Why does Hitachi Touro 3 TB USB 3 Hard Drive makes noise when it doesn't have a fan?

[holygamer]

I can hear noise coming from the drive and it sounds like a fan, yet I've opened up one of those enclosures on a 4TB model and it doesn't even have a fan, so why does it make noise? All that's inside the enclosure is the hard drive and a small chip on the end of it for the USB interface.

[kmac]

1) Should not really open up a hard drive - even minute dust particles, invisible to the naked eye can cause them to fail

2) Noise is probably just the platters spinning up - the RPM that is quoted is how fast they spin. Faster than a lot of fans

[holygamer]

I'm not opening up the hard drive, I'm simply removing the hard drive from the USB enclosure case it's in. The noise is continuous, I can hear it even after several hours of using the drive.

Do you think that it's making noise because it's such as large capacity - 4TB? I can't even hear my internal hard drive that's inside my PC but that's only a 100GB drive.

[DanceswithUnix]

Not bought a Hitachi drive for years so don't know how they currently compare with others for noise, but all drives do make *some* noise. Maybe the enclosure is acting like drum and making it seem louder

Big drives do have more platters in them to store those extra bits, which does mean a bit more wind noise.

Hitachi drives used to do a funny "meoww" noise every now and then which was just the heads moving around, because many years ago if they stayed still too long they ploughed into the platter (look up IBM Deathstar for details). It might also be the modern version of that. That's just me guessing though, wind noise and bearing rumble seems more likely.

[kmac]

I'm not opening up the hard drive, I'm simply removing the hard drive from the USB enclosure case it's in. The noise is continuous, I can hear it even after several hours of using the drive.

Do you think that it's making noise because it's such as large capacity - 4TB? I can't even hear my internal hard drive that's inside my PC but that's only a 100GB drive.

Apologies, my misunderstanding.

I had a look at some user reviews of this drive an no-one mentions loud noise. In fact one user commented that its the quietest drive he has had.

Given that its 4TB, it probably has 4 platters of 1Tb each. Could it be that where its located is causing it to resonate? Try placing it on a hardback book for example and see if the noise is the same? Or on a rubber/foam mouse mat if you have one