Mac Pro HDD Whine

Hi there-

Just looking for some advice regarding a new hard drive that I just installed. My config is set up like this

Bay 1: 160GB Seagate

Bay 2: 320GB Western Digital

Bay 3: 320GB Seagate

Bay 4: 320GB Seagate

The drives in bays 3 and 4 were just installed tonight. The drive in bay 3 is whining like no other. It seems to be spinning as fast as wordly possible, and it doesn't appear that it will stop. Oddly enough, the drive in bay 4, which is identical to bay 3, is extremely quiet. I'm wondering if this is a defective drive, or if it is just having a conflict with another piece of hardware. Both drives formatted without error, but I'm planning on building a RAID with these two drives, and don't want to do it if one drive is going to crap out.

Thanks for any and all input! I really appreciate it.

-godpunk

#419167

Probably you have a hardaware problem on bay 3, theres software our there that will check that for you... But yeah i wouldn't build the raid either if I wasn't sure about it

#419205

try swapping the drives in bays 3 and 4. if 4 is now the whiner: bad drive. if 3 is the whiner: bad bay.

#419224

try swapping the drives in bays 3 and 4. if 4 is now the whiner: bad drive. if 3 is the whiner: bad bay.

Along with playing with jumpers and zapping the PRAM, this was one of the first things I tried. Verdict: Bay 3 is just fine, so it's the drive. I emailed Seagate and got this response:

Every disc drive makes a certain amount of noise while running.
Normally, the faster the drive motor spins, the higher pitched
the resulting sound will be.
However, if the sound coming from your drive has recently changed
or is a HIGH-PITCHED or BEEPING NOISE, this may indicate a physical
problem with the drive.

I also emailed Newegg.com (the vendor) and they've approved an exchange. The drive is already shipped back to them. I've owned several Barracuda drives and have found them to be really reliable, so I'm guessing I just got a dud.

Thanks for the input! Hopefully someone else may find this helpful if they end up in the same situation.

-godpunk

#419252

Yeh.... I've Been using Barracudas for long time and they are pretty good drives, if not as fast as WD Raptors.

#419291