Seagate 7200.10's are noisiest drives EVER!

[Chong Warrior]

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.

 

[Chong Warrior]

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.

 

[Chong Warrior]

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?

 

[Chong Warrior]

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.

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.

 

[Chong Warrior]

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

Will let you know how i get on with it chaps

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.

 

[Chong Warrior]

Took the Seagate out and put my two older SATA drives (maxtor 250gb Diamondmax 10 and IBM 160gb Deskstar) back in and all is peacefull again.

Taking the Seagate back for a full refund. Truly shocking drive and the fact Seagate have allowed these drives to be sold and not recalled them when there's such an obvious problem leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[Chong Warrior]

Stayed up late last night playing Oblivion on the xbox360, PC is upstairs and I left it on downloading. I could hear the droning noise from Seagate drive while I was playing!! That's how bad it is.

At first I thought my Xbox was making the noise as I've had some problems with it when I play Oblivion. It was only when I turned the 360 off that I realized it was coming from my PC. Shocking.

 

[Chong Warrior]

^^ how come? did you buy them 2nd hand?

 

[Chong Warrior]

So they sold you two refurbished hard drives?

 

[Chong Warrior]

I don't get it... they drive works perfectly but is a noisy and yet Seagate need to recall it? Sorry, that makes no sense. They don't sell the drives as being silent, they sell them as drives and the fact they work as such negates any need for a recall.

Trust me, if you bought this drive you wouldn't be very happy. It's defective in my opinion because it's impossible to live with. I can hear the damn thing from another room!!

If all their drives sounded like this they'd very quickly be out of business and that's a fact. There's a problem with this hard-drive, another fact.

Why are you such a fan anyway? Got shares in them?

Or did you get a normal non-defective drive?

 

[Chong Warrior]

I bought a 7200.10 250Gb one and at first I thought the HDD was SOOOOO noisy. But for some reason it has quietened down and now I cant even hear it! So I don't know what's going on tbh but I'm just happy that it's silent. Sorry you got a noisy drive perhaps it is a dud

Kiz

Interesting yours has quietened down. This is the 2nd drive I've had, I took the first one back after having it just for a day. Thought I'd give this 2nd one more of a chance?? not sure what I was expecting it to do lol!

2 duds? both with green glue, the one that many other people are complaining about. I feel it's no coincidence

No-one hears drives in a server, so I doubt that. They invented the 3.5" drive and are the largest HDU manufacturer, so no they wouldn't be out of business.

I do own lots of Seagates, including a medalist (10 years old and going strong) and all of mine have been quiet and excellent.

What I disagree with, is your perpetual rant in all threads about Seagate drives. The 7200.10 is THE fastest 7200rpm drive out there bar none. It is unrivaled virtually except for Raptors. The drive is only noisy, not failed or anything so I can't see the huuge complaint. If it is that noisy, then perhaps there IS something wrong with it because you should never be able to hear a hard drive in another room.

I'm sorry but your posts just smack of fanboy.

I'm glad you're happy with all your Seagates. I've got one and it's terrible and I bought it on the back of many recommendations from people like you. Get this. When someone wants to buy a new hard-drive or whatever, sites like this are a good start to see what's popular and what's reliable, etc.
I heard nothing bad about these 7200.10's until I'd already bought one and really looked for signs of trouble. I think it only right to let people know that these drives have a problem, a big one.

This problem is made even worse by the fact it's deniable. Your post earlier is something I'd expect to hear from Seagate customer services about how the drive works, they don't advertise it as silent, etc. They can actually say this, the shop I bought this drive from could say it tomorrow when I return it, then what? sell it on to some other poor soul?

I think it only right other people should be warned that they may get lumbered with an expensive paper weight.

Do you really believe that it's perfectly ok for a company to sell a hard-drive that emits a loud, constant whine because they don't advertise their drives as silent?
You don't seem to understand that I'm not complaining about being able to hear it when it's seeking/ reading/ writing or whatever. I can live with any of that. This noise is either through a design fault and has since been revised and fixed or I've been incredibly unlucky and had 2x dodgy drives. I suspect the first one as I'm not the only one am I?

What I disagree with, is your perpetual rant in all threads about Seagate drives.

What are you talking about?

 

[Chong Warrior]

Why are you even bothering to argue about this?

It is entirely fair to say that the drives have a problem because it is simply not worth buying one of these drives, hoping that you'll get one which doesn't pierce your ear drums.

Exactly, that's why I stopped posting in here, it's pointless argueing. The drives I bought were in my opinion defective. I'm not trying to do anything but let people know there's a risk if buying one of these drives as all everyone seems to do is praise them... I wish I'd known about it as I wouldn't have taken the risk and I'd have saved myself a lot of stress and hassle.

I had 3 drives in all, each one demanding a full install of Windows XP, etc!!! Ended up demanding my money back, which I got after a little of hassle. Luckily I could go into the store and argue my point. Had I bought online and tried to get a refund over the phone or via email I think I would have just got fobbed off.

i have 4 seagate 7200.10 drives of various size and they are all quite and all have the "loud" motor, i have bought them from various online shops, it just seems ocuk have the noisy ones lol

I didn't buy from OcUK

and I doubt they would have refunded my money as techincally the drive works.

 

[Chong Warrior]

Thankyou for that post, that's exactly what I'm talking about. My current drives that I was trying to upgrade from when I bought the Seagate are Maxtor DM10 and Hitachi 7k250 and they do give off a very slight low-frequency hum but it's so slight I can only hear it late at night when there's no other noise and my PC is running virtually silent.

The Seagate 7200.10's that I had are just horrendous and the low frequency hum they make can be heard constantly, any time of day regardless of ambient noise. It's so loud I can hear it downstairs.

I had the Seagate in my hand, powered it up and the noise starts after about 1 second. It makes no difference wether or not it's in the case

 

[Chong Warrior]

you can get around the humming noise by buying an akasa elipse case and buying silentmaxx hdd enclosures and then getting hold of some foam and resting the enclosure (with the hdd in it) ontop of the foam on the bottom of the case.

But will this make any difference if the drive is noisy when held in my hand? I'm sure my hand is an excelllent at absorbing any vibration? It made no difference wether the HDD was in the case or not.

I'm going to try & put mine in a 5.25 bay with some anti vibration mounts,hope it helps

Rob

Mine has them and it didn't help I'm sorry to say

so you're saying take it down and see if they will swap it me for a different one? a right thunky noise cant be any good, would it by any chance help that i bought it less than a week ago

That doesn't sound good and does sound like the drive is faulty.

 

[Chong Warrior]

I think you just need to take the plunge guys. It's such a subjective thing anyway. I'd put money on the fact that some of the people who have been in here saying their drives are silent, etc were actually the noisy drives!

I reckon if I'd given my brother the Seagate's I originally had trouble with he wouldn't have noticed anything. For one his PC is LOUD, at least it is compared to mine there's no way I could put up with the noise that thing makes. Also he has his in the living room and only goes on it after a work and maybe plays a few games so a non-silent HDD is no problem for a PC user like that.

My PC is in the bedroom and it's virtually silent. I can leave it on overnight decoding or downloading it's that quiet. The noise from the seagates would have put paid to that as they were way too loud for that kind of use, even when idle they just make an annoying buzzing, vibrating sound.

They were rapid though, so it's down to individual users aswell. Maybe the other drives are silent... even in a silent PC?