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nkurtar

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 13, 2019
47
13
Istanbul, Turkey
I got an iMac 2017 27 " w/ 2 TB fusion drive and an iMac 2019 27"w/2TB fusion drive. 2017 is on High Sierra 2019 on Mojave. I wonder why 2019 has HDD sound heard in silent environment but 2017 has no sound at all. Any explanation?
 
No, They both are Seagate 2 TB HDDs.
Maybe different models?

Maybe the 2019 Fusion has an issue with it?

I had issues with my Late 2012 iMac's Fusion Drive that I noticed about 8-12 months in.

It took about another year for those issues to become a big problem, with system crashes, failed boots, and other signs of drive errors.

Many trips to the Apple Store with the iMac turned out to be pointless, because Apple refused to fix it due to the iMac passing their HW diagnostic test.

With 12 days left on my Apple Care warranty, it totally failed to the point that the iMac wouldn't even boot into internet recovery mode, nor the Apple Stores HW Diagnostic tool, so they finally fixed it.
 
I know it is not important but still wondering why there is a difference between 2 disks.

I wouldn't say that it is not important.

It could be a sign of trouble in the future.

I wonder if the 2019s have less sound deadening material that would cause the sound to be different?
 
I wouldn't say that it is not important.

It could be a sign of trouble in the future.

I wonder if the 2019s have less sound deadening material that would cause the sound to be different?

You may be right about sound deadening material @vertical smile
[doublepost=1568727512][/doublepost]Other thing that 2017 iMac has 70 GB data and this fits right on to 128 GB SSD so maybe only SSD is working. That's why I don't hear any disk sound.
 
Other thing that 2017 iMac has 70 GB data and this fits right on to 128 GB SSD so maybe only SSD is working. That's why I don't hear any disk sound.

This could be it. I think you would still hear the HDD sometimes though, at least on start up.
 
Nope, no sound at all.

That is strange, I would think that you would hear it at least on start up.

Maybe do a big download or transfer some files over to see if that changes things, then delete them when you are done.
 
I transferred 1.5GB file from 2019 to 2017 and you won't believe me 2017 was dead quiet! Very interesting...
[doublepost=1568732379][/doublepost]Could it have to do with High Sierra and Mojave difference in disk management?
 
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The difference is more likely the individual drives, and not the software in use, particularly if you perform the same tasks on both Macs.
The HDDs, being mechanical devices, will have minor physical differences due to manufacturing tolerances (motor speed, bearing clearances, etc), so one drive may turn out to be noisier than another identical drive.
The only fix would be to replace the noisier drive. Be aware that you may replace with one more (or less) noisy. Just part of life with mechanical devices. Sometimes you get lucky, and the spinning drive may be almost inaudible.
If you truly want no noise, then replace the spinning component of the fusion drive with an SSD.
 
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