your last sentence?
 

schaft

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your sentences in the headline can be intrepeted in 2 way.
1st is you took out the HDD with all the cable still attached (meaning its working when the noise is gone). That the first If
2nd is you took out the HDD totally, so the pc was silent without Toshiba HDD. That the second If
 

hillelslovak

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Jan 13, 2014
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Yeah, I think I might have solved this. I paid more attention to the noise of my hard drives outside of the enclosure. The Toshiba, past it's warranty by a year, is in fact emitting a high pitched whining. I think I will just get a new Seasonic one for like 90 bucks, and get an enclosure for the toshiba, in order to use it like an external drive.

One question, could someone recommend a sata to usb hdd enclosure?