Seagate 7200.10's are noisiest drives EVER!

Bought one of these the other day, 320gb flavour, as everyone seems to be raving about them so seemed a good choice.... wrong!! They're so damn noisey

Took the hard-drive back today and got it replaced. The new one is exactly the same

I've never really noticed my hard drives before but this just shouts for attention. It makes a constant low pitched kind of buzzing sound all the time, even in the BIOS. Soon as it's powered up it does it and it's a very irritating sound. Almost sounds like it's making my whole case vibrate.

My case is an Antec Sonata and the drives are on rubber grommets. I wouldn't like to hear how loud they'd be in a normal case

Was going to post this yesterday but thought I'd wait and see what the replacement was like first incase it was just a one off. So warning to anyone whose thinking of buying one of these. I'd look elsewhere if I was you if you have a quiet PC.

Hmmm i just bought one of these but haven't installed it yet.
From what i gather there are 2 different manufacturers for the motors on these drives. One loud, one quiet. I bought from another supplier, i'll let you know how I get it on once its installed mate.

From what I can gather they're either green or pink? Mine's green.

It's not that it's mega loud, though they're pretty loud when reading but not so bad I'd rant about it like this. It's how irritating the noise is and it's constant, from the second it powers up

I doubt you'd hear it in a normal noisy environment but at home in a quiet PC like mine it's unbearable

Interesting to see how you get on.

The pair of 400GB 7200.10s in this PC are as quiet as the Spinpoints they replaced when idling. They are noisier when accessing, though.

Jonathan

Chong Warrior said:

From what I can gather they're either green or pink? Mine's green.

It's not that it's mega loud, though they're pretty loud when reading but not so bad I'd rant about it like this. It's how irritating the noise is and it's constant, from the second it powers up

I doubt you'd hear it in a normal noisy environment but at home in a quiet PC like mine it's unbearable

Interesting to see how you get on.

Click to expand...

Pink ones are quiet - like the one I have. Don't generalise.

The white motored version (without a sticker) is from the China factory I believe and is before they brought out a new revision in the Singapore/Malaysia factory which used pink glue on the base and is very quiet.

I didn't buy mine from OcUK either - but I bought it about 4 months ago.

It's very well documented - your thread title is a bit misleading as the majority of the drives have the newer revision motor...

Hey Smids, I never did get to thankyou on your advice relating to DDR Ram via the e-mail I sent you many months ago, the ram rocks! Thanks for the advise lol.

Anyway back on topic the annoying thing about this is quality control, Seagate should have recalled all stock that went out, although that would cost them a fortune like anything most companys just turna blind eye.

http://forums.storagereview.net/ind...ic=22660&st=139

[QUOTE="Taken" from Storagereview.net]
Since I have 4x 320GB 7200.10 I tough I'd hook them all and see if these is a variation in the noise output

1. I tested the drive in a near SILENT room

2. The power supply I used was fanless and totally silent

3. Drive were place on foam pad to minimise vibration/resonance

4. Sound instrument : my ******* ear, from about 0.5m away. BTW I can hear that annoying "Mosquito" ring tone for Mobile phones, so my hearing is quite reasonable.

5. No drive seeks were involved as the drives were NOT connected to a computer

Drive 1
Date Code : 6522
Firmware : 3.AAC
Site Code : WU
Product of China
Result : near silent

Drive 2
Date Code : 6522
Firmware : 3.AAC
Site Code : WU
Product of China
Result : very slight high pitch whine

Drive 3
Date Code : 6527
Firmware : 3.AAC
Site Code : AMK
Product of Singapore
Result : near silent

Drive 4
Date Code : 6527
Firmware : 3.AAC
Site Code : AMK
Product of Singapore
Result : near silent

I wanted to investigate what could be causing one of the drive to be different, could it be just normal manufacturing variations or was it something else.

Upon close inspection I noticed one of the drives had a different "Drive Spindle Motor" and I bet you can guess which one it was.

Silent Motor - see pic below


NOT! Silent Motor - see pic below
[/QUOTE]

Nelly said:

Hey Smids, I never did get to thankyou on your advice relating to DDR Ram via the e-mail I sent you many months ago, the ram rocks! Thanks for the advise lol.

Anyway back on topic the annoying thing about this is quality control, Seagate should have recalled all stock that went out, although that would cost them a fortune like anything most companys just turna blind eye.

http://forums.storagereview.net/ind...ic=22660&st=139

Click to expand...

Hey no problems .

In fairness to Seagate, the noisy drives still work and are just as fast, they just happen to be very noisy. It's unfortunate but their drives from this range are truly amazing. It's a shame it puts a blot on the excellent 7200.10 range really.

BTW, excellent post above - at least this clears up a point which seems to creep up so often now.

smids said:

Hey no problems .

In fairness to Seagate, the noisy drives still work and are just as fast, they just happen to be very noisy. It's unfortunate but their drives from this range are truly amazing. It's a shame it puts a blot on the excellent 7200.10 range really.

BTW, excellent post above - at least this clears up a point which seems to creep up so often now.

Click to expand...

Do you prefer the Seagate 7200.10's compared to the 150GB Raptor? I'm currently using both 150GB & 74GB versions, was looking at these Seagates as an upgrade in terms of storage space. . . will I loose much speed/performace in games for example? i.e zoning in games like WoW, EverQuest etc etc.

Good post Nelly.

Though my drive(s) aren't suffering from a slight high pitched whine. It's a low pictched droning noise. It sounds like my PC has a 20,000w power supply inside and it's humming with power. It literally sounds like my whole case is vibrating, but it isn't.

It's such a shame because the performance of this drive is amazing. I ran HDtach and it's 33% faster than my Maxtor Diamond Max 10 250gb SATA and that's no slouch.

The noise is just unacceptable though

Not sure what to do. When I returned my drive yesterday it said on their systems they were out of stock and they'd have to upgrade me but then one turned up!

If I return this today there will be no 320gb models and they have no 400gb models either, so I can only think they will try and give me a different make. After seeing the performance of these drives I want a quiet one!!

Do OcUk have the quiet ones? Anyone bought a 320gb drive from here?

I have one with Green glue, Made in Singapore. Firmware 3.AAE

Will let you know how i get on with it chaps

Nelly said:

Do you prefer the Seagate 7200.10's compared to the 150GB Raptor? I'm currently using both 150GB & 74GB versions, was looking at these Seagates as an upgrade in terms of storage space. . . will I loose much speed/performace in games for example? i.e zoning in games like WoW, EverQuest etc etc.

Click to expand...

Probably prefer the Seagates. Then again, I'm a persistent RAID0 user now so I cannot remember the feel of a single 7200rpm drive (except for my laptop's 5400rpm 40GB travelstar).

Nelly said:

Do you prefer the Seagate 7200.10's compared to the 150GB Raptor? I'm currently using both 150GB & 74GB versions, was looking at these Seagates as an upgrade in terms of storage space. . . will I loose much speed/performace in games for example? i.e zoning in games like WoW, EverQuest etc etc.

Click to expand...

According to HDTach this 320gb 7200.10 is faster than the 74gb Raptor. There's no compare for the 150gb Raptor so can't say about that.

Gommsta said:

I have one with Green glue, Made in Singapore. Firmware 3.AAE

Will let you know how i get on with it chaps

Click to expand...

That's the exact same one I have.

One question I have for you guys who say their's are silent. How quiet is the rest of your PC? Mine's very quiet,

2x120mm quiet Sharkoon fans,
1x92mm akasa Amber fan,
Akasa fan controller,
Antec Sonata case,
Enermax Noisetaker 460w PSU on low,
Artic Cooler on graphics card on low.

Nothing on my PC makes more than 20db of noise, especially when all the fans are on minimum.

I purchased a 250gb 7200.10 from Overclockers last week,

Guess what I got the naff one and it aint no very slight high pitch whine its a really loud annoying High pitch Whine

Drive info as below

Date Code : 07125
Firmware : 3.AAE
Site Code : WU
Product of China

Took it out the computer cant be doing with it

Ive got a 320GB one also 7200.10 and its silent as anything :s but i bought it few months ago but not from OCUK sorry

Chong Warrior said:

That's the exact same one I have.

One question I have for you guys who say their's are silent. How quiet is the rest of your PC? Mine's very quiet,

2x120mm quiet Sharkoon fans,
1x92mm akasa Amber fan,
Akasa fan controller,
Antec Sonata case,
Enermax Noisetaker 460w PSU on low,
Artic Cooler on graphics card on low.

Nothing on my PC makes more than 20db of noise, especially when all the fans are on minimum.

Click to expand...

Watercooled and very quiet. In fact, the drive sits outside my case in a Coolermaster 4-in-3 module so I should be able to hear it even better...

Chong Warrior said:

That's the exact same one I have.

One question I have for you guys who say their's are silent. How quiet is the rest of your PC? Mine's very quiet,

Click to expand...

Elderly Lian-Li case with soundproofing
3 Akasa Amber 80mm fans all running at around 9V
Seasonic PSU with 1 120mm fan
Arctic 7 Pro
Zalman VF700 on 5V

Certainly not silent and I can hear the drives clicking when in use but the only whine I can hear is from my wife.

Jonathan

Fireskull said:

Ive got a 320GB one also 7200.10 and its silent as anything :s but i bought it few months ago but not from OCUK sorry

Click to expand...

ditto

Got my 7200.10 in an Icy Box just a couple of days ago...I can barely hear it when it's sitting on my desk 3 feet away. I can hear it read and write, obviously, but it's a 'nice' sound if there's a such thing. I'm spoiled compared to the 7200.8 it replaced - didn't realise just how noisy it was until I got the .10.

I have got the 7200.10 320GB SATAII HDD, the one I have, has the white glue and is made in China, but it is not noisey, it is quieter than my Raptors and 200GB 7200.7 (non-NCQ) SATAs, so it would see that not all the ones with the white glue and made in China are noisey.