I have 8TB Seagates Exos and they are quite noisy; mine sit in my desktop (don't have a dedicated NAS) which is sitting on a wooden desk, which ampifies the noise. if I suspend the desktop, the noise goes down considerably, but I still wouldn't call them quiet
this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
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Not sure about seagate drives as I’ve never used them, but I’ve been using ultrastar drives for years and found them more or less inaudible.
They are owned by WD now, and I’m not a huge fan of that as the only drives I’ve ever had die are WD’s about a decade ago. Had some regular red’s since then and they have been fine. Ownership by WD doesn’t seem to have enshittified ultrastar so far, as far as I can tell.
I was considering the Ultrastar line too but read they also cna be loud since they're meant for servers
I have six of them running on the other side of my microscopic apartment and I can only hear the PSU fans. I never even really thought about them being enterprise until your comment, I just found HGST drives fantastic and kept riding that train. They are definitely not louder than the WD red’s I have run.
Obviously I’m looking forward to the silence of an ssd future as much as anyone else.
Do you have the Ultrastar models that were made by WD? Or the ones before they were acquired by WD?
Pretty sure they are all WD-era Ultrastars now.
Only gotcha I ever found with them (and some shucked WD reds several years ago I think) is to disable the 3.3v pin. Plenty of different methods for that, but I just snipped it out of the power cable. Lots of posts online explaining it, it’s not an ultrastar specific deal.
I had not heard of that. Thanks for the tip. Does it make them quieter?
Nah, nothing to do with noise.
As far as I’m aware it’s a feature to control power to the disk. Look it up to confirm if you’re interested, but I think power delivered on that pin keeps the hdd off. Cutting the power (or snipping the power cable in my case) causes it to function normally. Plenty of people have bought these drives and assumed they are dead (including me!) when plugged into a regular PSU, which just supplies the power. I assume enterprise servers allow you to turn the 3.3v pin on and off. I suspect it’s more useful in datacenters etc to restart problematic drives & run diagnostics etc remotely before having to go and actually find the thing in the server/rack/aisle of racks/warehouse of racks etc.
Someone here will know more than me.
Oh I see. I hadn't thought that would be a problem but it makes some sense that home servers would differ from actual professional grade ones thus making the drives very different.
WD Red Pro are as quiet as Plus when not seeking. The seeking behaviour is something I barely notice when sitting 2 meters away from 10 spinning platters in my office. I can wholeheartedly recommend them as a size upgrade from Plus.
No problems either, but that's just an anecdote. Worth remembering though is that review are negatively skewed since positive experiences rarely turn into a review.
Thanks for sharing your experience. And yeah, I forgot that reviews tend to be negative. I just figured since it's WD's own website they'd try to skew it to be more favorable.
Those used enterprise drives are actually highly reliable but they do make a ton of very unpleasant sounding noise and it's not just loud "brown noise" whirring like a normal HDD.
Here is a video of what they sounds like, not something most people would want on their desk.
I think that's being amplified by the case. They do make more noise than most, but it's not actually all that loud. I have four in the server in my bedroom, and the fan, even at quiet low speed, is louder than the drives.
It's probably a matter of taste, but every one I've ever heard was absolutely not something I would want next to me on my desk while I was trying to focus.
I have 6 used Ultrastar drives in my case on my desk and never hear them but it might be more that my Fractal Design case keeps them quiet. Previously I had 9 WD white labels that I shucked and didnt hear them either though I did have a couple issues with the drives resonating in the case. That was fixed by tweaking some of the drive caddys slightly.
Oh wow that sounds awful. I wasn't expecting it to be that bad. Thanks for the tip! I hadn't considered checking YouTube for sound tests.
Yeah haha, as the other guy said, this drive definitely seems on the louder side of average, but the thing I wanted to illustrate is the pattern of the sound which I think is distracting at any volume.
I have a consumer tier Ironwolf that isn't too loud, it does make a little noise but it's not a whine, more of a very low rushing air type noise when spinning (like the "brown noise" another commenter mentioned) and fairly quiet grinding when it's active. Not the quietest drive ever, but less noticeable than some I've had in the past. The periodic thermal calibrations from a 2.5" HDD I have inside a mini PC next to it are more noticeable.