Average Noise of 320GB Hitachi?

[theappleguy]

Quick question for those with 13-inch MacBook Pros: In a quiet room, do you hear your hard drive spinning?

I'm not talking about the head noise it makes when it writes to the disk, rather the noise of the disk constantly spinning. I'm coming from a MacBook Air, so maybe its just the contrast, but I have heard from many people that they can hardly hear the their MacBook Pros yet with mine I can hear a constant whirring sound. Every so often it sounds as if it is going to slow down a bit, but then the whirring is back to normal.

I will try to find another MacBook Pro to compare it to later in the week (its impossible to compare to one in a store since there is so much background noise), but in the meantime I'm interested to hear your thoughts. In terms of noise, I would say about its the same noise level as the cooling fan running at 3000rpm. Would you say that's normal with a 320GB 5400 Hitachi CTO?

Thanks.

 

[aeboi]

That would be a negative, my stock 320GB is dead silent, only thing that causes noise is the HSF at higher RPMs, otherwise it's a sleeper @ 2000rpm.

 

[theappleguy]

Interesting, thanks aeboi. I guess I'll have to compare with another MacBook Pro later this week and then probably send it away to be serviced.

 

[daneoni]

Hitachi drives are on average louder than their Seagate/WD counterparts.

 

[sn0warmy]

When my 320gb Hitachi was in my MBP it wasn't noticeable over the fans. I couldn't even tell a difference in sound after replacing it with an SSD. And in the external enclosure it's almost silent as well.

 

[theappleguy]

Interesting. Is there an application that tells you how many RPMs the HD is running at? I tried to find one but haven't managed as yet. It sounds as if it is running at full speed the whole time, but would be good to confirm this.

 

[DanMacApple]

The stock Hitachi drive in my MBP is very silent.