HDD Noise - iMac 27" 2012

If a HDD sounds like a HDD, is that wrong?

I'm not really sure what you're hearing. I never heard the HDD in my 2012 iMac (I've had two, and both sounded the same - i.e. inaudible), so if you think there's an issue maybe take it to Apple!

William if you listen can you hear the fan in your 2012 imac?

Tbdbuckeyeitl said:

William if you listen can you hear the fan in your 2012 imac?

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Only if I listen outrageously carefully. But yes, you can hear it if you're sensitive to such things.

Tbdbuckeyeitl said:

William if you listen can you hear the fan in your 2012 imac?

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Not William, but my experience so far with a 27"...

I'm in a completely quiet room with no ambient noise, I can just hear the fan/air. If I put my hand over the air vent in the back, I can reduce most of the air movement noise. Listening to it at the back, you can tell most of what I hear is the exiting air producing some sound from the cut out slots.

I read people say their machine is "completely silent" - I gotta hear that! No pun intended!

So for me, I think I hear more air noise than anything.

iMac 27" Late 2012 Ticking HDD

I set mine up last night.
It was quite until the last 20 mins of Migration Assistant.
Then I heard a chugging/ticking sound not super loud but I heard it.
After it was finished I went to go se what type of hard drive it is, it's a Seagate.

I had gotten this computer as a replacement because the last one I had, an iMac 27" 2010 had been under the 1TB HDD Recall, and it had it's initial HDD go bad, the on-site replacement (Seagate) was ticking from day one, the ticking got worst and it was replaced one more time (Seagate).

So in this 2012 it's no where near as bad as in my last iMac but because of my last iMac I know what it sounds like. It's very faint in this new computer but it is there.

My Macbook's hard drive is silent so I don't think it's data is corrupted. Could it be possible when I am using Migration assistant to transfer my User from my MacBook to the iMac it is overworking/damaging the hard drive.
I don't think it would but the whole process seems pretty long, about 5 hours to transfer 675Gb from a 2011 MacBook Pro Early 2.3GHz(i5)/16GB(1600 MHz DDR3)/750GB 5400RPM (TOSHIBA MK7559GSXF Sata 2)

Or am I having terrible luck with iMacs & Seagates.

Will/\ said:

Hi! I've had my iMac for just over a month now and I've started to notice the hard drive. It never used to make a noise AT ALL when I received it but now it does. It makes that HDD noise - hard to describe. XD

I've also noticed that that it has started to become slower and it takes a second longer to close programs like safari.

Any help, thanks.

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You have a 1 year warranty and 90 days of free AppleCare telephone support. I'm a little surprised you come to a rumors website for support instead of contacting Apple directly for the support you are entitled to.

Is there a reason you won't use AppleCare or your 1 year warranty???

Will/\ said:

I did in fact take it to the apple store in early February. All they did was restore my mac and the issue still prevails however I have learnt to live with it. It isn't excessive but I can hear it from time to time.

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Some hard drives are audible. The PowerBook G4 I am typing this from can be heard if really being used but the one in my PowerMac is almost silent. I would essentially just verify that the disk is in good condition in Disk Utility and verify that the S.M.A.R.T status is showing as verified.

Will/\ said:

Hi! I've had my iMac for just over a month now and I've started to notice the hard drive. It never used to make a noise AT ALL when I received it but now it does. It makes that HDD noise - hard to describe. XD

I've also noticed that that it has started to become slower and it takes a second longer to close programs like safari.

Any help, thanks.

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Open up Activity Monitor and go to the disk tab the next time you hear it. If the graph is not a straight line, then the HDD is reading and/or writing data. The list of running processes will tell you what is doing it. It is nothing to worry about though unless your HDD has suddenly got super slow (go to the App Store and download Blackmagic Disk Speed Test to test your speeds of your HDD, as long as they are over 85 it is nothing to worry about).

Will/\ said:

Hi! I've had my iMac for just over a month now and I've started to notice the hard drive. It never used to make a noise AT ALL when I received it but now it does. It makes that HDD noise - hard to describe. XD

I've also noticed that that it has started to become slower and it takes a second longer to close programs like safari.

Any help, thanks.

Click to expand...

Yeah to solve the noise issues you use a very heavy hammer on it and pond it several times really hard is like having sex all together.