HDD noise

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rudy Kazuti
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Rudy Kazuti

Has anybody experienced a whining noise similar to a bad fan from a WD
raptor HDD? I have two fans in the front and thought the noise was from one
of them. Computer is a little over a month old, using two raptors. It only
happens on start up when the machine is cold. If I shut down and boot up
again the noise is gone. Doesn't seem to hurt anything but it's annoying.
Rudy
 
Inside of some of the models of the hard drive assembly, there is a hard
carbon contact that is resting under pressure against the end of the spindle
shaft. I have seen where this contact starts to resonate, and thus cause a
noise that is similar to a bearing noise. This is very rare, but does
happen. All it would take is a slight difference in the pressure of the
spring metal that is holding this carbon contact to the spindle shaft.

Not all drives use this technique. There are a number of ways in the design
to accomplish this contact system. The purpose of this contact is to prevent
static electricity, or any type of electrical transients to form on the
surface of the disk platters. If this happens, the data can be effected.

A more common cause of noise from the hard disk, is bearing defects, or
failure. I have seen a disk drive with noisy bearings work for a number of
years before it failed. I have seen others, only last a few hours. Sometimes
bearings can get noise when there is a very slight offset in the match
between a bearing or more, and the shaft or bushing that they are sitting
in. This offset just has to be a few microns. If the natural resonance of
this offset is matched to the frequency effect of the spinning of the drive,
then it can make some noise. In most cases this type of noise is harmless,
but annoying.

If there is an actual failure of the bearings, and the noise is being caused
by the disk shaft having some wobble, then there may be some noise.With
time, this wobble effect will eventually get worse, because a breakdown of
the bearing or bushing surfaces is occurring. If a bearing goes too far
offset, a seizure in the shaft or bushing can take place. A bearing can
actually have a binding effect at its points of surface contact. This can
lead to one of many types of failure conditions that can occur in a hard
drive.

The noise in a drive can change with the temperature. This has to do with
the expansion and contraction effects of the parts being effected.

Personaly, if I had a noisy drive, I would get it changed...

--

JANA
_____


Has anybody experienced a whining noise similar to a bad fan from a WD
raptor HDD? I have two fans in the front and thought the noise was from one
of them. Computer is a little over a month old, using two raptors. It only
happens on start up when the machine is cold. If I shut down and boot up
again the noise is gone. Doesn't seem to hurt anything but it's annoying.
Rudy
 
If the noise was there all the time I would probably say it's a side-effect
of using 10'000 rpm drives. But because you say it stops once the drive is
warm I would suggest that one of your drives is perhaps faulty.

A slight issue you have is that at the consumer level you are unlikely to
get an advance replacement direct from WD, at best you would have to return
the drive and wait for a replacement (could take up to 14 days here in the
UK)

However some retailers have an advance replacement scheme set up with drive
manufactureres so if you bought your system from a helpfull retailer you
may be able to get a replacement drive without having to return yours
first.
 
If the noise was there all the time I would probably say it's a side-effect
of using 10'000 rpm drives.
Click to expand...

for that I have a good solution on my site under comp/mods .. :-)
 
False alarm. The noise is there all right but it's coming from an old WD
6gig I put in a removable tray for backup. I isolated it today. Now I have
to see if it's the drive or the little fan on the back of the tray. Mabey
I'll yank it and just put a zip in. Thanks for the help.

Rudy
 
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