Sometimes I need to LISTEN to the HDD - is it faulty/ too busy/ ... ?

1) So which are the noisy HDD'S? Not Seagate, but which ones?

2) How do I increase it's sound transmission to outside the case ?

3) If I have a rarely used HDD, can I turn it on/ off as required (in the one case, without networking) ?

4) Which HDD's have distinctive noises, so that without looking at the indicator lights, I can tell which HDD is being accessed/ read/ written-to ??

Not quite what I'd expect somebody to ask, but...

1) Not WD, probably not the recent Maxtors, and I think Samsung drives aren't too noisy either. WD is probably a good bet for a fairly loud drive. Don't take my word for it, though, as

2) Hmmm, to make a drive noisier... Well, bolt it directly to the side-panel of your case-- that way, you'd probably transmit a maximum amount of sound to the panel. This would amplify your drive-accessing noise (the vibrations from the drive's heads swinging around would be amplified). To amplify the whining sound that a dying (or whiny) drive makes, you'd probably have to hook up a microphone somehow. Or, make sure the least-possible amount of metal is surrounding the drive-- or that the surrounding metal is as thin as possible...

3 and 4: I don't know these items!

go down to the frys electronics and get that $1 microphone if you don't have one already. tape it right next to the drive and turn the speaker on.

I give gregzeng my vote for most contrary forum question Bravo! I do really sympathise with the issue, but I propose a best of both worlds solution:

Glue or otherwise attach a small cheap microphone to the drive of interest, then hook it up to one of the extra audio channels like CD, AUX, or MODEM. One of those old TV single-ear plugs, or a walkman headset speaker might also work for a low cost pickup. That way you could mix in the drive noise as much as you like at any time, right from the volume control panel. Or mute it out just as easily. If you want a hardware switch then leave the sound channel on and use a seperate switch. Also note that acoustic isolation becomes advantagious because you will hear only one drive's noise per microphone. Otherwise you could mike the whole hard drive cage, and isolate it from the rest of your case, giving you a general diagnostic without interference from any siesmic-CD's, floppy grinders, or air-mover-rattlers that are nearby.

As for specifically loud: I have an old MFM full hight 5¼" 10MB drive that will shake the house down. Probably cost over $500 mid 80's dollars - yours today for $10 canuck, shipping & handling not included Sorry I don't know anything more specific otherwise.

wow, 3 concurrent posts!?

you can also get an aluminum helmet, use epoxy to glue on the drives onto your helmet... that should give a nice ring when you're accessing the drive...

may want to wait for sata for this trick...

Yes, now we must wait for IBM's soon to be anounced ear plug size hard drives. The next step in the Microdrive line.

u could use the IBM feature tool on the IBM website and turn the acoustic management right up to the top ...

My Barracuda IV is suspended by elastic rope. When I first installed it, it was (accidentally) gently touching/resting against the front wall of the case. The noise was unbelievable - you could hear it in the room next door!

Guess I got just the right pressure against the case for maximum noise!

Thank you for your suggestion. I guess in this computer conference, the people don't know about medical doctors, nor car mechanics.

Both the trouble-shooters above use a stethascope to listen to the noise. If you work in PC SUPPORT, you can't just buy another replacement HDD after another. You need to find out how & why the fault developed.

For the computer novices who replied above, I suggest that they look at:

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0, ... 869,00.asp

Hardware Tips: Don't Get Caught With Your Disk Down
"Learn how to tell if a hard disk is about to fail; make sense of dot-pitch numbers; change monitor settings quickly; try out a used PC before you buy.

Kirk Steers
From the December 2002 issue of PC World magazine
Posted Wednesday, October 23, 2002

Keep your ears tuned for any unusual noises coming from your hard disk: Strange sounds often mean big trouble; for examples, download .wav files of some common hard-drive-in-distress sounds. (Thanks to John Christopher of data recovery service DriveSavers.com for providing these files.)

A high-pitched whining sound (bearings.wav) could mean your hard drive's bearings are going bad. Relatively speaking, this is good news; you may actually be able to rescue your soon-to-be-stranded data. If your operating system loads and you're able to move files off the hard disk, do so immediately.

If you hear sustained clicking noises, you probably won't be able to access the hard disk at all, and your operating system most likely won't load. A pause-click, pause-click sound (cycleclick.wav) indicates that your drive's read/write heads are trying to orient themselves. The drive has probably sustained some damage, and you've likely lost some data. Continuous, rapid-fire clicking (excess.wav) is an ominous sound for any drive.

In either case, your chances of recovering your data manually are slim. Don't keep turning your system on and off in hopes that your hard drive will finally catch, or start up, one last time; it won't.

Any grinding or scraping sound (grind.wav) is another sign of serious trouble. Your hard drive's read/write heads are in contact with the disk's media surface--where the data is stored. Shut down your drive immediately; the longer it runs, the more data you may lose.

few things.

when drive goes wrong and makes its distinctive sound, TRUST ME, you'll hear it with your mp3 on at the loudest setting.

ball bearing one is actually the hardest one of them all because drive will work and you'll wonder why the drive is making an abnormal noise (but bearable) all of the sudden. drive will make high pitched sound at an elevated intensity. this will not stop... until something else happens and you get a head crash or what not.

bottomline is, there absolutely no need to look for a drive that's going to make more sound. should something go wrong, you'll hear it regardless of what kind of drive is in your bay.

few things.

when something goes wrong and drive makes its distinctive sound, TRUST ME, you'll hear it with your mp3 on at the loudest setting.

ball bearing one is actually the hardest one of them all because drive will work and you'll wonder why the drive is making an abnormal noise (but bearable) all of the sudden. drive will make high pitched sound at an elevated intensity. this will not stop... until something else happens and you get a head crash or what not.

bottomline is, there absolutely no need to look for a drive that's going to make more sound. should something go wrong, you'll hear it regardless of what kind of drive is in your bay.

if u just want to monitor its activity, then hook a superbright led to the hd activity port

Better yet - software indicator on the screen, but to indicate different drives & partitions seperately?

Actually, I know that both Maxtor and Seagate have an "acoustic management" utility to control the amount of noise a hard drive makes. I have two Barracuda IVs, which are very quiet out of the box. I then decided, like you, that I wanted to hear the drives when they were working. So I downloaded this utility SEAAAM.exe that allows you to set the drive to "quiet" or "loud", with the "loud" option offering higher performance. Now I can actually hear the drives when they are "thinking", but I still have the advantage of the very quiet idle noise of the Barracudas. And the noise they make now isn't even that loud at all...just enough to let you know they're doing something, which is nice. I know that Maxtor also has a utility like this. Anyways, if you can't find it, just send me a message and I'll email it to you.

Other people might be interested in this too. Could you post it here?

A Google search found just one URL:
http://forum.seagate.com/SERVICE/Email% ... enDocument
WHICH led me to:
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/uti ... _eula.html

So now I'm d/ling.

Then a GOOGLE search on: "DOWNLOAD Maxtor SOUND NOISE" gave me 2000 URLs. Putting "-review" in front of the previous search - halved the possible URLs.

Still searching !!

use the IBM feature tool, it works with all drives and makes a nice shiny bootdisk for u

Hmm...I don't have any server I can post it to. If anyone can post it, just drop me a message and I'll email it to them.