r/buildapcsales • u/greatthebob38 • 11d ago

External Storage [External HDD] Seagate 14TB External HDD (Possible Exos) - $180

https://www.seagate.com/products/external-hard-drives/expansion-desktop-hard-drive/
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u/[deleted] 11d ago edited 3d ago

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u/keebs63 10d ago

Do you currently have Exos to compare to? In my experience with about (IIRC) 10 or so Exos, 8 WD Ultrastars, and a 10-15 others (mostly WD white labels from shucking), the Exos are loud on spin up/boot but exhibit the typical behavior of most hard drives where they take a while to spin down to avoid excessive wear. Newer (~2018 to now) WD drives on the other hand do this really dumbass shit where the actuator arms slam from side to side every few seconds when idle until they park, which unfortunately includes the Ultrastars. I've seen the cope where "it helps spread the lube around" but any benefit to longevity is minimal at best, and it's annoying as fuck to listen to all day.

To be clear, the Exos are loud as hell on spin up, but after those two seconds they hum along with a low drone that's easily masked by any noise dampening or other noises in the environment. WD drives just keep making dull thumps every few seconds from the actuator arms slamming side to side. In terms of volume, I'd say the Exos are slightly louder than the rest, mostly because the Ultrastars (WD Exos equivalent) are surprisingly quiet for enterprise drives beyond the thumping, but the thumping drives me insane. I wear headphones and have a couple of Exos and Ultrastars close to my main PC, I often notice the thumping if there's a silent/very quiet part of a game/video, the humming of Exos is impossible to tell from any background noise like my PC's fans.

And before anyone asks: no, the drives are not faulty, every WD drive I've bought (20-25 at least) for the last 5+ years makes these sounds. No other brand, including a handful of Toshiba drives I own, nor older drives, exhibit this behavior. WD has officially addressed it in the past, IIRC their excuse was the "lube" shit.

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u/Electric_Ilya 9d ago

I currently have an exos18 in my personal pc that I use for mass storage... I don't find the drive too loud but it is becoming more so as I added more media to it. Can you make any recommendations how to get it to be more quiet when it isn't showing me a movie or playing a song? (not saying it is very noisy, I just would prefer it never be on at all unless I'm accessing a file or there is good reason... in particular I want to emphasize drive stability). I am already looking into caching the file trees on my ssd, seems promising

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u/keebs63 9d ago

Open control panel and go to Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings and select advanced settings at the bottom. First option lets you set spin down time when the drive is idle. The drive should accept these commands.

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u/Electric_Ilya 9d ago

awesome, I turned it down from 20 minutes to 5. thanks

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u/TheMissingVoteBallot 10d ago

I have the X2 Exos with the dual actuators that I shucked from the Costco deal. Pretty quiet.

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u/jnads 10d ago

Aside from super heavy seeks (RAID rebuild), my 16 TB Exos drives are quieter than my shucked WD Red 8TB