Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[XenonKilla]

I posted this in another thread but it turns out that the sound I'm hearing is completely different from what is being discussed over in that thread so I have decided to start a new thread since this is a completely different issue.

I have two BRAND NEW Seagate Barracuda STBD3000100 drives that are making weird "chirp" sounds at random times when doing normal everyday things such as opening videos, images, applications etc. The don't make the sound all the time just at random times. I was actually able to capture a recording of the sound. The recording was taken with a digital voice recorder that was placed on top of the drive while I then proceeded to do random things on my computer like open/close videos, images, applicaitons etc etc. Only took me about 10 min before the drive made that sound.

You can hear the "chirp" at 5 seconds...

http://soundcloud.com/user3445428/weird-chirp-sound-seagate

Right now I only have one of the drives installed in my system. When I first heard the drive making this sound I suspected that the drive was defective so swapped it out with the other drive I had bought (both exact same model) only to find that that drive is making the same sound as well.

Computer SPECS are as follows...

Mainboard: ASUS P8P67

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600 @ 3.4GHz

RAM: 16GB

OS: Win 7 Ultimate x64

OS Drive: 120GB Intel SSD AHCI Mode

Data Drive: 3TB Seagate Barracuda STBD3000100 AHCI Mode

Case: DangerDen Water Box Plus (Acrylic Case)

As I said earlier, the drives only make the sound at random times. I say "drives" because they are both doing it however keep in mind that I only have one drive hooked up at a time. It's making that sound when I'm accessing the drive such as when I open a video or an app or copy a file etc. But like I said it doesn't do it all the time just random times. For example, I was on the computer for about 6 hours straight yesterday doing some coding and I could hear the drive make that sound several times throughout the hours. I would say it makes that sound about 3 times per hour on average. 

I've been building and customizing computers for over 16 years now and the only time I have ever heard a sound such as the one my drives are making is when something isn't right. Even old school PATA IDE drives from back in the day never used to make such weird sounds like this. I always use Western Digital Drives however I needed a couple of high capacity drives ASAP and these seagate drives were the only ones available. Definitely got me on edge as I'm not really thinking this drive is gonna be worth keeping around long term. It's one thing to keep normal backups of a drive that I know is in 100% normal working condition, but being that this "chirp" sound is not normal to me it just doesn't make sense to store data and keep a drive around that could possibly be defective in some way or another.

Not trying to bash Seagate drives or anything like that. I've been a Western Digital guy however I have used Seagate drives in the past and I know guys who swear by them so I know they aren't garbage. If the sound is normal and someone can give a resonable explanation then great I'm all for hearing about it. Regardless I'm just trying to figure out what the deal is...

[XenonKilla]

bump

[Cantbecanit]

That isn't a chirp, and I seem to remember replying to a very similar post last week, that is a head moving to read, if you have it as a storage drive the sound you hear is the wake up call as ther drive comes out of psm.

[XenonKilla]

---

Cantbecanit wrote:

I seem to remember replying to a very similar post last week,

---

Apparently you skipped the very first sentence of my post

---

Cantbecanit wrote:

That isn't a chirp, that is a head moving to read, if you have it as a storage drive the sound you hear is the wake up call as ther drive comes out of psm.

---

Ok so explain to me how is it that I can be downloading a file to my D: drive which is the drive I'm having issues with, and then while the file is downloading to that drive the drive will STILL make that sound while doing something else? I don't understand how the drive could be in power save mode while it's being written to. makes no sense whatsoever......

[Cantbecanit]

I'm not sure mate, I can hear the sound of a head engaging, whether that is a fault or a config thing I can't tell from here, your kit looks all up together so I would assume it's not anythjing there causing it, how about swapping to a different sata port and make sure the boot drive is on a lower numbered port, and see if it stops or not, avoid using Marvell ports if you can,and see if there is a bios update for your board, I assume yours is a UEFi bios, and finally a re-seat incase any cables or components aren't fully located, it does happen,

And yeah, I did miss the bit where you mentioned it doing it when accessing a file, I read that as the drive waking up rather than while it was running, if you are really bothered about it though send it back where you bought it so you get another new drive rather than a re-furb, sorry I can't offer anymore but sitting here it's impossible to tell

p.s how are they set up, 2.7TB or 2TB + 750GB?

[XenonKilla]

Nah I hear ya buddy and honestly I'm not the kind person who expects some kinda miracle diagnosis over the internet. I got friends calling me all the time asking me tech questions and 80% of the time it's pretty much impossible to resolve without actually being there in person. I know for a fact that this is a drive issue. I was just hoping to find out if this noise was NORMAL with these drives and if so what is the cause. Or if the noise is ABNORMAL and what might the cause be.

In any case I can't seem to find any information supporting that this noise is normal, so I think I'm just gonna take these back and exchange them for a couple of Western Digital drives instead. I'm sure Seagate makes great drives but unfortunately the ones that happend to fall into my hands turned out to not be so great and I'm not about to take chances with my data being on a drive that MAY or MAY NOT be in optimal working order.

Thanks again for your help

[Cantbecanit]

Well give my port swap a go anyway, the noise isn't what I would say normal, but if you have a sata lead or power rail breaking down it's just possible it would do this, install HD Sentinal on the boot drive and see if you have a communication error message in the 3TB listing,

WD's are a fair bit more to buy btw, and I have been running a Cuda 3TB  for around a year now and it's not degraded in health or performance yet, no bad sectors etc, check my set up thread at the top for a time stamp.

[ffsseagate]

XenonKilla I am experiencing the exact same chirp noise in your sound clip on a 3TB Barracuda ST3000DM001 drive that I just installed in my iMac during normal usage.  I have heard it twice since I found this forum post, registered and write this reply.

I am not sure what is causing it.  I am very interested in finding a solution.  Is it a drive power management issue?  Or is it a compatibility issue?  Wanted to reply to let you know that you are not the only one with this chirp noise issue.  

[XenonKilla]

---

Cantbecanit wrote:

Well give my port swap a go anyway, the noise isn't what I would say normal, but if you have a sata lead or power rail breaking down it's just possible it would do this, install HD Sentinal on the boot drive and see if you have a communication error message in the 3TB listing,

WD's are a fair bit more to buy btw, and I have been running a Cuda 3TB  for around a year now and it's not degraded in health or performance yet, no bad sectors etc, check my set up thread at the top for a time stamp.

---

 Yeah I hear ya and like I said before I'm sure that Seagate makes a good drive but unfortunately this particular model isn't up to my standards. I'm just very cautious about what kinda hardware I put my data on which I don't really think is that unreasonable.

---

ffsseagate wrote:

XenonKilla I am experiencing the exact same chirp noise in your sound clip on a 3TB Barracuda ST3000DM001 drive that I just installed in my iMac during normal usage.  I have heard it twice since I found this forum post, registered and write this reply.

I am not sure what is causing it.  I am very interested in finding a solution.  Is it a drive power management issue?  Or is it a compatibility issue?  Wanted to reply to let you know that you are not the only one with this chirp noise issue.  

---

 Oh cool, I mean I'm not glad your having the same issue but I'm glad to see that it's not just the two drives that I have and that clearly this has got to be some kinda model specific issue.

But yeah as you can see I'm just as much in the dark about it as you are hence the reason for my coming to this forum. Calling Seagate isn't even an option as I personally can't be bothered to call manufacturers these days. 99% of the time you call ANY manufacturer youI end up talking to someone barely has a little more IQ than a rock. Or you end up talking to someone who can BARELY speak a word of English. So yeah pretty much a waste of time IMO.

But yeah I been building computers for over 16 years now and I'm very intricate and very observant when it comes to these kinda things and this noise is DEFINITELY something new to me. So that was my reasoning for coming here hoping to find some more information and possibly a solution or at least a reason WHY it does this. So far the only thing I have found even while researching via Google is that some were suggesting possible power management issues however I don't really feel like that is the case as I have already explained that I can be downloading a file to my D:\ drive (which is my seagate) and while downloading I might go and access something else and the seagate drive will STILL make that same sound. So there's no way it's a power management issue because clearly the drive is not sleeping while it's busy downloading a file. Unless it's got some kinda special magic powers that I've never heard of lol.

So when are you hearing the sound? Is it random just like I explained above in my other posts or is there something specific that you're doing to trigger it?

[Cantbecanit]

Well, you gotta be satisfied in yourself, so I wish you well whichever way you turn mate.