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WD Scorpio 320gb light noise

M

mokeiko

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 19, 2007
282
0
To all WD Scorpio 320gb owners, do you hear a very faint noise every 10 to 20 seconds? It's not really a clunk or clicking sound, more like it's taking a drink of water sound, hard to explain. Just wondering if this is normal. I just installed this in my SR mbp 2.2ghz. Thanks for any help.


mokeiko
 
i had 2 320s, and only heard it on one.

it was kinda like a "tick-clunk" noise, common to ALL notebook drives for the most part. Anyways, i had one passport essential, and one passport elite. The drive in the essential was a "tick-clunker", while the elite was fine. I took the essential back because of the noise, and i had to take the elite back as well. It was purchased at bestbuy for 180$, and that was too much.
 
The only noise I hear is the slight clicking once in a while when idling.
 
That's exactly what I hear and only when it's idling. The funny thing is that when I boot into Windows XP, via Boot Camp, I don't hear that sound at all, just the regular disk access sound.

mokeiko
 
Every so often it'll make a clicking sound. It's always done it; I don't think anything of it.
 
gr8bob said:
That's the sound of the hard disk head being parked. Happens in OS X (and some other OS'es) due to the agressive power saving settings. Try "hdapm" http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/ utility and follow the instructions here..
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=914688#r13
Click to expand...

id like to try this, but i no longer have the drives.

It doesnt seem like a good fix though, disabling the power-management basically built into osx for HD's.

Id be hard pressed to settle for a drive that needed this type of fix.
 
kgeier82 said:
Id be hard pressed to settle for a drive that needed this type of fix.
Click to expand...

Considering all laptop HDDs these days have this power management feature, and the "fix" is going to be that; looks like a bleak hard drive world for you. ;)
 
alphaod said:
Considering all laptop HDDs these days have this power management feature, and the "fix" is going to be that; looks like a bleak hard drive world for you. ;)
Click to expand...


well that would be true, if the noise was constant across all drives, which its not.

Its not even model specific, as i reported in my first post.

So no, i dont see my HD future as being bleak at all.

All drives may have the "feature," but not all, including variations from same model drives, make the noise.
 
Sorry for reviving an old thread!

This is exactly what I have been looking for! Parking the drive head that often really can't be that healthy.
 
dr. shdw said:
Why? Moving is just as bad if not worse..
Click to expand...

Given that most drives are rated for 600,000 load cycles. If your drive is cycling once every 20 seconds, you will reach that threshold in 3333.3 hours. Which depending on your usage is as little as 4.6 months for a machine left on 24x7.

Though the downside of not letting the drive head park is a drive that uses more power and runs warmer.

Between a rock and a hard place?
 
So replacing the drive is pointless since if one WD Scorpio drive does it they all will, correct? I have tried the fix and it seems to work fine however not sure if I am happy about this solution. Perhaps i should get the similarly rated Seagate momentus 7200.3 drive. Any thought on whether this drive will have the same problem?
 
id rather park the drive head off the disk than have it spin on the disk any day!

ive got a wd scorpio 250 an have heard no noise :)
 
Seeing as this has already been revived I thought I'd chime in. My new Alu MacBook's fujitsu drive does this too. Every few seconds I get this tick-clunk sound. It's starting to get on my nerves so much I'm contemplating an SSD ! Well, it sounds like a good excuse anyway :)
 
I'm just running some tests.
I am running two HD movies in VLC and Plex, and the clicking is gone.

On Energy Saving Prefs, I unticked put hard drive to sleep (but I don't want to use this really... as it is no good in the long term)
 
wallstreetcrash said:
I'm just running some tests.
I am running two HD movies in VLC and Plex, and the clicking is gone.

On Energy Saving Prefs, I unticked put hard drive to sleep (but I don't want to use this really... as it is no good in the long term)
Click to expand...


It won't click while playing videos, it's only when the HDD is idle.
 
wallstreetcrash said:
What are the downsides of using hdapm?
Click to expand...

From my experience, the hard drive runs a tad warmer -- about 2ºc so far, after leaving it on for a whole day.

Battery life should be shorter too, since the disk is spinning all the time, but I haven't done any test too see how affected it is yet.
 
nitewolfgtr said:
Im not sure about the clicking noise but i know these drives run HOT!
Click to expand...
Even at idle?

I've just upgraded to the drive, and now the MBP fan is on permanently and there is a hum(poss from the fan?) at idle.

Yet when I return the original drive, these symptoms disappear.

Help!:(
 
I've just bought a Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200 320GB and, lo and behold, I get the clicking when the hard drive is in idle.

I bought the disk from Dabs in the UK and I think it'll be going back next week.

Anyone had any real success repairing one of these?
 
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