WD Caviar Green HDDs Suffer from a Critical Design Flaw

I got a WDC3200AAKS-00L9A0 Caviar Blue, and I think it's crap, IF it turns out THAT's what's causing a strange, low rumbling sound like a frikken engine every so often.

By the way, is 37 degrees (C) normal HDD temperature?

I doubt it, stores over here sell HDDs like cheese. You buy it, you get stuck with it.
Thanks for the info, though.

s31 said:

biggles1000 said:

and to think I was strongly considering getting a WD Green for my next build... :S
Looks like it's back to Seagate for me then :/

there is no problem..

All the Western Digital Caviar Green HDDs that are shipping now are set to park their heads after 8 seconds of inactivity, so this fix is required if such problems are encountered.

WD Caviar Green HDDs Suffer from a Critical Design Flaw - Softpedia

still sounds a bit risky :S
I've had 3 HDDs die on me (admittedly none were WD, they were all Hitachi). All Seagates i've had have had a major failure once, but then work fine after fixing it
Are WD drives (ignoring this fault then, such as ignoring the Sandy Bridge flaw) as good as Seagates? I want something that runs spretty quietly, and WD say the green is quiet, but how quiet?

Gornot said:

I got a WDC3200AAKS-00L9A0 Caviar Blue, and I think it's crap, IF it turns out THAT's what's causing a strange, low rumbling sound like a frikken engine every so often.

By the way, is 37 degrees (C) normal HDD temperature?

I was thinking getting Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB WD5000AAKX as a second drive for my build now I'm wondering if I should go another brnd as I've had a few rtabag WD externals.

Am after a 6Gbs so any alternatives?

As an afterthought someone mentioned noise - have a Samsung Spinpoint 103HJ which I was told was quite but it sounds like someone running their fingenails along the botom of the case when in use - normal??

ignatzatsonic said:

The current generation of WD drives has a good reputation, probably better than Seagate. Samsungs also have a good reputation. Any brand can fail and you can easily find horror stories about any of them.

The major source of noise in a PC is more likely fans than drives. I have a WD green drive and a WD black and both are quiet enough to suit me and I appreciate low noise drives.

Anything with moving parts makes noise to some degree. Only SSDs are silent.

The best way to quiet your PC generally is to use low noise fans in a case known to suppress noise to begin with. That's much easier than trying to silence a noisy case with noisy fans.

Thankyou for your knowledge from experience :)
The 200GB Hitachi I had in my build that died was incredibly noisy. The much older 80GB drive was much quieter. I'm tallking about a noise that was even louder than the ten year old PSU
Noises like *wrrrrrTTTTTTTTT* *DRRRRRRRTTTTTT* *KAKLUNK* *DRRRTT* * KAKLUNK* *BANG* (yes, seriously, there was a loud bang like noise once)
Is the clicking from your drive's audible/barely audible?

Hiyya biggles (expat Sussex here) if you were referring to me with -
Is the clicking from your drive's audible/barely audible? Then yes mate it is the Samsung was recommended for the build as it was good and quiet.

Plus I have six fans running - Nexus "Real Silents" and the drive is way louder than all put together including the PSU one (Corsair HX 650).

So am thinking of fitting a Seagate Barracuda 500GB ST3500413AS as it is quoted to have improved audio characteristics and it's 6bs transfer rate to boot (no pun intended but hey what the heck) at AUD$49 if it is only slightly less noisy I'm ahead..