OWC Qx2 - constant drive noise?

[StingMe]

A few months ago I bought an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 enclosure and loaded it up with four Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB drives (that's a 6TB volume using the default configuration (RAID 5)). Recently, I have noticed that at least one drive appears to be churning constantly - yet the drive access light is not flickering. I thought maybe spotlight was trying to index the volume but adding it to the "privacy" list does nothing.

When I'm actually writing to/from the volume the "churning" stops and normal activity ensues but one the transfer is complete the noise starts up again.

If I unmount the volume the noise persists.

If I eject the entire RAID the drives spin down and the noise stops.

Any thoughts as to what might be going on? Are there any tests I can run to ferret out the cause of this new noise? I cannot trace the onset of this behavior to any particular action on my part - I just noticed it one day when I woke up the system.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[mhale62]

I've got one of those units loaded w/4 Hitachi 2TB HDDs and I've not experienced any noise issue(s) at all.

Suggest you email/chat w/Macsales (OWC) tech support.

HTH.

[Trouble]

mhale62 wrote:
I've got one of those units loaded w/4 Hitachi 2TB HDDs and I've not experienced any noise issue(s) at all.

Suggest you email/chat w/Macsales (OWC) tech support.

HTH.

:agree:

[StingMe]

Yep, I plan on contacting OWC soon - unless Jamie or Larry picks up on this thread first

[OWC Larry]

If one of the drives is making noise - that very well maybe an issue with the drive itself. If the Qx2 was accessing the drive, even for rebuild/internal bridge access to drive without external data request - the activity light would be indicating this activity. We don't use the WD in our solution build, but not aware of any issues with the WD Black for this use and WD Black models are in our tested/approved list.... Might not be actual activity, could be idle resonance from within the drive also... all relative guesses not having heard the actual noise.

But in general - if one drive is making noise, that's most likely to do with the drive. In a RAID-5 setup, any activity also should involve all 4 drives with all making normal read/write noise when activity occurring.

[StingMe]

OWC Larry wrote: If one of the drives is making noise - that very well maybe an issue with the drive itself. If the Qx2 was accessing the drive, even for rebuild/internal bridge access to drive without external data request - the activity light would be indicating this activity.

That's what I figured - thanks for the clarification.

OWC Larry wrote: WD Black models are in our tested/approved list.... Might not be actual activity, could be idle resonance from within the drive also... all relative guesses not having heard the actual noise.

I made sure I had drives that were on the tested/approved list before ordering the Qx2 - everything has been working like a charm since February and this new noise reared its ugly head about a week ago.

I think I'll try to take a short video this evening - that might go a long way toward troubleshooting this issue. Is there anything specific I can capture that may help shed some light on this?

Thanks again!

[C(-)ris]

Why mess around? Mail the drive to WD and get a replacement.