Western Digital 'thumper' disks - PWL

[CamCrazy]

Recently switched to a 14TB WD white label (black/red?) drive for NVR storage in PC case, first time experiencing the thumping style drives. It appears the noise is the result of Premature Wear Levelling (PWL) which WD have seen fit to add on these units. Nice not to have the usual higher pitched drive noises, the dull thumping is quite aggressive, ended up isolating the entire case on medium density foam which seems to have virtually eliminated it. Sadly the case style mounts the drives vertically, making it almost impossible to fit the suspension style drive mounts. The drive is mounted using rubber isolation points from factory via the case design, I also went DIY with some foam strips between drive mount and case chassis, these cannot hurt.

Just wondered how others find these, guess the real solution is to move the PC elsewhere, I am cheap though and like to use it as my main computer rather than remote viewing for CCTV. Be nice if SSD storage was cheaper, sadly 8TB prices are still too rich for me, they will come down no doubt in time.

 

[looney2ns]

You should be using Surveillance rated drives. You'd have less noise most likely.

 

[tigerwillow1]

I use one of these and am unhappy at how it sounds, like it wants to wear itself out. It's in an NVR and has been running fine for about a year. The NVR is in a place where it's not heard. If I had to listen to it I'd go nuts a bit faster than the current rate of going nuts.

 

[Mike A.]

The 14 GB Purple I put in my BI server chunked a LOT until I turned off Windows drive optimization. After, nearly completely silent. Also turned off search indexing for the drive.

 

[tigerwillow1]

Mine chunks even if there's no data cable attached to it.

 

[Mike A.]

Well that sucks.

 

[CamCrazy]

You should be using Surveillance rated drives. You'd have less noise most likely.

Thanks and yes, I have used various enterprise grade and surveillance rated drives over the years, once you isolate these thumping style drives they actually become quieter than the normal 'chatter' type drives, it is a low frequency vs high, not always easy to isolate though of course!

 

[CamCrazy]

The 14 GB Purple I put in my BI server chunked a LOT until I turned off Windows drive optimization. After, nearly completely silent. Also turned off search indexing for the drive.

Over the years, many drives installed for home and work, I find the better (5 year warrantied) drives always tend to be the noisiest, mostly at least. The purple drives are not bad compared to most, SSD will come down in time but it will be a few years yet for larger capacity.

 

[CamCrazy]

The high density foam isolation works exceptionally well, but, the computer case feet are compressing it, thus reducing effectiveness. I will work on a solution where the foam and also possibly a fibre material is sandwiched between two solid wood or composite layers, this should spread the weight and resolve the compression. So far the sound isolation using this method is night and day, anyone with a NAS or external drive could easily benefit from this. Without this isolation, the thumping noise is immediately apparent and very annoying! incredible how it seemingly eliminates this so effectively.

 

[CamCrazy]

I use one of these and am unhappy at how it sounds, like it wants to wear itself out. It's in an NVR and has been running fine for about a year. The NVR is in a place where it's not heard. If I had to listen to it I'd go nuts a bit faster than the current rate of going nuts.

Suggest trying some high density foam, and/or a second layer of fibre. In practical terms, variation on a garden kneeling pad combined with some fibre style feet used on chairs to protect hard wood floors or similar - relatively cheap solution, OK, they might not look great but certainly effective. Not yet tested the higher density kneeling pad type 'foam', this is more rubber like and I suspect might not be as effective, more traditional foam type designs seem to decouple better. Various types of packaging foam will work well, needs to be the harder style which can be easily carved with a craft knife.