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Forum Discussion
Campus
Jun 22, 2016Luminary
Avoid Seagate ST8000VN0002 - Horrible noise issue!
Hi,
I have installed four of the Seagate ST8000VN0002 in my RN716x and just finished the resync of all disks. Unfortunately I now have an annoying beeping/humming noise when the disks are idling. It's a pretty bothersome frequency and really nerve wrecking. As soon as there is some read or write access this humming disappears and the normal known sound of harddisks can be heard which is ok.
But the humming sound is so annoying that I can absolutely not recommend these disks at all. You should stay away from them.
Hope it helps
Campus
64 Replies
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- StephenBGuru - Experienced User
Campus wrote:
I have installed four of the Seagate ST8000VN0002 in my RN716x and just finished the resync of all disks. Unfortunately I now have an annoying beeping/humming noise when the disks are idling.
Not sure about humming, but beeping is usually a sign that the disk is mechanically defective. Seagate will accept RMA'd beeping disks even if they pass Seatools.
Have you confirmed that this sound is coming from all four disks?
Hopefully other people who purchased these disks will chime in. Though I use Western Digital myself, having choices is always a good thing.
- CampusLuminary
All four are humming and SeaTools reports no problem. Seagate support says this is normal behavior. This video shows the problem: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2V7JYAOVTZ587/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B01BBKYNJG
- dschwartzerLuminary
Campus:
Havde you shared that video with Seagate Technical Support. I would really question if that is "normal" for any hard drive. Personally, I use the ST1000NV01 disks and do not have any noise from them.
All that said, it sounds like the noise may be getting magnified by the enclosure in some way. Have you tried removing and re-seating the disks in the ReadyNAS to make sure they are not rubbing against anoything in the case. I would also try putting a single disk in each of the four bays (one at a time) to see if a particular drive/bay is producing the sound.
I suspect that won't resolve the issue but it would be worth a try before going back to Seagate. My experience with Seagate Tech Support has been very good and I think if you do a reasonable amount of trouble shooting and can narrow this issue down to a single disk, they may be more willing to RMA it.
Hope that helps.
Regards,
David
- Retired_Member
Thanks for the info! Unfortunately I'm running out of space! I'll take my chances and let everyone know about my experience with the Seagate 8TB HD.
- Retired_Member
Well. It was on sale. Besides the negative review the Seagate 8TB NAS HDD SATA 6Gb/s NCQ 256 MB Cache Bare Drive ST8000VN0002 I bought does not fit in the control tray! It is missing the holes in the middle! I think I'm going to drill some homemade holes. Mabey that is why there is noise coming from the HD for some people. I definately am not going to snap off the small pegs on the control tray and ruin it. :mansad: I'll buy the WD HD that was reccomended to me. Thanks you all for your input! :smileyvery-happy:
- nsneVirtuoso
Just wanted to update this thread to reflect that Seagate is aware of the problem and finally has a firmware update to correct the ubiquitous noise issue in these drives. The firmware takes SC60 and updates it to SC61.
Unfortunately, Seagate hasn't made this update publicly available. You have to call Seagate support to request it. And you'll really have to press for it. Tier 1 will first deny that any firmware update exists, then they'll try to send you to their general downloads page. Or you can just PM me.
At any rate, I can attest that after days and days of the whine the drive is now blissfully quiet in my 314.
- ShastadaAspirant
I ordered some of these drives from Newegg and some came with SC61 already loaded but one came with SC60. I would appreciate if you could send me the SC61 upgrade. I can't seem to find it anywhere.
- CampusLuminaryCould you notice a difference between those version? Are the 61 quiet?
- vysTutor
Here you go: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hwi8up5wxthsuwb/NASHDD-MakaraPlus-STD-SATA-512E-SC61.zip?dl=0
I used the USB bootable option. Run seaflashin -i to find your drive (/dev/sgX). seaflashin -d /dev/sg2 -f NASHDD-MakaraPlus-SATA-StdOEM-SC61.LOD
Remember to to place NASHDD-MakaraPlus-SATA-StdOEM-SC61.LOD onto the Bootable USB flash drive once it's created. This is what the -f flag is looking for.
This did resolve my noise issues on 2 drives.
- nsneVirtuoso
Is there any way to flash the firmware on these drives using a ReadyNAS and the eSATA port? I'm in an all-Mac environment at home and have limited access to Windows machines — especially ones with spare SATA ports.
- Retired_Member
I do not have a solution, but would like to offer a possible workaround.
As you say the disks a creating the humming when being idle, why not just enable spin-down. At least you will experience some relief until you might hopefully get a final solution. Once the spin-down is applied the disks should be silent until they wake up the next time. So, silence as long they have nothing to do due to applied spin-down.
In case you already enabled spindown, just please ignore my comment.
- nsneVirtuoso
Spin-down doesn't help. The only remedy is the firmware update. Fortunately, after the firmware update they're really nice disks and well worth their price.
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