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74 GB Raptor Weirdness?

N

NewGuy

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 14, 2005
Messages
116
I just built a new system using a Raptor. I have no prior experience with Raptors, but this one is constantly making noise...thrashing if you will. Is this out of the ordinary? This happens when the computer is sitting idle and no apps, etc. are running.

This is a clean install of XP Pro on a fairly powerful box (3200+ Venice, 2GBs RAM, Neo4 Platinum, 6800GT). The access/noise issue started as soon as XP was installed and before it was even networked, so, I know its not a spyware/virus type of issue. There are also a minimum of things running at startup...not a resource issue.

Is this common to Raptors or SATA drives in general? Any thoughts?
 
I've got 2 of them in RAID 0 here, and I've noticed one of them does it every now and again, while idling it will make a faint ticking noise, but I'm not too worried about it, warranty and all that.
 
Does it sound like normal seeks when there is disk activity? If that's the case, it may be Windows optimizing the order of your boot files' physical locations on the disk for faster boot up.

If it's not the seek noise, I would grab DataLifeGuard from WD and verify that it's still mechanically sound. The drive performs like it should - much faster than 7200RPM drives you've had in the past I hope? Also, you backup...right? If the utility says the drive is ok, then I'd hang on to it and accept that a 10,000RPM drive is going to be louder than a concumer 7200 drive.
 
Yes, the noises sound like normal seeks.

Running the DLG diagnostics (the quick one anyway) was one of the first things I did, it did not show any problems. I'll go ahead and run the longer test to make sure. I knew that the Raptor would be louder, but I'm surprised at the constant hits. More importantly, its behavior that I would normally associate with a computer that had problems.

Thanks for the ideas so far.
 
You should get filemon to see what files are being accessed. My 15k scsi drive clicks about once a second or so at somewhat irregular intervals when I leave it for the night. All that's really running is AIM. McAfee antivirus also accesses the disk so I guess it would be normal for a system drive to do what you're describing
 
Just wondering how the WD raptor fares in performance
Is there a huge noticeable difference
Comparisons would help
 
Well, as of last night the sound of those random seeks changed. They now have a slight ring to them. Needless to say, I just got an RMA for the drive.

Thanks for all of the input.
 
my 2 raptopr 74gb in raid 0 make no noise..i dont even kno theyre there...what with the 5 case fans 2 hdd coolers and monster volcano 12+ i dont hear anything but the fans whiiiirrrr...but even then, the raptors are dead quiet. because i had them running out of the case when i had my raptor RMA'd and sweapped em around, i barely heard em...
 
I have to disagree. I'm a 74GB Raptor user for a little over a month now, and the drive IS loud. HD accessing is clearly audible (even above my 7 case fans humming away).

In my case, the performance gains outweigh the acoustic disadvantages. For those interested in silence, Seagate seems to be the way to go.
 
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