WD Black vs Blue

Habakkuk · 24 May 2018 at 05:37

Is the Black drive that much louder than a Blue one?

I'm looking at watercooling to reduce fan noise - has anyone upgraded (or downgraded!) and noticed the difference?

APM · 24 May 2018 at 09:01

I've found the black to be slightly louder myself.

Comparing 1TB and 2TB models side by side.

Armadillo · 24 May 2018 at 17:21

Habakkuk said:
Is the Black drive that much louder than a Blue one?

I'm looking at watercooling to reduce fan noise - has anyone upgraded (or downgraded!) and noticed the difference?

Black is louder than blue. Can probably get rid of most of the noise with one of the various vibration damping mounts. Bigger issue with the newer blacks is the 5 second thud/click that newer drives or firmware seem to have. https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/5rne6q/new_hdd_wd_black_wd2003fzex_thumping_noise_every/

Don't know if it's specific models/firmware or just misbehaving. Apparently either wear leveling or something to do with checking data intergrity when idle (can't find the link for that right now), either way it's annoying and you will definitely hear it on a water cooled system. Always have 14 days to return if you get one that does it though. New reds and golds do the same, can find tons of complaints.

Only when idle though, using the drive it stops.

Habakkuk · 24 May 2018 at 18:07

The clicking - isn't that just the idleing head action the Greens used to do?

I had a few with a stupidly high Load_Cycle_Count before we found out how to adjust the parking rate.

Armadillo · 25 May 2018 at 01:13

Habakkuk said:
The clicking - isn't that just the idleing head action the Greens used to do?

Nah, it's not the parking issues like the green with it parking the head with a short idle time. It's just a constant tick every 5 seconds while the drive is idle. Only stops if you use the drive or when it powers down. Idle, then click, click, click, every 5 seconds

.

https://community.wd.com/t/periodic-noise-from-head-movement-wd-black-4tb/183096/10

Someone has 8 of the 4tb doing it. Others even rma and replacement does it as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKRN0OX11Jg A red doing it, hard to hear because of bad mic, but you can just about hear the click every 5 seconds or so at the start.

Habakkuk · 26 May 2018 at 16:41

Park wear leveling? damn - I've thrown noctua fans into my system to reduce noise.

I may stick with the Green for a while longer - they have LLC set to 5 minutes, which is preferable to the PWL noise.

Surprised to hear reds doing it as well - was that a malfunction, or intended behaviour?

Armadillo · 31 May 2018 at 23:03

I don't know if it's intended, but when I was looking up the noise for black drives, I saw plenty of posts saying newer gold and reds do the same. Work fine, no errors, but same annoying noise every 5 seconds when idle

.

Pocah · 6 Jun 2018 at 07:33

Well Black are a bit noisier but whether you notice depends very much depends on how they are mounted and in what case and how far away they are from you and what material the floor is and so on and so on. I have an old Raptor and I can't really hear that. However, I haven't got one of the very new Black drives ( my newest is now three years old ) and I have heard that the newer ones "tick". Same for the higher quality Seagate too, so don't think you can avoid it!!

bledd · 9 Jun 2018 at 18:09

JasonM · 9 Jun 2018 at 21:18

The thing with HDD's is the noise from them varies.

There is a company in the states that builds quite workstation PC's, and they test the WD Black and WD enterprise drives for acoustics (they listen to each drive), before selecting the quietest units for clients PC's.