How do I tell if my Hard Drive is too loud?

[50]

Ok, I bought a WD SE 7200 80 gb hard drive, and it sounds really loud, I mean this thing makes the most noise from the case. Its a constant humming noise. Since my last computer was a 200 mhz compaq w/ 4 gb el cheapo hard drive (couldn't hear it), I don't know if my drive has a problem or not. What would you do? I'm seriously considering trying to trade it to someone (if it's not defective) for a Barracuda 60 gb.

 

[Electric Amish]

It's probably not loud compared to other drives. It probably just sounds that way since you're not used to it.

 

[GaryShandling]

Insulate then...if you overclock might wanna check on temp now and again.

 

[lameaway]

The drive is probably screwed. Just the other week I was building a computer with two WD2000JBs in a RAID-1... plugged them in, they were rather loud but i figured that was just the nature of the drives. Well, about a day later one of the drives kicks the bucket - spin up, *click*, spin down, spin up, *click*, spin down. I take that drive out and I find that the other drive is actually extremely quiet (in comparison). After an advance RMA from Western Digital, I end up with another nearly silent drive that works flawlessly.

Western Digital actually list loud idle noise as a symptom of defect on their support page. At any rate, it shouldnt be louder than your old 4gb drive, as the FDB technology in the new drives has lowered their noise levels very significantly over the old ball bearing models. Hope this helps.