Do all Western Digital 320/500GB hard drives make the 'swoosh' sound?

Some people say ALL Western Digital 320GB and 500GB make the 'swoosh' sound. Is this true?

If you have a Western Digital 320GB or 500GB in your notebook please answer the poll. Please make sure you are in a very quiet room and try to keep your ear close to the hard drive.

If your WD does not make the swoosh sound please post what notebook you have it in or external enclosure.

PS. I have been posting the same poll on Macrumors.

 

Mine does... I really didn't notice how bad it was until I got an SSD; what I thought was the fan was actually the HDD running... I actually moved the WD to the secondary drive and sliced up some mechanical pencil erasers and used those to isolate the drive a little bit, and that seems to reduce the noise somewhat.

 

Thanks for answering TabbedOut. Please answer the poll too.

 

Done already (answered it about 30 minutes ago, just didn't have time to post a comment).
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*EDIT*
I just went to view the poll results and my vote is not showing up. I tried to vote again and it says that I can't vote twice...

 

Never heard a swooshing sound, the odd clunk as it parks it`s heads

 

I have literally to put my ear over the place where my hard drive is, in order to hear any sound from it. 1cm away and I can't hear anything, but the laptop's fan (which is like a whisper in case your are wondering how loud it is). In that moment I was searching for something, and an 1080p video was playing, is it enough? The only audible thing is the clunk from head parking.* 5920G + WD5000BEVT 22ZAT0 here.

*My edit was gone, here it is now

 

That should be enough yes or maybe try opening a program. If you can't hear anything from 1 cm that count as no imo. Thanks.

 

I can't hear anything, I took it out and put my ear beside my HDD.

 

Voting seems to work normally now. I've voted for you 'yes it does slightly'.

 

WD3200BEVT checking in - no swooshing noises whatsoever (and if they do exist, I can't hear them over my laptop's fan).

 

Edited my previous post again, as it seems that the first edit wasn't successful

 

The only noise I can hear on my 3200bekt is the normal noise of rotating platters (ear right next to the palmrest) nothing that any mechanical hard drive wouldn't make. So no 'swoosh' sound here.

 

My WD3200BEVT makes a very loud swooshing sound when i wake my laptop from hybernation

 

You can NOT post a poll at the general public and expect to get any kind of result. You have to understand that many people here probably dont even know what we are taking about.

The wooshing noise is inherent in EVERY WD 320gb and 500gb scorpio drive. I have already explained why some can hear it and some cant in the other thread.

This poll is useless IMO.

Does not matter what the result of this poll is. EVERY 320gb and 500gb scorpio drive has this noise.

 

No it does not. You think you are correcting people but in fact your the one that doesnt know what you are talking about.

WD drives uses Whisper drive technology and other algorithms that can change the acoustics it outputs. They make slight changes to the drive all the time thats why they started stamping the manufacturer date onto the drives.

Non of my WD/scorpio drives make this whoosh noise. Ive tried both internally and externally. You can only hear the click when it parks its head on idle. I am very self conscious when it comes to noise and im no where near deaf.

Yes this whoosh sounds exists but to an extent. It might or might not be beyond what our hearing can perceive or how much noise the drive was designed to make. Excessive/loud noise like clicking, clunking, shooshing and sweeping is a sign of a bad or very worn drive. Either crashed heads or spindle isnt maintaining the rotational speed.

iGrim, Exactly what inherent design flaw causes this whoosh noise? and why does it only affect WD 320 and 500gb drives? Why not 250gb drives or Seagate 320/500gb drives?

 

I'd consider testing those hard drives using an external case with the top cover off then put the ear at the top of the drive.
I can confirm the 320GB Blue/Black and the 500GB make the 'whooshing' sound, it is not the same as the HDD heads (activity).
I find high density drives right now do tend to vibrate much more than low capacity drives (My WD 80GB was silent/dead/no sound replaced with a 5K500.B single platter but vibrates a little bit, no whoosh sound)

 

I'm swoosh free.

 

Of course you are going to complain about the poll and not accept the outcome. No surprise there.

You may want to check the post on Macrumors where one guy installed two WD5000BEVTs in two Macbooks. One makes the swoosh sound, the other one doesn't.

If that doesn't settle it I don't know what will.

 

I don't have the Blue 500GB, but I have two WD3200BJKT (Black 320GB) inside notebook & one WD3200BEVT (Blue 320GB) in an external enclosure. None of them are making 'swoosh' sound.

 

Same here; the two 320GB Scorpio Blue drives that I own both make that curious abrupt clicking sound, but no swooshing sound.

 

I have a Blue WD 320GB i hear that clicking sometimes.

 

Oh, but what you don't know is that we're all apparently idiots while iGrim has a spark of intelligence.

iGrim, isn't it curious how a person is branded as schizophrenic if they disagree with the majority of society on the nature of reality? Well, you're just that person.

 

I took the ScorpBlue 500Gb out of the USB enclosure and installed it in my laptop. There was a jumper which I removed from it before I installed it in my laptop, because the original Momentus 5400.3 didn't have any jumper installed and I wanted them to match. The jumper was for Reduced Power Spinup.

Now installed inside the laptop without that RPS jumper it does make that swoosh noise. It didn't make this much noise when it was external and I had it out of it's case. The ScorpBlue makes more noise than the 160 Gb Momentus 5400.3 so I switched them back the way they were and I decided not to go ahead with the upgrade mainly for that swoosh noise reason. I did not try to enable the RPS and then install it inside but now that you mention you have that noise also makes me think that the RPS jumper could be the answer to your poll.

 

No and I run mine naked in the thermaltake dock , if there were noise I'd be sure to hear it

 

Shal I enter this thread again?......

 

Yes, please do.