New Ultrastar 10TB HDD annoying PWL Noise - what now...!? - Buy WD Purple PRO instead...? (Noise example included)

[IloveYouSOmuch]

Hi
I bought a new HDD - Ultrastar HC510 10TB (Helium one). Its quite noisy (seek, read, write etc )... And as it seems, in addition to this, I think it has that annoying "feature" noise ("sound") of "click" every 5 seconds (!!) - PWL (protective wear leveling). At least thats what I think it is, see for yourself, is this PWL...? (i included mouse clicking and keyboad pressing for comparison)

(Taken from 70 cm (2 feet) from both PC case (on table on right) and (70cm= 2ft) from keyboard and mouse front/to the left)
(turn your volume level up)

Vocaroo | Online voice recorder

Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs.

voca.ro

01seconds- HDD "tick" sound/noise (PWL)
02-06s - Key presses on keyboard (some cheap noname keyboard) (for sound volume level comparison)
06s -HDD "tick" noise (PWL)
07-11s- Mouse clicks (for sound volume level comparison)
11s -HDD "tick" noise (PWL)
11-19s - Mouse clicking
16s -HDD "tick" noise (PWL)
19-26s - Nothing (background noise- PC fans and general humming from pc)
21s - HDD "tick" noise (PWL)
26s - HDD "tick" noise (PWL)
27-28s - Mouse clicks
30s - HDD "tick" noise (PWL)

I dont really like that. I read that all HDDs nowdays (8TB+) (and even lower capacity ones?) have PWL... My question is... Is the PWL in other drives AS annoying, AS loud and AS frequent in comparison what you hear with mine HC 510 Ultrastar 10TB...? (Cause i refuse to believe ALL other drives are like that)... Couple of questions:

1) Is the sound you hear on my recording (every 5 seconds) really PWL...? Is it as loud or louder than in other drives you have heard?

2) Will it get better over time...? I have read (2 separate accounts from 2 different people) that their PWL got better over time - it was more quiet over time (objectively, NOT that they got used to it). One said that it might get better when the drive is fuller (50-70% full)... Is either possible...? (i dont really think so...? but they said it is...?)

3) Is there any other WD (preferably WD i trust them more than Seagate or even Toshiba) 8-10TB HDD with decent price and performance that isnt as loud as this...? Or at least doesnt have the PWL...?

4) I read that supposedly WD Purple PRO 8 TB is one of the quietest (!) (if not the most quiet) 6TB+ drives out there and in addition it should NOT have the PWL sound clicking either (!)... Is that true...? Anybody has experience with WD Purple (!) PRO (!) 8 TB (or other capacity)...?

Thank you

 

[Murphy]

As you've not had any other responses I'll weight in although why you needed to make another thread on this subject when you've already made this one is unknown.

Like i said in your other thread this is something most, if not all, modern drives come with and as noise is subjective what's loud to you may not be loud to someone else so without objective testing using the same setup and a sound meter there's no way to know if one drive is worse or better than another.

Having said that, and don't take this the wrong way, i do have some questions/suggestions.

First why are you putting a 10TB in a what i assume is your desktop PC? Not only are most +5TB drives kind of designed for enterprise storage where noise is far less of a concern but that's a heck of a lot of data to keep on one device in the event something catastrophic happens. (I'm going to guess you're not backing up that data because if you were then it leads me onto my next question)

With that amount of data I'd seriously be considering a small NAS with a smaller HDD or even SSD in the desktop PC. Not only would it move the noise away from where you sit but it also allows you a bit more redundancy by backing up the data to more than one drive (having one drive always on and another that only comes online once a day/week to make a backup). Then you can look at putting a smaller 2.5" (laptop) HDD or SSD in the desktop PC because unfortunately HDD manufactures are making all 3.5" HDD for the largest markets, as in they use the same design/features in a 2TB drive as the would a 10TB drive due to the extra cost and complexity involved.

If you're stuck on the idea of having a 10TB drive in your desktop PC though then you may be able to stop/reduce the noise by making sure you're not running any hardware monitoring software in the background or at least none that maybe polling the drive for SMART data, there's also the option of setting Windows to sleep the drive after X minutes although this may not work all that great if something is regularly accessing the drive. There's also how you're mounting it to the case, if it's directly mounted to the chassis it's going to transmit the clicking noise to the case making it sound louder so have you tried isolating it from the case with some sort of rubber/silicon mounts (what case is it in?)