So I just got myself a new WD 4TB Black drive and couldn't help but notice the read and write noise level is about 5-10dBA higher than their Green counterparts (I have 2 other 2TB WD greens). Is this normal behaviour for this drive due to the size? It's been a while since I've heard a disk make this amount of noise, but according to everything I've read it seems pretty normal and the drive itself doesn't make any strange noises.

I have to admit that I've switched over to pretty much solely SSDs since my last HDD started acting funny (at only a couple of years old - I've switched it to a local backup drive and duplicate anything vital on cloud storage and my laptop as well), but looking online I can't see anything conclusive beyond a known rise in volume when seeking/writing.

So, er, dunno. Look for something to test disk integrity?

I watched some Youtube videos and they seem to sound the same. I guess it's just something you have to put up with when dealing with these huge drives. I use an SSD for my OS but naturally they are too expensive for storage..

Hunter wrote:I watched some Youtube videos and they seem to sound the same. I guess it's just something you have to put up with when dealing with these huge drives. I use an SSD for my OS but naturally they are too expensive for storage..

The Crucial MX100 is actually pretty reasonable; 512GB for about £150 (I'm sure I paid significantly less for mine, though). Although it's not of much benefit for gaming though (but pretty good for quite a few development applications, etc). At the moment I'm using a 128GB one for a Windows / Linux installation and some programs, a 512 MB for games and work applications, and my shonky 2GB HDD has of course become a backup drive. To be honest I'm thinking of building a cheap micro-ATX server with some big old fashion HDDs in future, though. Seems to make most sense for storing data nowadays.

I a have total 8TB of storage at the moment + SSD and USB's. It should be good enough to last for a year or so before I need to start deleting stuff. Imagine all the porn you can fit in.

Hunter wrote:I a have total 8TB of storage at the moment + SSD and USB's. It should be good enough to last for a year or so before I need to start deleting stuff. Imagine all the porn you can fit in.

Who needs to imagine.....

Ahem. Actually, that would be quite a lot of pornography.

aldo wrote:

Hunter wrote:I a have total 8TB of storage at the moment + SSD and USB's. It should be good enough to last for a year or so before I need to start deleting stuff. Imagine all the porn you can fit in.

Who needs to imagine.....

Ahem. Actually, that would be quite a lot of pornography.

Solution to that problem is 120FPS 4K porn.

As for the original question, black drives are 7200RPM drives made for performance, hence they are louder. Green drives are slower spinning and slower performing, so they're quieter. It's little, if anything, to do with the storage space on the drive.

Well actually it's due to the amount of platters in the drive - The black has five, which is a lot.

I'm aware of the difference between the drives, that's why I purchased a black. I'm just wanting to compare to other (similar) purchases to see if the entire line makes the same noise.

Well now this same drive is making a strange brief (about 0.5 seconds or less) 'read/write' noise every 4-5 seconds when idle. Even when it's in the BIOS it does it, so I ran a lifeguard diagnostic (WD supplied software) and it came back PASS on all tests.. Hmmm.. Think I might have to end up RMAing it regardless.