WD5000BEVT whoosing sound?

Is this a power management feature? It makes this whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, pretty rhythmically. It is not a clicking sound and it's faint, but it's actually annoying. I have the Seagate 7200.3 drive and while it is louder than the WD, it is definitely more pleasant b/c the fan is more constant. I have also heard what people call the clicking noise in a fujitsu 160gb hard drive. I have a toshiba 5400rpm hard drive as well, and none of these drives make this rhythmic whooshing noise. I am totally surprised that this bothers me, b/c I bought this drive solely based on the great reviews.

Anyone confirm that this is just how the WD5000BEVT is? If so, that's fine. I'm just weird. But at least now I know that I prefer constant, predictable noise that than a fan or whatever it is that keeps going on and off, on and off.

 

No, my WD50000BEVT doesn´t make any noise at all... It is dead silent, even when benchmarking. My only concearn is the temperature that stays at 36-38. Have you tried to change the acoustic management to max performance?

 

I have to be in a completely quiet room to hear my WD5000BEVT. It does make a little noise - more like a quiet fan - but none of the more annoying clicking that some HDDs make.

The HDD temperature is currently 38C but the ambient temperature is 26C - it would be lower if I were in a cold place.

John

 

Strange. I downloaded hdtune pro and my AAM option is grayed out. I tested the speed first and then set the AAM, but I'm not sure if I actually did anything.

 

Hi.

I have found this forum recently.
So I know what you are talking about - I have a WD5000BEVT notebook HDD.
Previously I had an old Hitachi HTS541680.. 80GB sata notebook HDD and it didn't make that noise.

And I also have a strange WD5000BEVT because It is WD5000BEVT-11ZAT0 (as you can see on my attachment), but the HDTune says It is WD5000BEVT-00ZAT0. So I know this "whoosh, whoosh" problem , but I don't know any solution for it. If anyone knows a solution (firmware upgrade etc.) for it please inform me immidiately!!!

Oh I also forgot: I can't adjust the acoustic management in HDtune either, maybe It isnt possible to set in different position.

Cheers
OG from Hungary.

 

Yes all 320gb and 500gb scorpio drives make the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh noise. Anyone who disagrees or claims that they are dead silent dont know what they are taking about.

Sorry but there is no perfect silent drive out there. Western Digitals make the whoosh noise and Seagate makes the scratchy clicking noise.

IMO the WD whoosh noise is much MUCH less annoying than Seagates weird scratchy clicking noise.

 

I have an WD5000BEVT in an external case , i am using it as a time capsule for my uMacbook Pro , and every now and then i get 5 beeps from it , not clicks or clunks "BEEPS" , I use to have it in my notebook and it was quite apart from the odd power saving clunk.

 

don't hear anything on mine either...

 

Some make noise, some don't.

If it bothers you, try changing the acoustic management in HDTune Pro.

 

Wrong. That is an incredibly illogical statement to make. They ALL make the noise. It is inherent to the design.

 

Things are illogical sometimes. Not all hard drives behave equally. Check the post above mine.

Also, I have a Seagate 500GB that doesn't click. Illogical huh.

 

Mine doesn't woosh as well (22ZAT0), it parks its heads pretty hard though, but it's not a big deal, since my lappy is 24/7 on

 

The most silent HDD's are seagate 250 GB

 

Its very simple why some people dont hear it.

1. Poor hearing. Hearing degrades over time especially if you've damaged your ears in the past by using headphones/ear buds, going to rock shows, ect.

2. Some laptops enclose the hard drive better which shields the noise.

3. You can only hear it in a quiet/silent room

Regardless of the situation ALL of them make the noise ALL OF THEM as it is inherent of the hard drive design. This is one reason you cant trust forums. People will post "Mine does not do that" when in reality it DOES, they just dont know it as I explained in this post.

 

Number 2 here is I think the key when it comes to this discussion. The Dell vostro 1500 that I use at work has a seagate 5400.3 drive which every few minutes will make a audible clicking noise. Now I work in a server room with servers fans making considerable noise and I can still hear this seagate drive click.

My WD3200BEKT in my dv5z makes absolutely no noise unless I place my ear right next to the palmrest, but as you noted all mechanical hard disk drives make some kind of noise and I agree with this. It is just some drives are louder than others (read/write head motor is louder) as well as some notebooks shield the noise better than others (as you pointed out).

My hearing is still pretty good (I can still hear very high frequency noises that older people that work with me cannot hear)

 

I completely agree with this. User environment, laptop acoustics (fan, brand, noise damping) are factors that determine whether the reviewer of the HDD states it is "silent". The clicking noise is rather annoying, I sold a WD3200BEKT firstly because I was not using it as primary HDD because of the noise and secondly because of the click sound every now and then.

I'm pretty positive all hard drives emit sound, they're not SSD's. And technically speaking a single platter drive (like the 250GB/platter on my sig) tend to be quieter than dual platters hard drives, because there's less moving parts, less heads and less wattage (heat).

So If you want a quiet hard drive get a single platter one like the one on my sig which is the 250GB of the 5K500.B made by Hitachi, it actually took me awhile to realize that is not the brand that makes a 'silent' HDD, but rather the number of disk platters inside the casing.

 

Well I would believe you guys if you had listened to 30 different WD3200BEKTs (different firmwares and revisions) and came to conclusions that all of them made 'swoosh sound'. Frankly, I don't believe you had 30 of them to test.

My hearing is very good, I work without music or other background sounds and Dell Studio let's though a lot of sound but my Seagate 5400.6 does not click. It just doesn't.

My Samsung NC10 let through any sound, it was dead quiet, even though it had a WD1600BEKT. No swoosh sounds. It does vibrate quite noticeable though.

Unfortunately I did not have the WD3200BEKT so can't comment on that. I can only go by individual user reports and many of them say it's silent and does not make swoosh sounds. Even though some of them have an aluminium macbook, which let's through sound like not other.

4. Different firmware can result in different sounds.

5. Different BIOS can result in different sounds.

6. Luck of the draw. Not every hard drive is create equally.

Yes indeed.

I will say though that many WDs make a swoosh sound, but not all of them.

 

Mine makes a swoosh sound depending on where the drive head is.

 

Did you know that WD raid edition drives are the same as the ordinary counterparts but that the parts are made to tighter limits meaning they can tune them for higher performance.

Being analogue devices it makes a big difference, and all drives will be different.

 

Poll posted here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=407353