New noisy Seagate drive - is this normal?

ALS57 · 15 Mar 2023 at 11:53

Hi All

I've just installed a new 4TB Seagate BarraCuda ST4000DM004, 3.5" HDD, SATA III - 6Gb/s, 5400rpm, 256MB Cache as a user file storage drive. The "C" drive is a 1TB SSD.

The 4TB Seagate is very noisy and not like a bunch of other Seagate drives I have now or have had in the past.

Here's a sound clip:

https://alansnell.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Seagate_drive.mp4

Can you please advise if this is normal before I try to RMA?

Many thanks

Al

ALS57 · 16 Mar 2023 at 18:01

I guess it's normal!
Doesn't sound like any other Seagate drives I've had before

ALS57 · 17 Mar 2023 at 09:08

Thanks dessimpson and mrk, I will return the drive. Cheers Al

ALS57 · 17 Mar 2023 at 11:17

mrk said:
I would not be happy with that noise, normal or not. Can you return it and get an actually quiet drive like a WD Red or something? I used to have 3x WD Reds (2TB + 2x 4TB) when I had HDDs for storage and they were all quiet. The variable spindle speed on the Red range is really intelligent.

mrk, can I ask. Any issues running a WD red NAS drive as a single volume backup drive in a desktop PC such as our Dell XP8950? Would it be a more reliable drive and better option than the WD blue?

ALS57 · 17 Mar 2023 at 11:38

Thankyou, much appreciated
The 4TB red plus are £89 at the moment

ALS57 · 1 Apr 2023 at 10:13

After further investigation, if you sit the drive loose on top of the PC case plugged in it's totally silent. Put it back in the blue plastic caddy in either of the two 3.5 bays it makes the clunking sound. In one of the bays it's a bit quieter so it's obviously sesonating through the case somehow