Picking a 16TB spinner and noise

THRESHIN

2[H]4U
Joined
Sep 29, 2002
Messages
3,621
I'm seriously considering buying a new 16TB drive, WD red pro. Check this out on newegg

https://www.newegg.ca/red-pro-wd161...m_mmc=snc-social-_-sr-_-22-234-429-_-03292022

That's a pretty serious discount. My problem is finding drive specific information, namely noise level.

This drive will be in my desktop serving as a media storage drive. I already have an 8TB and it's nearly full....this would replace it. For that reason, I do prefer to have an internal drive. Speed doesn't matter but I have yet to see any 5400rpm drive this size otherwise I'd get that.

Concerned about the noise level which is why I've shied away from the enterprise drives. Any thoughts? Trying to decide if I should pull the trigger or hold out for something else.

BTW price is in CAD so it'll look high if you're from the US but that really is pretty cheap.
 
honestly i found Seagate Exos on ebay form a server vender for this price and they are insanely quite, i had to buy 10 for my setup at the price i couldnt pass up. (they were $559 a few months ago)

<Cannuck here
 
a Second for Seagate EXOS. I have four in a Synology 918+, 5 feet from my desk. They are no louder or quieter than the Western Digital drives. My friend has one with Ironwolf drives and it sounds similar. You would be good with either.
 
Another vote for Seagate Exos drives, I have 2 6TB Exos drives in my computer and they are both super quiet. I can not hear them at all when doing large transfers to and from them.
 
IIRC there are no high capacity 5400rpm drives, if you are worried about noise, simply move them to NAS, a Synology 2 bay would be my suggestion. All my Desktop / Laptops, no longer use spinning drives, and all mechanicals were moved to an unraid server that its outside my hearing range.
 
Getting a NAS is a nice idea, but ultimately it's more money that I don't need to spend.my desktop works quite well as a media server.

Yes I did look into the exos drives. As capacity increases, so does the noise. May be just product reviews, but when I continually see complaints of noise from the 16TB exos I'm not too interested.

So to rephrase my question: does anyone have any experience specifically with the WD red pro 16TB drive?
 
well i actually have one it was the back up drive to my previous server so far its been silent in the external enclosure.
 
oh its a very good drive for the price. i needed raw capacity for my network restructure itll serve ya well. just dont use that smr i think thats the horrid on for nas use cases.
 
Just pulled the trigger on the drive. Really good deal, should arrive in a few days. See what the noise is like.
 
just wanted to say thanks guys. drive took almost 2 weeks to arrive, no big deal not in a rush. this is a surprisingly quiet drive! it's quite a bit quieter than my older HGST 8TB drive and that thing isn't loud either. currently copying oodles of data...

thanks for the feedback. i tried to find noise info on this specific drive but there wasn't much out there.
 
The quietest drive I have used is the new WD HC550 18TB, a helium ultrastar datacentre drive. These are best of best hard drives, very reliable.
It also runs pretty cool and is quick, peaking at 270MB/s.
There is a 16TB version of the HC550.
Recently there have been very good prices for the 18TB on Amazon and Ebay, less than £300 inc VAT, its worth seeing what you can find where you live.
 
The quietest drive I have used is the new WD HC550 18TB, a helium ultrastar datacentre drive. These are best of best hard drives, very reliable.
It also runs pretty cool and is quick, peaking at 270MB/s.
There is a 16TB version of the HC550.
Recently there have been very good prices for the 18TB on Amazon and Ebay, less than £300 inc VAT, its worth seeing what you can find where you live.
LOL. Maybe 25 years ago I paid about $1000 for a 1 GB (yes) SCSI drive, and I was very happy, since I could restructure all my storage

And before that I had a pair of Maxtor 5 1/4" drives, officially 140 MB, but formatted to 190 MB, and I was also happy with that. I had to get a new systems case for those drives.
 
I have four Ultrastar hgst that run real nice, heard great things about Seagate exos, and just bought a WD gold 16tb drive but you can hear it on occasion, but gaming or music drowns it right out. About 275 transfer rate.

Did you end up with an exos or wd red pro?
 
Back
Top