Western Digital Scorpio--Supposedly the Quietest

egghat · Post by **egghat** » Tue May 10, 2005 7:31 am

I have the 80GB Scorpio in a no-vibes, which is available fpr 2.5 " drives.

I must say that this is by far the quietest drive I've ever had. I can compare to a Baracuda IV, a Samsung Spinpoint with 5400 rpm and a Samsung with 7200 rpms. I run it in an umdampened case and I can't image that in a big, dampened case any noise from this drive can be heard.

I posted some noise measurements from German magazin c't in a another thread here and they, as MikeC, found, that there are some drives, that are even quieter than the Scorpios. The 40 GB version is 0.3 sones compared to 0.5 sones the 80 GB version has. But all the drives that are more silent are drives with just 4200 rpm. And these are really really slow if you are used to 7200rpm 3.5" drives. For me the 80GB version was the best compromise between capacity, speed and noise.

Btw. I don't notice any clicking. And yes, the seek noise is rather high pitched.

Bye egghat

Jason_Sheppard · Post by **Jason_Sheppard** » Tue May 10, 2005 8:10 am

When was your drive built? You may have the update installed. Mine sat in a warehouse for a while. Even though I just got it, it was made several months ago.
Oh, and as far as a backup, I have a ghost image of every system. I don't like reinstalling everythign when I can ghost it back in under 10 minutes.

xilencer · Post by **xilencer** » Wed May 11, 2005 1:48 am

Finally!
I emailed them a couple of months ago recommending them to make a firmware update for this, but they just responded WD don't provide firmware updates or something like that. I guess enough people made them aware of the importance to change their mind, you know who you are

Thanks for the PM Jason

tcaland · Post by **tcaland** » Wed May 11, 2005 5:37 am

I am the owner of a WD800VE and I experienced the same clicking problem you are talking about. I use mainly linux, so at the moment no work around I have found to fix it, so I requested a firmware update on the WD online forum.
Please check it or better write some lines too.
Here it is the link:
http://websupport.wdc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3107

best
tony

@TOMMY@ · Post by **@TOMMY@** » Thu May 12, 2005 12:34 pm

Jason_Sheppard wrote:I am pretty sure it is. Should have the cd on the 11th. He would not tell me much other than to flash the drive and that should fix it and I should give him a call either way to let him know how it goes. I asked him when it would be posted on the website and he stated that he was not sure. They might be using me as a test subject....

Jason

So how well does the fw work? Does it reduce the clicking sound you experienced?

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Sat May 14, 2005 3:24 am

Jason_Sheppard wrote:I emailed Western Digital and they called me. They are mailing me a cd with a firmware update that should fix the clicking noise. I should have the cd in 2 days. I'll let everyone know if it works.

Jason

Would you be able to put an ISO on the internet for us? If not, could you tell us what you said in the email and what email address you sent it to?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sat May 14, 2005 6:12 am

Shining Arcanine wrote:
Jason_Sheppard wrote:I emailed Western Digital and they called me. They are mailing me a cd with a firmware update that should fix the clicking noise. I should have the cd in 2 days. I'll let everyone know if it works.

Jason
Would you be able to put an ISO on the internet for us? If not, could you tell us what you said in the email and what email address you sent it to?

Hah, I'd wait till he gets back to us to report a successful flash. It makes me kind of nervous that we haven't heard from him since last Tuesday.

@TOMMY@ · Post by **@TOMMY@** » Sat May 14, 2005 10:41 am

Good point you have there

Jason_Sheppard · Post by **Jason_Sheppard** » Mon May 16, 2005 9:41 am

DO NOT try the firmware from WD. I tried it and it would not work. The day after I tried it, Dell came out with a firmware update. I cannot install the Dell update now b/c the firwmare from WD shows as newer. To make matters worse, they told me (after the fact) that it would not fix it. I have to wait for a new drive and will try the Dell flash. Here's the one from Dell. The good news is that It specifically says it will fix clicking issue.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloa ... &devlib=26

Western Digital Scorpio 40GB 5400rpm Mobile HDD, Scorpio 60GB 5400rpm Mobile HDD, Scorpio 80GB 5400rpm Mobile HDD, v.09.07D09, A00
Release Date: 05/11/2005
Description: Western Digital Utility patch corrects an intermittent clicking noise issue on the following models:

Jason_Sheppard · Post by **Jason_Sheppard** » Mon May 16, 2005 9:46 am

Sorry, The above message should read I tried it and it did not fix the problem. Then I could not install the Dell version. By the way, WD admitted that it would not fix it, but by then it was too late.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue May 17, 2005 5:26 am

Jason_Sheppard wrote:DO NOT try the firmware from WD. I tried it and it would not work.

Ah, Jason! Welcome back.....

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Tue May 17, 2005 2:52 pm

I just put a WD scorpio in a USB case (40gig)
it is noticeably quiter than the Samsung that it replaced .
NO damping (hard bolted in the case)
No vibration and a slight hissing noise if you hold the drive to your ear.
But it does get warmer than the Samsung (not hot ) just noticeably warmer

thinkpaduser · Post by **thinkpaduser** » Tue May 17, 2005 2:53 pm

Hi and greetings from Finland. Try to understand my mediocre English.

I was just about to order a WD Scorpio for my IBM Thinkpad T21 laptop because it is the cheapest60 gig 2.5" hard disk (in Finland), it is quiet and fast and few guys recommended it to me.

Then I read about "clicking" problems of this drive from few forums. How noisy is the click-sound? Can you hear the sound if you aren't next to your computer (for example few meters off the computer)?
I've got used to the constant noise and random clicking of my current hard disk (Travelstar 20GN IBM-DJSA-220) so I think that any hard drive would be many times quieter.

Is there an audible difference between 40 and 60 GB hard disks? I know that the difference is few dB's, but is it audible? I just wondered because my current hard disk is about 50% full, so maybe I don't need a 60 gig disk but you can't ever have too much disk space, can you.

@TOMMY@ · Post by **@TOMMY@** » Tue May 17, 2005 3:29 pm

thinkpaduser wrote:Hi and greetings from Finland. Try to understand my mediocre English.

I was just about to order a WD Scorpio for my IBM Thinkpad T21 laptop because it is the cheapest60 gig 2.5" hard disk (in Finland), it is quiet and fast and few guys recommended it to me.

Then I read about "clicking" problems of this drive from few forums. How noisy is the click-sound? Can you hear the sound if you aren't next to your computer (for example few meters off the computer)?
I've got used to the constant noise and random clicking of my current hard disk (Travelstar 20GN IBM-DJSA-220) so I think that any hard drive would be many times quieter.

The clicking noise can be sorted by Dell's new fw that Jason_Sheppard provided in the previous post

zefie · Post by **zefie** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:53 am

@TOMMY@ wrote:
thinkpaduser wrote:Hi and greetings from Finland. Try to understand my mediocre English.

I was just about to order a WD Scorpio for my IBM Thinkpad T21 laptop because it is the cheapest60 gig 2.5" hard disk (in Finland), it is quiet and fast and few guys recommended it to me.

Then I read about "clicking" problems of this drive from few forums. How noisy is the click-sound? Can you hear the sound if you aren't next to your computer (for example few meters off the computer)?
I've got used to the constant noise and random clicking of my current hard disk (Travelstar 20GN IBM-DJSA-220) so I think that any hard drive would be many times quieter.

The clicking noise can be sorted by Dell's new fw that Jason_Sheppard provided in the previous post

Sadly I got this drive from NewEgg with the "latest" firmware already preloaded, yet it makes random clicking sounds worse than I seen described on here. If it didn't 100% check out on a surface scan, you'd swear this was a failed read seek:

http://media.zefie.com/?q=wdclick

Any suggestions? It is enough to make you want to get a hammer ...

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 8:47 am

Have you tried the Hitachi Power Booster utility/ setting power management to "minimal" in Windows Control Panel -Power Options?

Tigr · Post by **Tigr** » Fri Dec 16, 2005 7:58 am

On the subject of clicking of WD400VE: it went away. The disk has been in my PC that is on 24 hours for about 2 months now. I did not realise it until now but I think I have not heard any clicking noise from the drive for a long while now. There is no particular reason why it should stop, i.e. I did not upgrade anything at all. It just stopped.

zefie · Post by **zefie** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 9:16 pm

jaganath wrote:Have you tried the Hitachi Power Booster utility/ setting power management to "minimal" in Windows Control Panel -Power Options?

Windows Control Panel doesnt do squat for the APM in a harddrive, thats the PC BIOS APM.

As for Hitachi, i get the wonderful "Advanced Power Settings cannot be changed with this utility" error.

Only a hammer would fix this thing. What a waste of $80

who1zep · Post by **who1zep** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 10:06 pm

zefie wrote:http://media.zefie.com/?q=wdclick
...

Only a hammer would fix this thing. What a waste of $80

That thing sounds like the clock shop in Pink Floyd's "Time." Arrrgh. Are you going to exchange it, zefie?

Western Digital Scorpio--Supposedly the Quietest

Re: Scorpio firmware update

Re: Scorpio firmware update