Concerning hard drive noise when PC is idle!

madindehead · 10 Feb 2021 at 10:33

Hello.

I have a concern about a hard drive in my PC. I think it's my brand new WD Gold 12TB hard drive, but I'm not 100% sure yet. Recently moved my whole PC into a P600s case.

When my PC is on and has been idle for a bit, it starts making this noise: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rmu8QtdUMYOBxBMDab_zeHMWyngtjigC/view?usp=sharing

Basically, used my PC, then swapped the monitors over to my work laptop with the PC on in the background. Eventually, the one of my hard drives makes that noise. When I go back onto the PC, so just brining it out from being idle, the noise stops.

It doesn't sound good at all. Any ideas on what to do? Thanks.

Roguey000 · 10 Feb 2021 at 10:56

Well the best way to know for certain is to unplug both the data and power (when the PC is off). That way the drive can not spin up and if its quiet you know it was that for sure. Power-plans etc. could turn off anything.

It does sound like a HDD to me but it could be a fan or something similar. I would say the next step is to check the SMART info to see if there is anything there by using something like CrystalDiskInfo.

Maybe that noise is 'normal' for the Gold's? you really need someone with a gold drive to tell you otherwise.

madindehead · 10 Feb 2021 at 11:29

CrystalDiskInfo isn't reporting any problems. I did have one drive that was reporting issues and I disconnected that fully, but the noise persisted. It just sounded too rough to be normal.

Definitely not a fan - they are very quiet. Oddly enough, since posting this the noise has stopped. I will however continue to keep an eye on it. Feedback from someone with a Gold would be appreciated.

stu.artd · 10 Feb 2021 at 20:27

I’ve been looking for a new HD myself, to replace my 7-9 year old 1.5/2/3TB drives.

I was intending to get a WD Gold but have read a lot of reports of these drives being very noisy, often referring to a ‘ticking’ or every 5 seconds or so.

Hopefully you’ll get some feedback from people with Gold drives.

pp111 · 15 Feb 2021 at 11:48

WD gold are noisy and do make a ticking noise but that noise in the video is too fast and sounds like an access. When you say the PC is idle, my guess is that something is actually running once the PC gets idle. It is probably Windows downloading something or doing one of it's many indexing or who knows what tasks. Put Task Manager up on the screen and step back - watch what it does.

something daft already!! · 15 Feb 2021 at 11:50

That sounds like a motorbike on tick over! Does it stop if you hold the drive? It could be loose.

Steampunk · 15 Feb 2021 at 12:49

madindehead said:
Hello.

I have a concern about a hard drive in my PC. I think it's my brand new WD Gold 12TB hard drive, but I'm not 100% sure yet. Recently moved my whole PC into a P600s case.

When my PC is on and has been idle for a bit, it starts making this noise: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rmu8QtdUMYOBxBMDab_zeHMWyngtjigC/view?usp=sharing

Basically, used my PC, then swapped the monitors over to my work laptop with the PC on in the background. Eventually, the one of my hard drives makes that noise. When I go back onto the PC, so just brining it out from being idle, the noise stops.

It doesn't sound good at all. Any ideas on what to do? Thanks.

It just sounds like seek noises. It's probably Windows doing search indexing or a virus scanner checking the contents of the drive. Both can happen when the machine is idle.

Depending on your case and the way the drive is mounted, the noise may be exaggerated by the vibrations passing through to the case.

madindehead · 16 Feb 2021 at 10:49

Steampunk said:
It just sounds like seek noises. It's probably Windows doing search indexing or a virus scanner checking the contents of the drive. Both can happen when the machine is idle.

Depending on your case and the way the drive is mounted, the noise may be exaggerated by the vibrations passing through to the case.

I think it was doing the first lot of search indexing. It's quitened down now and hasn't been that noisy since that day. It did have to index around 4TB worth of data, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised! It's in one of the Phanteks P600s drive cages. Not sure if that maybe also made it worse.

Thanks for the info all. It seems to be OK. I was just worried that it was a horrible mechanical problem that wouldn't show up as a SMART error.