Why do I "HEAR" my harddrive working?

[Magnumike7]

I recently switched from a WD special ecition 80gig 8mb cache HD which I never actually "heard" working to a Maxtor 160 gig 8mb cache HD that I can hear working whenever I clcik "anything." Is this normal? I thought that the reason I never heard the WD was because of the 8mb cache but the Maxtor which has the same cache is very loud when I click on anything. I am using a gigabyte sinxp 1394 mobo and the 133 controller on it. I am just wondering if the fact that I can hear it all the time is a problem I should be concerned with??

 

[erikiksaz]

I'm guessing it's the seek noise.

 

[Rhombuss]

Typically from experience, WD HDDs are louder than both Maxtors and Seagates (Seagates being the quietest). As long as you have SMART detection on, you'll be notified early in advance if there's something physically wrong with the drive. And besides, you haven't heard HDD sound until you've used 10K-15K RPM SCSI drives - my Seagate Cheetahs are like jet turbines at night.

 

[clicknext]

Some harddrives are louder than others, sometimes by a lot. All hard drives make SOME noise while working, some are just so quiet you can't hear it normally.

 

[zephyrprime]

Set the acoustic management thingie.