27" iMac hard drive noise

I don't understand either why they choose the most noisy HDDs on the market for their products. I think just because they're cheap. Apple is cheating on us.

My whole idea of having a fast and silent SSD iMac is fully ruined by a noisy Hitachi HDD, which produces too much noise at idle. Why the **** they did it? And that is for incredible money we pay!

That is not aceptable.

And Apple services do not have any legal solution.

Seems to be only 500 GB models are not noisy, at least when idle. But you cannot order it coupled with SSD.

Apple computers become too much proprietary and not what we need!

I have no idea why they couldn't use WD Green drives, at least with SSD models - that could dramaticaly improve the noise problem. They just don't care.

I'll just repeat Apple's own words advertising this iMac:

Cool, quiet components.

The widescreen iMac display allows more room to separate the two hottest components, the CPU and the GPU. This keeps things cool inside the iMac enclosure. Apple engineers also implemented an intelligent control system that monitors temperatures and delivers just the right amount of airflow to critical components. And the three fans inside iMac have been tuned to be ultraquiet, so you hardly know it’s on.

soooooo

Update, my mac died.... i mean proper died, went through all the apple support phone stuff, and its at the repair place now, not happy for a 1 month old $1800 machine..... back to pc for me, never have had an issue in the 16 years of having them

can someone with iMac 21.5'' 2011 model with 1 Tb drive, please reply - whether you have a rotational noise caused by the HDD? Especially regarding WD models, I think Apple now uses mostly WD 1 Tb drives. I do not mean the access noise, I mean the constant noise, which sounds like a fan, but it's not a fan. iMac fans are perfectly quiet in 2011 models, and are impossible to hear from operator position without computer load.

My main issue is really uncomfortable rotational noise from 2 TB Hitachi HDD, which is loud enough in a quiet room. That's HDD for sure, and I already was consulting with a service and they confirmed the noise is caused by the HDD, and they can't change that.

I am really upset that the most cheap 500 Gb model does not have that noise, but my 2 times more expensive model has that!!! And I am still very annoyed after some months of owning this Mac!

That is important to test in a perfectly quiet room, any background noise will eliminate the issue.

I have the same issue. A 27inch imac with the noisy seagate 1 TB hard drive. It's been replaced, twice (so the machine now has its 3rd drive) and it still sounds as noisy as ever - the classic 'stomach grumbling' sound. I have been on the phone to Apple Care countless times but no-one will listen to me. They have just replaced the drive with yet another seagate and it's just making the same level of noise.

I have owned imacs for years and NONE have made this level of noise. I also have 21.5 inch 500BG drive imacs at work and NONE make this level of grumbling noise.

I have had enough. I bought a mac for music-making and the noise gets in the way without question. Consequently, I have written to a UK consumer TV programme to explain my anger at this and I think we all need to get together to do the same. I'm willing to register a domain name and set up some sort of site to fight apple over this. I'm extremely angry over the whole sorry situation. Please get in touch and we'll see if we can fight this together.

DizzyDown,

I have returned a 27-inch iMac with a 1TB Western Digital WD1001FALS hard drive because of that noise. It is a hum produced by the rotation of the HD: 7200 rpm = 120 Hz and that is the frequency I get. I had a quiet iMac before the HD was replaced and it had a Western Digital (not sure which model)... So I guess this is just a matter of luck......... or you opt for the SSD and resolve the issue. But that costs money.

Derek,

I'm also a musician and find these noises unbearable. The noise from my iMac is different from yours (grumbling) though. But if I get that kind of noise you mention, I don't know how I'm going to feel,

Well... it's really annoying to see all this. I also owned a 24-inch iMac that was very silent. And before that, a 20-inch white one. Why doesn't Apple choose the hard drives carefully? I think to WD Caviar Green is very silent... (no, we can't fit that drive because fans will go crazy).

You're right about the other i-macs. I still have several old ones at work and none make anywhere near the level of noise that my so called 'up-to-date' machine makes.

At the expense of getting a taxi into my local mac store (Glasgow, Scotland) I orignally took my mac to the genius bar and the guy had a listen and agreed it shouldn't make that level of noise. His EXACT words were 'you shouldn't be able to hear anything'. I did explain that I had done a lot of research into the seagates. However, even though I told them of their noisy history the mac store just replaced the hard drive with yet another seagate. Surprise surprise it made the same noise when I got it home.

I called apple care and complained vigorously; they arranged for UPS to collect the machine (I had to stay in for a day to wait for the UPS guy) and take it from Scotland to the north of England for someone to have a look at it. I wrote a long letter to the engineer of the repair place that apple were using explaining that the problem was with seagate hard drives. They had a listen to it and, again, agreed it needed replaced. So, the hard drive that was only a matter of a few days old, that apple themselves had replaced only a few days previously, was deemed to be unsatisfactory!

They told me they had to use a seagate but this one had a different serial number that my old one. I told them that I wasn't happy about this but I didn't have any choice - it was either this or nothing.

Got my machine back, eventually (there was a delay as they had to wait for a drive to be delivered to them) and STILL the same grumbling noise. I called apple care again in a complete rage and was put in touch with a senior supervisor and given his direct number and email address. I told the guy of this known problem and even sent him two mp3 audio recordings that I had made where you can clearly hear the hard drive grumbling away, even when doing the simplest of operational task. He got in touch with apple engineers who basically said that what they heard was an acceptable level of noise.

However, as for years I've owned and worked on macs that have been virtually silent - I don't find it acceptable. I've written back to the senior member of apple care to explain that I'm still not a happy customer (I have bought macs for years for home and work (not to mention a macbook, iphone and ipad) and have given the company a lot of business; for example, I've recently bought 10 new 21.5 inch imacs for my work place even though I could have bought PCs instead.) He hasn't got back to me. I now feel that I'm at a dead end. The only choice I have is to write to consumer based media. I have already contacted a consumer TV programme hear in the UK to see if they'll take up my story. Apple have a real problem here and I think they are of the opinion that we'll just accept the noise and go away. This is not going to happen as far as I'm concerned. I spent a fortune on this machine and I'm not going to let go of this issue.

Spinnn,

How did your situation witht the noisy drive turn out? You're going through the same problems that I've had (see my long story on page 30) so I'd be really anxious to find out if you got a resolution.

Cheers,

Derek.

Derek,

Well, first I must acknowledge the fact that Apple has been very supportive in dealing with my case. Although I find it absurd for Apple to have these product design flaws, I must admit that this company has tried to solve my problem. Just that it hasn't solved it yet... Anyway, the fact that I was able to get a refund just illustrates the good costumer service that Apple offers. I like that.

My current situation is that I ordered another iMac 27-inch 1TB. That is the model and configuration I need. If this unit turns out to have the same hard disk issue, I will give it back and ask for an iMac with SSD. I'm almost desperate and I really need to work. Time is running out. But, this option is, by all means, not fair: the costumer has to choose a more expensive model (SSD model is really MUCH more expensive) in order to get over a product design flaw....

Apple should really enable the user to upgrade or change the hard drive. Not leaving space for that just because of proprietary firmware is hardly understandable. The only thing that explains this is Apple wanting to have full control and responsibility about the functioning of the internal iMac components.

What I've heard from several Apple services is that "Apple does not make hard drives"!

What a rude and weird reply - they sell it for premium price and should be responsible for it!!

The real noise killer is SSD, I have it in my imac as a primary drive. I also have 2 Tb Hitachi as a secondary drive and that's why the noise produced by rarely-used SECONDARY drive is driving me nuts 😟

When the other drive is spinning down, the iMac is perfectly quiet, very very queit! But the secondary drive likes to wake up by itself too much often to be ignored, especially in mac os x (Windows has better power management).

256 Gb of SSD is just not enough to use SSD only model. Also SSD in iMacs are very expensive and are actually slower than MacBook Air Samsung SSDs!! For sure 1-2 years more and 512 or 600 GB SSDs will be cheaper in iMacs, but what to do now?

Yes Apple does not produce all that stuff (actually all Macs are produced by Foxconn in China), but for sure they make a great profit here! And they promise a great machine!

But what they really do is they put noisy HDs inside and make it very very hard for end-users to install their own HDs!!!

That is what makes customers so frustrated and hits Apple reputation!

P.S. It seems aluminium iMacs have much different acoustics than older plastic iMacs. In a plastic white iMac it's impossible to hear any rotational noise from 7200 RPM HDD. It seems the aluminium case amplifies the HDD vibrations, so the choice of noisy drives made by Apple looks even more strange.

P.P.S. Sometimes I think they put noisy HDDs intentionally to force people to order SSD models.

Spinn, I doubt you'll get any difference. It seems all new 1 Tb iMacs are equipped with that WD FALS HD. I know one guy on this forum replaced that FALS HD with Samsung SpinPoint 2 Tb (eco version) and got rid of that annoying noise. But the downside is you'll have to use a software to fix the fans issue, and also you won't be able to use Windows (there is no fans software for Windows).

I'd recommend to order 512 GB model and use an external additional storage (connect by Firewire or Thunderbolt for speed). I am sure 512 GB models are perfectly quiet and are the best for money.

For people who has that grumbling Seagate models (there are LOTS of complaints regarding grumbling Seagate, it drives people crazy), I can recommend my Hitachi 2 TB HDD - its "grumbling" sounds are even more quiet than its rotational noise. That depends on your reaction to noise.

But I am sure the desktop computer for so good money SHOULD BE SILENT these years! It's located right by your head, and it's extremely important to make it quiet! Otherwise it's not as perfect as Apple advertises it!

derekfromwishaw, after you already spent so much time dealing with this issue, I'd recommend you to purchase WD Green Series HDD (something like this http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=120 ) and ask Apple service to install it. If you don't use Windows on your mac, you'll be able to reduce the HDD fan speed (your fan will go up after installing non-Apple hdd) with software. Many people did that and they're happy, but that's not a solution for me, as I need Windows too.

That's weird Apple cannot offer any solution even for money, Apple services cannot order the HDD you want, they get what Apple gives them.

BTW.. what interesting is that it seems Apple did not update their hard drive models since 2009 generation and now sells an outdated components. That WD FALS drive is not even advertised now on WD Website, there is a newer model.

Got a new iMac yesterday. My god! So noisy! It is not suitable to work in a quiet environment. So.... my last option is the SSD. It is really expensive and I must strech out my wallet to be able to get it. Anyway, not being able to work all this time is worse...

I suggest that all people involved write to Apple by post. As costumers, it is all you can do. I'm certainly going to write a letter to Apple (can I write directly to Tim Cook?) to explain my stituation and state my frustrations. I really want to use Apple computers, and I need their functionality. Having to pay more to correct a design flaw is just not the thing Apple would want their costumers to do....

ANOTHER UPDATE........

Got my IMac back after a week at a apple certified repair place..... WD drive fitted (no longer seagate) and it is SILENT!! Brilliant!

However he did put snow leopard back on it instead of Lion..... mmmmmmmmmmmmm

There MUST be a problem with the seagate drives not maybe not if MUST!