Loud whine from WD2500KS (SATAII)

SmallOffice · Post by **SmallOffice** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:08 am

I just wanted to report to the forum that I just received two new WD2500KS drives from newegg and they both have loud high pitch whines.

These drives are for a RAID Mirror pair on a Promise TX2300 controller card. The whine is each drive is equally loud. It is very high pitch and can easily be noticed above the system/cpu fans. It is slightly muffled by closing up the computer case.

The whine is not constant. I can hear both drives whine in unison when there is hard drive activity.

The drives have a manufacture date of June 2005.

I am deciding what to do now.

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:26 am

See here http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=23109

Apparently most if not all of WD drives with their new supposedly "whisperquiet" fluidbearings whine. Nothing you can do about it. If you feel lucky you may want to try to exchange the drive as some samples seem better than the others. I didn't feel like gambling so I bought seagate instead and sold WD drive I got at a loss of $5.

SmallOffice · Post by **SmallOffice** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 10:21 am

Thanks for the link. I had seen it before making this purchase, however, I was hoping to get lucky. Since I am seeing the same problem in two drives, it is not looking good for WD.

I was considering the Seagates, but their performance looks dismal compared to the new SATAII drives. Unfortunately, I cannot wait for the 7200.9.

Are there any recommend SATAII drives? Hitachi? Samsung?

teknerd · Post by **teknerd** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 10:39 am

Well if you are willing to get SATA drives (instead of SATAII) there are plenty of good choices, namely the samsung P80 and P120 series.

SmallOffice · Post by **SmallOffice** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:56 am

I sent the drives back and installed a backup pair.

I'll wait until later this year for more SATAII options.

Thanks.

MikeDeuce · Post by **MikeDeuce** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:02 pm

Hrmmm I have twin WD2500KS as well, but have not noticed a whine. In fact, last night I went to sleep but 5' away from them whilst downloading all night. The only noise I heard was the access noises like the churning... but I don't have them in a closed case at the moment, they are completely open. If I had installed my doors/top panel I'm sure I wouldn't have heard a thing. Did I get lucky or are you more noise-sensitive?

SmallOffice · Post by **SmallOffice** » Sat Aug 20, 2005 8:28 pm

MikeDeuce,

How did your drives work out?

From my experience, the drives had such a high-pitched distinctive whine, that they could be heard over all of the typical low pitched sounds. The sounds did coincide with some type of hard drive activity. (Churning as you call it?)

I work all day within 3 feet of the case, so this additional noise was not acceptable to me.

Perhaps you are lucky.

Regards.

Nat · Post by **Nat** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:14 am

I've just picked up a 2500KS and it also exhibits the same hissing at idle. It sometimes lowers in pitch and becomes slightly louder for no ostensible reason. Other than that, it seems to have the same (good) vibration characteristics as most newer WDs.

Seeks are noisier than Samsungs, but cause much less vibration. I may try suspending it, though I doubt it'll help much.

In my experience, this seems to be the way of things; some drives are very good acoustically, but more prone to vibration and others are acoustically noisier but less prone to vibration... I want my cake and I want to eat it Barracuda IV style

quikkie · Post by **quikkie** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 6:50 am

I have one wd25000ks and there is no detectable whine coming from it, I only hear it when it is in the middle of a defrag.

Nat · Post by **Nat** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:32 pm

Must be some differences amongst batches or something - nothing new there, I suppose.

Did suspending your drive make much difference, quikkie?

quikkie · Post by **quikkie** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 7:10 am

Nat wrote:Must be some differences amongst batches or something - nothing new there, I suppose.

Did suspending your drive make much difference, quikkie?

YES!! it was a night and day type difference.

Hard mounted with the antec grommets: While playing BF2 I could hear the chatter of the disk as it loaded the level. The noise certainly wasn't deafening but I could plainly hear it from half a meter away (normal sitting position).

Suspended: I can only hear it when concentrating on hearing the specific noise made by the disk and generally can only hear it when defragging the disk. I also quitened my system fans in between swapping from hardmounted to suspending my disks, so I believe that suspending my disk was very effective.

Also I should point out that my system isn't 0dbA and as such all 'measurements' are totally subjective. The noisest component (at the moment) is the PSU - an antec smartpower SL350SP (single 80mm fan).

I should really post some pictures of the case internals...

elec999 · Post by **elec999** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 8:51 pm

I have the exact same problem with my drive. I taught the drive was bad, so I rmad it, and the drive from rma was exactly the same whine, very loud and ennoying.
Thanks

Nat · Post by **Nat** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 5:32 am

I'm surprised they didn't charge you for return shipping on the RMA! ... Unless they accept that noisy = faulty

The whine is definately very remiscent of the hissing that some drives develop after a few years of daily duty...

This one produces alot of EMI, too. Enabling SSC for SATA helps somewhat, but the one soundcard (Audiophile 24/96) I've tried with it so far still picks up alot of noise when the inputs are left unconnected and unmuted. Luckily, the mixing desk cleans the signal up. But the interference still manifests itself markedly on an analogue display when the hard drive is busy.

Interesting that suspending has been so effective for you, quikkie. From memory, an SL350SP might actually partially mask the sound that this particular drive is producing. With the chassis open, there is very, very little audible fan turbulence from a metre away and even when close, the loudest noise I can hear, after the hard drive, is the hum of the power supply...

This particular drive produces very little rumble, even when mounted in a thin, aluminium cube chassis. It does however emit a very noticeable air-borne 'fizzing' when seeking. Suspension would be a pain to implement in an X-QPack case, so its looks like an enclosure is generally going to be the most effective way to proceed.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:43 am

This one produces alot of EMI, too. Enabling SSC for SATA helps somewhat, but the one soundcard (Audiophile 24/96) I've tried with it so far still picks up alot of noise when the inputs are left unconnected and unmuted. Luckily, the mixing desk cleans the signal up. But the interference still manifests itself markedly on an analogue display when the hard drive is busy.

Wouldn't enclosing the hard drive in a steel box cut down the EMI drastically? After all that is the same principle as a PC case.

quikkie · Post by **quikkie** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 6:07 am

Nat wrote:Interesting that suspending has been so effective for you, quikkie. From memory, an SL350SP might actually partially mask the sound that this particular drive is producing. With the chassis open, there is very, very little audible fan turbulence from a metre away and even when close, the loudest noise I can hear, after the hard drive, is the hum of the power supply...

yeah the thought had occured to me too, so I opened the case and with an empty toilet roll held to my ear I tried listening to the drive while it was intermittently seeking. I was within 6 inches of the drive all I could hear was air flow whoosh and bearly audible seeks - I must be doing something wrong...

I freely admit my system isn't quiet, there is still some optimisation of air flow and fan speeds to do and a PSU replacement is on my list of things to do (I just need to sneak the PSU purchase past the wife

)

gentonix · Post by **gentonix** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 9:09 am

I bought one of these today. I admit I was taking a bit of a risk, as I already read this thread before purchasing, but the drive seems to be rather quiet actually. Although the faint whooshing sound mentioned above is present I really can't hear any whining noises, so I guess I was lucky for once. This drive is manufactured in 26th of Jan 2006. It's laying in the bottom of the case on a soft foam, so there are no vibration noises either.

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:58 pm

I don't consider any of you truly neurotic unless you have a 2.5" drive enclosed in foam in your desktop.

(jackylman opens his case and pets his Scorpio)

quikkie · Post by **quikkie** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:08 am

Just thought I'd report back...
I've replaced my PSU with an seasonic S12-430 and I still can't distinguish the drive noise. I can hear seeks when there are lots of seeks close together e.g. a game loading or defragging, but in 'normal' (for instance bittorrenting or starting smaller programs) use it's quiet enough for my use.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 2:11 am

(jackylman opens his case and pets his Scorpio)

BTW, did you have any trouble getting the Scorpio to run as your OS drive? I tried to load XP Home onto my Scorpio and it only gets halfway through the install process before randomly rebooting, and yes I have the adapter connected properly (tried it as a slave on my main computer).

elec999 · Post by **elec999** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 5:52 pm

I think that western digital dont make that whine anymore. I baught a drive for my friend, the 250ks and didnt notice the whine noise. If I rma my ks they would send me a refurb one which would make the same whining noise.
Thanks

Charles · Post by **Charles** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:52 am

Yes, from Dec 2005, I think WD sells the drives with 100GB platters (and with 5 heads)

BR!

HiFi · Post by **HiFi** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 7:09 am

if i put my ear next to the drive i can hear a constant high pitched tone. with the case closed i can just make it out if i really try to listen for it. still its kind of upsetting.

edit: oops, i guess i was wrong. i set my computer into suspend mode which allows the hard drive to shut off but the fans keep going. and i STILL heard the whine. looks to me like the motherboard is making it. a8n32-sli. oh well, cant do much about that.

Loud whine from WD2500KS (SATAII)

Loud whine from WD2500KS (SATAII)

Seagate Performance

Will wait for quiet

How did it work out?