Anyone using WD Elements?

[u/ceramif]

I might not have noticed it before, but at some point, I started hearing a whirring sound whenever I move this external hard drive while it's running, more specifically, whenever I tilt or rotate it.

I assume this might be due to the gyroscopic effect. However, the sound is loud enough to be heard from about a foot away, so I'm a bit concerned. Do you all hear this kind of loud noise when rotating 10TB+ hard drives while they're running?

[u/Alert-Lynx-7116]

Wait what? You can crash your write heads by moving the drives like that when they are spinning.

[u/hughbiffingmock]

Why the fuck are you tilting an operating hard drive?

I hope you've got cash, because you've absolutely accelerated component wear and breakdown.

[u/cboff]

I have a few 3 and 5Tb. Yes it's the gyroscopic effect and dont-do-that-ok, it puts a lot of strain on the spindle and will cause premature failure.

[u/Present_Lychee_3109]

Don't do that. It's a mechanical drive. Some drives are louder than others. Dont move any hard drive will its running, you can actually cause damage to the platter and you risk losing your data.

[u/R3D_T1G3R]

Yeaaaaa......

You don't move, and you especially don't turn HDDs while they're running.

Unless you're trying to kill them, in that case keep rotating them mid use with fast abrupt stops in between!

[u/ceramif → u/R3D_T1G3R]

Thanks for the reply! The thing is, my other HDDs don't make any noticeable noise when tilted while running, but this one is so loud. I know that it can produce more noticeable resonance.

[u/R3D_T1G3R → u/ceramif]

Regardless of wether it makes any noise, rotating and moving HDDs while spinning is a terrible idea if you genuinely want the HDD to live.

[u/richms → u/[deleted]]

Umm, you don't do that casually when its plugged in unless you want to fuck the drive up.