I'm moving from a Synology setup to a DIY NAS and I'm a bit anxious about a new sound I'm hearing from one of my drives. Here's a link to the specific noise I'm talking about: [this noise](https://streamable.com/3q5mlg). I've had four Exos x20 20TB drives before and I'm used to a different sound, which you can listen to here: [this sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9azTFxsBa4Q). The noise I'm worried about is coming from an Exos X20 28TB model (ST28000NM000C) and only occurs when I run a specific command: "find . -type f -print0 | sort -z | xargs -0 xxhsum". Otherwise, it sounds like what I'm used to. I've also run an extended SMART test and it passed. To summarize, I'm used to a popping sound from my NAS hard drives, but I'm not sure if I should be alarmed about this buzzing sound on the new disk. Sorry if this seems trivial!
2 Answers
It's good that you've run the SMART test and it passed. That buzz could be related to how full the drive is, especially if it's 65% full like you mentioned. Sometimes drives can make different sounds based on how they're accessed or the commands being run. If it's only making noise during that specific command, it might just be normal operations for that model. I wouldn't stress too much unless you start hearing more concerning noises!
HDD noises can be tricky! The sound you're hearing could just be the drive accessing data differently. If you've had other Exos drives, you might notice they can behave differently under certain workloads. Pay attention to any changes in performance or additional sounds, but overall, if your tests are good, it's likely okay.
That's true! I guess I'll monitor it for a bit and see if anything changes.
Thanks for the reassurance! I do appreciate it, and I'll keep an ear on it.