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WD Caviar Blue and Black

Last response: in Storage
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That's odd. I always get WD blacks and I barely hear them, even the ones in external enclosures. Either you got an exceptionally loud drive or my hearing is going bad, lol!

I've got 3 WD blacks in a bottom of the line Tuniq case sitting about 1ft from me, and the video card is really the only thing I can hear at idle. If you copy some large files around you will hear the drives, but nothing that seems overly loud to me. I will never buy WD drives again though, after they essentially disabled the ability to use them in anything other then stand alone, and Raid 0/1 sets.

I didn't notice the Sata 2/3 thing earlier, the drives I am using are Sata 2.
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You didn't specify which model you are looking at. Mine are a few years old and they are quiet. Even the 1Tb WD1001FALS I have is quiet. Perhaps quiet to me is loud to you. Personally, I think seagate drives tend to be louder than WD drives, or at least the ones I have had.

I have both black and blue WD's and the blacks are noisier. Especially when something like indexing or defrag is going on. Obviously they will be noisier in a gaming type rig as opposed to a basic desktop due to the amount of usage. You will especially notice it in larger tower style gaming cases that have a lot of mesh for air flow.

This is one of the main reasons I switched to the Samsung F3 which is also faster by a slight bit according to most benchmarks I ran. It is also whisper quiet. I wound up putting the WD black in my HTPC. Even then I can hear it on occasion from 10 feet away. The blue drive is in an aluminum DIY external box. Don't really hear it at all either.

Hmm, I have neve noticed a noise issue with my WD blacks. They are not totally silent, but they are not intrusive either, and I am using them in a quiet environment.

Hawkeye22 said:
I wonder if it's a QA issue or firmware that makes a difference. My 1Tb WD1001FALS is in an ESata dock and it's still quiet even when I'm backing up my system drive to it.


All I know is there is no shortage of refurb WD's around. I just think WD ain't what they used to be and I have used them exclusively for many years. Not that they are any worse than Seagate or Hitachi these days, but they used to be so much better. I know I am loving my Samsung.
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