I just received a WD10EADS (3-platter version) for my HTPC.

I'm astonished by the seek noise of this drive and am wondering if it is defective.

The drive shipped with AAM off. With this setting, seeks are comparable to a 500GB 7200.11 (which is to say, quite loud). They are also noticeably louder than a 6400AAKS, a P7K500 and a T7K500.

Turning AAM on improves things, but seeks are still clearly audible, and again louder than the other drives with AAM on (does not apply to the Seagate).

I've read a few posts about people reporting that the WD10EADS is louder than the 6400AAKS, but when I look at the WD20EADS review, I find it hard to believe that that is normal.

Any thoughts?

Could you post some HDTune graphs please?

For the record my WD6400AAKS is dead silent with AAM on ( the AAM was on from the factory).

Wow I just put my ear right next to the open front door of my HTPC/server case after initiating a copy from WD6400AAKS -> WD10EADS.

I could hear seeks, but they were so quiet... and I didn't know which drive was seeking. IMO both are very quiet. I would expect the WD10EADS to be quieter still though.

I think that yours is defective.

Crabnebula, how is your drive mounted? I can say from first-hand experience that in some cases, going from hard-mounted to elastic suspension reduces seek noise from a painful nuisance to completely inaudible.

I have just been testing it so it was laying by the case. Other drives are suspended, but I tried holding it between my fingers and the noise was as bad.

@webs0r: thanks for the test, that confirms what I thought. My 6400AAKS is quiet as yours (barely audible), so I guess it will be an RMA for the WD10EADS. I hope the replacement will be better.

Here are HDTune benchmarks, all run with fast setting with SATA in IDE mode and in the same machine (AMD 780G).

P7K500 AAM off:
http://img269.imageshack.us/i/hitachip7 ... aam25.png/

WD10EADS AAM on:
http://img27.imageshack.us/i/wd10eadsaa ... emode.png/

WD10EADS AAM off
http://img504.imageshack.us/i/wd10eadsa ... emode.png/


After listening to it again I'm fairly certain the WD drive is indeed defective.

I am running 2xWD10EADS in RAID1 on a DNS-323 and get this awful non-stop seek/grinding noise... it keeps me up at night, that's how loud it is... and it doesn't stop!

I don't think I can enable AAM because it's setup in RAID1... any ideas?

i just RMA'ed one of these that had horrible head noises that would happen every few seconds, the kind of sound a drive makes when it parks its heads...

the heads on the replacement are much quieter, but the drive puts out a kind of low-level clicky buzzing noise, sigh...

i have one WD10EACS that is really quiet, but not having much luck with the WD10EADS so far...

My replacement drive is indeed much quieter than the original. It is a 2 platter model, however, so that might have something to do with it.

In the meantime I also obtained a WD10EAVS (with smaller cache), and that one is noisier during seeks than the replacement 10EADS, but quieter than the old (defective) unit. I wonder if the casing on the V model is perhaps cheaper.

Bottom line is that there seems to be some variability with these drives.

i've been very unlucky with new hard drives lately, i've RMA'ed 4 out of the last 5 (a Samsung Spinpoint F1, WD10EACS, 2xWD10EADS)...

all the drives have worked, but have had various manufacturing flaws...

luckily i've managed to get one solid drive, a WD1001FALS Caviar Black...

with all the extra shipping charges i may as well pay the extra and avoid the cheaper drives altogether...

This is normal for that drive. It's a design "feature".

i've read that, but it was really loud (for a hard drive) on the first one i had, plus the replacement does it less often, as far as i can tell... but the buzzing noise when idle is really no good... it's going back too...

so presumably this feature was introduced with the EADSs???