27" iMac hard drive noise

recorded this one this afternoon
http://pieter-1asfz.posterous.com/9152957

And I'm a noobie too so neither do I have any idea of its normal.
Windows computers don't make noises like these

Here's an interesting bit of info I found on another site. Hope it's ok to post it here, because I thought it was very informative. The conversation is about external hard drives, but I would think it applies to internal one's too.

" There are two kinds of noise mostly, the spinning noise that the drive makes when it's running and the "seek" noise as the heads move about. Seek noise is usually in the form of rapid clicks.

Motor noise has come down a LOT in the last few years. Some drives make very little motor noise, some make more. Those with fewer platters inside often make less motor noise as do those that turn more slowly.

Seek noise is often adjustable! Many drives have a feature called "AAM" or "Automatic Acoustic Management". This is nearly always "OFF" by default. Most drives made by Samsung, Hitachi and Western Digital have this feature. It can be turned "ON" and adjusted to various levels in many cases by using Hitachi's Feature Tool, Samsungs Hutil (Samsung drives only) or windows-based tools like HDDScan or HDparm. Turning AAM ON vastly reduces the Seek noise but will slow down access time a little.

For example, a Caviar Black 1TB makes moderately loud Seek noise with AAM OFF but almost none with AAM ON.

Here's my favorites for low noise operation:

WD Green Power. Very little motor noise. These are pretty quiet even with the AAM OFF. Also, they run very cool which is important in an external enclosure.

Samsung. Little Motor noise, AAM is fully adjustable with Hutil. Usually a great silence choice.

WD Caviar Blue Single Platter drives- (160, 320, etc) Little Motor noise, virtually silent with AAM ON. Run cool.

WD Caviar Black with AAM ON. Little Motor noise, slight Seek noise. (Lots of Seek noise with AAM OFF)

Hitachi - Some Motor noise, especially when spinning up. Virtually no Seek noise with AAM ON. Hitachi Feature Tool allows AAM to be fully adjusted.


Drives that make a TON of noise:

Seagate 7200.10, 7200.11. Noticeable Motor noise, plenty of Seek noise, AAM not supported. Also, they run hot.
I'm sure the 10,000rpm Raptors do too!

WD models not supporting AAM or having AAM OFF tend to make plenty of Seek noise. WD doesn't appear to have a AAM tool. HDDScan works OK, sometimes Hitachi Feature Tool will work on WDs too. WD usually only offers AAM "ON" or "OFF" with no fine-tuning like Hitachi and Samsung."

More info for anyone who's interested......following comments made by a Seagate Tech obtained from another site. My opinion is that Apple must be totally aware that no current seagate supports AAM, therefore they must have know the hard drives are louder than they should be and that some ( many ) people would be upset. Why would they do such a thing ?

" Seagate doesn't manufacture drives with this mode anymore. Seagate has decided that it will no longer support AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management). Seagate is in the process of removing all product information pertaining to the support of AAM.

Our drives are extremely quiet while operating at the highest performance
levels, so we believe the ability to switch between modes is unnecessary.

We are also involved in patent litigation with Convolve and MIT. Although
we believe the lawsuit is without merit, Convolve alleges
that one of its patents, US Patent No. 6,314,473, covers AAM technology.

We understand that Convolve told the T-13 standards committee that it
would license its patents on a reasonable, non-discriminatory basis.

Seagate Technical Support

I also found this.....

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/desktop/Barracuda%207200 .11/100452348d.pdf

Message was edited by: Suba

So, question: Could the HD firmware be updated to allow AAM? Theoretically apple could issue an update to fix this? Or not? I'm now on my third imac and I don't want to bother with exchanging it any more..

Can anyone try this tool in their windows partition?

http://sites.google.com/site/quiethdd/

Seems to be made for a seagate (the example). Of course, I'm not sure if modifying APM is such a good idea..

If you test this, please set the APM to the highest value, 255 and report back.

This thread is also interesting: http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19248285/19548257.aspx

As per the thread above, dell was able to fix the problem with a firmware update. So should apple!

"Not sure if this will help any one else out there with this problem, but I just noticed that Dell released some updates for other Seagate 7200 rpm drives ... might be of use, so check the model number you have. My drive was the ST9250421ASG so no fix, but this update is supposed to fix ST980412ASG, ST9160412ASG, ST9250410ASG, ST9320423ASG, ST9500420ASG. There was also another release for ST9160418ASG and ST9250464ASG."

Responses?

"Works great!
No more marble sounds "

"Worked great for me as well."

etc etc.

I'm guessing this also has something to do with apple's aggressive power management features:

"Unlike a lot of Windows-based PC systems, iMac uses energy-efficient hardware components that work hand in hand with the operating system to conserve power. Mac OS X spins down hard drives and activates sleep mode on already energy-efficient LED-backlit displays. And it balances tasks across both central processors and graphics processors. Mac OS X never misses a power-saving opportunity, no matter how small. It even regulates the processor between keystrokes, reducing power between the letters you type. That’s just one of many ways Apple manages small amounts of power that add up to big savings."

So

Against all odds and logical explanations, the 2TB drives are more quite than the 1TB ones?
Am I correct that many of you are buying the 2TH ones just to avoid noise? And not because they need the space?

At first, I really felt like I was going to miss the Mac. But to be honest, it hasn't been on for 1 whole day..which is extra ordinary in my world. UPS is going to pick it up tomorrow or the day after, I'm going to wait a couple of months to sit out all these 27 inch problems.

Is the HD noise something on which Apple will work? Or is it something that they won't bother to fix or reduce?

I'm increasingly convinced that apple will release a firmware update, in fact, they did so in the past already. Apparently the macbook pros mid 2009 had a similar problem:

http://support.apple.com/downloads/HardDrive_Firmware_Update_20

And instead of using that quiethdd program, I'm going to try this method: http://www.hardmac.com/news/2009/07/13/stop-the-beeps-with-the-7200-rpm-hard-dis ks-of-the-macbook-pro

Will let you know how it goes.

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Well, I just tried the hdapm utility. This is what I get:

imacplus:bin wesley$ /usr/bin/hdapm disk0 max
disk0: ST31000528ASQ
Setting APM level to 0xfe: FAILED: APM not supported

Is everyone getting the same error message? Either the utility does not work on newer drives or the seagates have no way to access the APM? Which to me would be a serious fault.. Someone should still try quiethdd though.

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Also made a thread on seagate's forums: http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=17365

Perhaps you guys can reply so they know the severity of the issue.

For anyone suspecting the fans (noise from the right side, the black thing under the optical drive is indeed a fan), download SMCFanControl. With SMCFanControl you can rev up the fan speed and it should make the noise more prominent if it's actually coming from the fan.

I also have the 27" Seagate hard drive chugging sound. Saw genius at Apple Store in Reston. Tested several other iMACs--two 27", one with Seagate, other with Western digital--both made the noise (my ear was right up to the back of the case where the hard drive is). I also heard the noise in one 21.5" with Seagate drive.
However, I tried two more 21.5" models, one with Seagate, and one with Hitachi hard drive, and BOTH WERE TOTALLY SILENT!!!

Asked the genius why some new iMACs were silent (which he confirmed) and some were noisy (like mine and the two other 27" models in the store). He said he really didn't have an answer, but that the noise we heard in my 27" and the others is considered "Normal," and thus not fixable or replaceable.

On another issue, he did confirm that my iSight camera had dead pixels, which he tried to fix by opening the case and cleaning the camera. It didn't work, and Apple will replace the iSight camera under warranty.

Overall, not a great success as far as getting things fixed...the hard drive noise is my main issue, and that was not corrected. A bit disappointing considering my 24" iMAC is silent, as is my new 13" MacBook Pro.

Basically it seems like luck of the draw whether your hard drive is quiet or not, and not necessarily based on the brand of the hard drive (although the one Hitachi I was able to test in the 21.5" model was completely silent).

Hope this information is helpful to everybody...hopefully there will be some sort of fix from Apple down the road.

Made a thread on seagate's forums: http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=17365

Perhaps you guys can reply so they know the severity of the issue. (not that it'll help)

--

So no one wants to try the hdapm / quiethdd tools? No one wants to see this fixed?

Instructions for the hdapm tool are here:

http://www.hardmac.com/news/2009/07/13/stop-the-beeps-with-the-7200-rpm-hard-dis ks-of-the-macbook-pro

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I would also like someone to do smartctl. Even if you don't have the clicking, would love to compare. I don't quite understand how to read these values though. For example, first row: value = 108. Worst = 100. Does this mean it can't go below 100 or it's already way too high? (starts at 0 or what?)

My output:
http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=209210&d=1262281087

You can find a smart reading utility here:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/systemdiskutilities/smartutility.html


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These people also used APM to get rid of this problem in the past (on macs):

http://ocroquette.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/how-not-to-kill-a-brand-new-hard-disk /
http://dougitdesign.com/blogs/blog12_08_mac-clicking-hdd-hard-drive-noise-hdapmold.html

Quote:

"My most recent and fresh complaint with Apple has to do with an annoying clicking sound coming from the hard drive (HDD) of my early 2008 Macbook. This is not to be confused with a much louder and constant clicking sound of a soon-to-fail HDD. This is a more subtile, yet annoying click that is most obvious when the computer is not under heavy processing use. I just purchased this product directly from Apple as a refurbished unit. Although the machine is technically a refurb., it is actually completely new, at least the HDD was, as that is easy to check. This "click" sound is yet another example of when a "bug" is actually considered a "feature."

It turns out that this "clicking" is part of a "power management system" that functions to save energy and, more importantly, generate less heat. For every "click" what is happening is the heads of the HDD are parking, and the disk platters begin to stop spinning. But then the HDD's heads quickly unpark, and then park again, and then unpark, and sometimes this happens every couple of seconds and becomes very annoying. It is most especially annoying when using a notebook computer in a very quiet setting. The click(s) can sound just like a ping pong ball being dropped on a hard surface."

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Unfortunately it looks as if APM or AAM are not available on these seagate drives. Even tried a ubuntu live cd. APM not supported. Would love if someone else tried.

My advice would be to cancel the order till the number and interval of the complaints decrease significantly. It's not going to be easy getting help where you are. Of course there are a lot more computers without problems but the current situation is minor.

wesleyh84 wrote:
Can anyone try this tool in their windows partition?

http://sites.google.com/site/quiethdd/

Seems to be made for a seagate (the example). Of course, I'm not sure if modifying APM is such a good idea..

Yep, all looks a bit risky. I did just try it and modifying AAM has quite an effect - it gets worse! I don't think my drive (WDC 1TB 'black') can be improved. It took a while to figure out how to reset - really, use at your own risk.

Hello

I guess this problem is worldwide, My Imac was quiet at first but after a couple of days it started doing his grumbling thing. I heard some people say it is just a mechanical thing, it makes noises but comeee on, i did not pay soo much money for no reason guys.