WD 6TB Hard Drive is so loud...

ravenjedmanicdao

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Sep 19, 2016
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I have a Western Digital Black 6TB HDD with the model WD6002FZWX. It's been running for a few months now, and my God, does it make so much noise when it's being used, to the point that part of the case slightly vibrates. It's the largest storage that I have owned on a hard drive. Upon running WD's Data Lifeguard (quick test), the hard drive made so much noise and vibrations (in the whole case) during seek/write.

Is it normal for a 6TB hard drive to make a lot more acoustics than smaller capacity hard drives? My other 2TB HDD in my system is much more silent (WD Blue). I've been closely monitoring the SMART status, and it's been healthy so far. Will there be huge problems that this drive may face in the future if this maintains? Is there anything that I should be worried about?

I am not just going to get this RMA'd unless I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO.
 
Solution


Open the case and place your hand gently on the plastic mounting brackets in various places with some light pressure and see if the noise goes away. My sons case is the same way, you can attach the drives at the bottom, but then they slide into the 3.5" rails. I added some foam to the sides so thethey fit a bit tighter in the 3.5"...
A black drive is louder than a blue one. However how I'd it mounted? I know in my sons case uses those "tool-less" mounts which I hate. The black drive in his PC was very nosiey in fact I thought it was a fan going bad at first. Turned out it was just the hard drive not securely mounted and vibrating. Couple pieces of foam tape to tighten it up fixed the noise.

Don't get me wrong you will hear a black drive seek for data, but it shouldn't be that noticeable. I still only use black drives, I use them in my HTPCs, I even have them in our bedroom PCs that are on when we go to sleep. So when I say they are louder than a blue drive, they are, but not in an ridiculous manner. My largest black drive at the moment is a 4TB.
 

ravenjedmanicdao

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Sep 19, 2016
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Thanks for the message. My case is a Deepcool Tesseract, and the hard drives are mounted on a 'plastic case' that encases the whole hard drive, and at the bottom (where the logic board is) is secured with 4 screws to keep it in place. The sides, however, are not screwed within the plastic casing. The plastic casing then just clips into the 3.5" bays.

Perhaps it may be too 'loose' within the case?
 


Open the case and place your hand gently on the plastic mounting brackets in various places with some light pressure and see if the noise goes away. My sons case is the same way, you can attach the drives at the bottom, but then they slide into the 3.5" rails. I added some foam to the sides so thethey fit a bit tighter in the 3.5" rails in a few places so the vibration noises would stop. Its been running fine ever since.

This may not be your problem, just been my experience. Its the reason any where I can use screws I do. I rip all that screw less stuff out anywhere I can.
 
Solution