I had 1T black that had a 3D background whine and could not track it down to the inactive drive , being a back up drive it had no head chatter.
but I did not think/find it only after replacing any thing that moved in my system.
over 3 months last winter
-switched out power suppy [2 rma's for coil whine]
-replaced old fans with lower rpm fans
-moved 2nd pump downstairs
-installed a 140 noc under the psu fan to cool it down so fan would not turn on @25c [seasonic 1050] and to take some load off the psu installed a 2nd psu 550w [12v from system switches unit on via relay]downstairs for pumps[2] and rad fans[9] , ran 12v from that unit to the fan controllers in the system.
when one day when the system started to hum I had the side panel off I unplug the black turned on system no hum ,plugged it back in could hear the hum/background whine .
ripped the drive out went to store and picked up a 750gb evo lol
no more spinners for me.[I have system drives set not to spin down but I think win7 did it for all drives]
but after all that work and money ,I did end up with a 100% quiet system even at 100% full load.