Replacement HDD much louder!

Yes you have a Seagate now. If it's really noisy they may not have fitted the rubber damper correctly, but it's hard to really tell without actually hearing it.

I'd say give Apple a call to be on the safe side.

MacOG728893 said:

What's your take on this vs the WD?

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I personally buy and use Western Digital HDDs for storage purposes. It's my go to HD brand. I don't ever see myself buying and using another brand unless I have to, meaning that it ships with the computer that I buy. WD for me.

Anyway, when I ordered my iMac last June/July, Apple shipped a WD drive with the first iMac I received. The WD drive was as loud as any other WD drive I have ever owned so it was no surprise to me. This [first] iMac had an issue with the display so I called Apple within the 14 day return period and they shipped me a brand new [second] iMac to replace the first one, both were BTO by the way.

When the second one came in, it shipped with a Seagate drive and was quieter than the WD drive. To be honest, when I first booted up the iMac, it was so quiet that I thought that Apple made a mistake and shipped an SSD with it. To this day, it's still as quiet as it was when I first booted it and I don't hear it unless I make an effort to listen for it. I'd prefer to have a WD drive in there but the Seagate isn't a bad drive and performs as expected.

For your Seagate drive to be making as much noise as you say it's making tells me that it may not have been mounted properly or something inside the iMac is loose. Or perhaps the drive itself may be faulty. Definitely call Apple and see what they can do about it.

All models of hard drives are different. Seagate very easily could have built a noisy monster. What is actually loud? Idle spinning noise or seek crunching and head noise?

My Internet money is on the drive just being noisier in its design. You can take it to Apple and have them rip the system apart again, but I doubt anything is wrong with it or the installation.