Toshiba P300 HDWD110UZSVA 1TB (2018) - Hard Drive Sounds

As my last video was on a vintage Toshiba drive, here's a modern one to compare (although more of a Hitachi than a Toshiba).
A quick and dirty video as I don't have much time this week.
And no, I won't be making any more videos on Toshiba drives for a while (even though I have a stack to record still).
I posted a few more pictures on my site, which you can find here: bananahdd.nl/i...
Recorded with a Shure SM58. Gain is +20dB, 5cm recording distance.

[@bigbluebananabread]

Extra pictures & data: bananahdd.nl/index.php/2022/09/03/toshiba-p300-hdwd110uzsva-1tb-2018/

[@ErikS-]

I was thinking of buying the 6TB version of the P300. I already read some people stating it makes noise. But thanks to think channel I am able to compare it to an alternative Seagate and WD, and yes: it makes a lot of noise.

[@TheDragonFire123]

You're looking at the wrong model though; the HDWD260 is an entirely different model from this, which is 1 TB. The HDWD260 is based on a completely different platform, so any comparisons between them are not valid.

[@blase1856]

Out of all the hard drives tested, Toshiba was the most reliable. If the noise is what bothers you, get an SSD. They are better at basically everything.

[@TheDragonFire123]

@@blase1856 ...except modern SSDs are incredibly poor quality and unreliable. Not least of which due to QLC, but even Samsung's relatively good quality lineups like the 980 and 870 Evo are data death traps.

[@lilpum9636]

I have the same noise

[@blase1856]

No way! i have the exact hard drive and i had it in my old pc, it couldn't hear the sound of it because the pc was loud by itself. I put it in my new pc and now it's the only thing you can here when the PC is idling. i thought it was the 4 I/E fans that made this noise not that damn hard drive. Now that i know this information, i'll unplug the hard drive from my system once i'll get an M.2, since i won't be really using the hard drive, but still gonna be a good backup drive. (by the way the pc does have a 250GB boot drive so it's not slow at all)

[@tadasivoska8064]

i have this hdd too, the initialising of it is really fast

[@LewdProductions]

It kinda sounds like the DT01ACA100 that I have somewhere laying around. The DT01ACA300 though, that one sounds meatier for sure!

[@bigbluebananabread]

I don't think they changed much with these compared to the DT01ACA100, but I could be heavily mistaken. The DT01ACA300-style drives are super awesome, I'd agree with the fact that they certainly sound a lot chunkier! Thanks for checking out the video by the way!

[@LewdProductions]

@@bigbluebananabread I heard that the DT01ACA300 had some big issues with reliability, but I gota say I bought one in 2016 and has since been my daily driver for data storage with no issue

[@bigbluebananabread]

@@LewdProductions Interesting! I hadn't heard much about that, but I've also had great experiences with them. I used to use mine for daily driver use too, but its been in one of my NAS's for a few years now at this point. I think it's nearing 40k hours with no issues. Personally I think they're great drives!

[@TheDragonFire123]

The HDWD110 is the same as the DT01ACA100 except for having 64 MB cache as standard, and is only sold to the retail market unlike DT01ACA100s, which are sold to OEMs.

[@an2rejkk]

I had tpshiba DT010ACA050 from 2015, it worked great, love that spin up sound but this drives were a litle loud, i can hear it spining despite the fan.But its been really fast drive abt 200mbs read and 190 write. Sadly its board fried bec of my PSU.

[@ellohssaeucoof5621]

Do you know what the random access time is? I have a similar drive(dt01aca100), and it has the "seek time performance failed" error. I did an hd tune benchmark, and it got an access time of 19ms, but i couldnt find anything to compare it to. It seems to be working fine otherwise.

[@bigbluebananabread]

I ran a HD Tune benchmark on one of these, ironically not the one in the video (albeit, identical), so feel free to compare my results to yours: i.imgur.com/yRbvloN.png It seems that 19ms is totally fine, so I'd say you're probably in the clear. Thanks for checking out the video!

[@ellohssaeucoof5621]

Makes me wonder what the seek time performance really means. Cristaldiskinfo marks it as bad, but otherwise, it seems ok. The hd tune benchmark is identical. I will keep backups of everything on it, so i should be ok.

[@TheDragonFire123]

Can you show exact SMART parameters using a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo or smartctl, rather than relying on some vague SMART tool? I think I know exactly what is wrong with it.

[@ellohssaeucoof5621]

Oh boy, its been two weeks since i checked this video. The cristaldiskinfo vaule is 103(dec) for the seek time performance, all other values are ok. Also victoria has an attribute "gmr head amplitude" that is apparently also bad with raw value 252/0.

[@TheDragonFire123]

@@ellohssaeucoof5621 Can you show the value in the Current column? This is what CDI is complaining about; likely it is lower than the value in the Threshold column.

[@momiswatchingyou2488]

this is the exact same drive i currently have in my PC

[@TheDragonFire123]

Sounds quite like a lower pitched HDS721050CLA660 as well for some reason, even though that one is a Jupiter, one gen behind. I do have the OEM version of this, the DT01ACA100, serving in an active role in a relative's computer, and I even experience it quite a bit, but sadly I'm reluctant to take it out for a vid. The HDS721050CLA662 will have to do. 2018 was actually the last year for this style as well; had it been made in the last quarter of the year, it would have looked more like my HDWD130. By the way, the maximum capacity for the Hitachi HDA Toshiba drives is 6 TB, but that's SMR. The original Hitachi designs top out at 3 TB, and past that point you need the enhanced platter capacity of Fujitsu HDAs. Also, the date this was made was the 26th, judging by the third letter of the S/N being Q (the third digit is a Base 36 representation of the day). Luckily, in October 2019, Toshiba switched from Hitachi date codes (OCT-2019) to Toshiba 2.5" date codes which do include the day (23OCT2019), so this decoding isn't necessary anymore but still nice to know if all you have is a CrystalDiskInfo report.

[@bigbluebananabread]

Interesting! I thought the label style was close to ending at the point of this drive, but I didn't realise it changed right at the end of 2018. Thanks for the info with that. I was aware of the styling of the HDS721010CLA330 (for example) going up to 6TB, but I wasn't exactly aware of how far the specific HDA design of the drive in this video went to, so it's interesting to look into it more. I was quite unimpressed to find out the 4TB+ versions of the original designs use SMR these days, which is why I've been so reluctant to pick any of them up. Thanks for the info with the serial number! I'm not well versed on decoding Toshiba serial codes, so that's an interesting tid-bit. It's a great thing they switched to showing the full dates later on, which is definitely a plus point of their newer labelling systems.

[@TheDragonFire123]

@@bigbluebananabread I'm pretty sure they changed the date code when they started making DT02s, so all of the SMR Hitachis will have the new date codes, but this luxury also extends to the original DT01 designs too; I have two old Hitachi drives (HDWD130 and one coming up soon) that have the 2.5" date code on them, for the former 14JAN2021. Yeah, I do wish Tosh would bring 2 TB platters with FC-MAMR to the Hitachi HDAs soon, to compete with the growing 2 TB platter models with no SMR from WD and Seagate. I do have two of the SMR Toshibas, one of which is covered on my channel, but it was really out of curiosity; but they have performed quite well and were very interesting (2.5" trapped in a 3.5", really). For reference, the other two digits also include month and year, respectively. The first digit represents month through numbers from January thru September, then X, Y and Z for October, November and December respectively. The second digit just corresponds to the last digit of the year, for example, a 2022 drive will have a 2 here.

[@bigbluebananabread]

@@TheDragonFire123 Interesting stuff! Toshibas moves in the modern day are incredibly interesting, it's really fascinating to see what they pull out and what they change. It seems that Toshiba are slacking a bit on the original Hitachi designs, but hopefully they'll finally update that. I'm with you completely on that one. Thanks a bunch for the info regarding Toshiba serial numbers! It's interesting to compare the difference in formats to their more vintage drives, since their drives in the early 90's seem to have an entirely different layout. I do wonder when they started with this format. Thanks again!

[@nushnume]

Would you pick this drive or the WD Blue? i'm looking at the 2tb version and they are both the same price

[@bigbluebananabread]

For that recommendation, it would depend on the exact models you're looking at. Both these and the Blue's have quite a few different revisions (particularly these days), so if you can provide the model numbers I might be able to help with a specific recommendation. Although, reliability will likely be the same between the two! (at least I'd hope, unless WD have gone downhill in the last few years..)

[@nushnume]

@@bigbluebananabread It's Western Digital Blue WD20EZBX 2tb 256 cache 7200rpm and Toshiba HDWD320UZSVA 2tb,256 cache and 7200 rpm. I just need them to store files and last me some years. Both of them are the same exact price at the shop i'm looking at (50$ brand new) also there's a Seagate Barracuda with the same specs even cheaper but from what i've heard most people don't like Seagate that much. Thanks for the reply

[@bigbluebananabread]

@@nushnume Gotcha! They're both SMR drives (as opposed to the one in this video being CMR), so performance won't always be amazing in certain applications compared to a CMR drive, but for most it isn't really a major issue (particularly in your case where it's simply general file storage). However, aside from that, both models share a single 2TB platter, so performance is going to be pretty comparable between the two (with some slight differences of course, but not to a degree that I think you'd notice it in use). I'm personally always a fan of Toshiba drives, since I've had great experiences with them as a whole, but Western Digital are certainly on par with reliability as far as I'm concerned. You can't really go wrong with either of those choices, so if one offers longer warranty than the other then I'd go for that. If they're exactly the same in that regard, then it's really a 50:50 split in terms of choice! Apologies that I can't suggest a specific model in the end, but I hope some of this was useful to you! If you've had a good experience with a particular brand in the past, then perhaps it's best to go with them again. Good luck with your decision!

[@nushnume]

@@bigbluebananabread Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it

[@dimitriskaracostas7210]

Update: I had installed Windows 10 Pro on it for 1 day and ran at least 10 crystaldiskmark benchmarks dutinh thay time, then completely wiped it (this took about a couple of hours) and since it was able to handle all that, I believe my unit is reliable and therefore I can now store my data there. However, one issue I noticed is that it makes a snapping sound when I shut it down (it makes the sound only once). Is this normal? Ps: Happy New Year! Blessed 2023!

[@bigbluebananabread]

I'm super glad to hear it all went well! I hope it lasts you a good long while! Be sure to let me know if anything out of the orindary occurs! The snapping sound sounds fairly normal to me, is it similar to the noise the drive makes at 0:57 on the video? If it's similar to that, then it sounds like it's just parking the head-stack on the parking ramp. In that case, it's completely normal :) Happy new year to you too! All the best for 2023!

[@dimitriskaracostas7210]

@bigbluebananabread thanks for the instant reply! The snapping sound in my case [= situation, not the pc case (I've come across confusion about this before 😅)] is probably a bit more pronounced than the sound in the video, but I guess it's nothing concerning, because it's pretty much the same kind of sound. Also, when I had Windows 10 Pro installed, the first benchmarks went okay, I even recorded 203mb/s read speeds, but after being on for about 8 hours straight without a single shut down, both the read and write speeds dropped to roughly 90mb/s. The next day, I ran two more benchmarks, in the 1st one, the speeds were okay at 160mb/s, but in the second benchmark they dropped again down to 90. I guess that was because of Windows settings I had changed or files or something like that. I then shut down the pc, connected my SSD and wiped the drive with the "clean" command (not "clean all" like I did today, the "clean" command just deletes the files, it does not write 0s and 1s like the "clean all" one). After that, the speeds came back to normal, ~ 200mb/s... Moreover, the temperature did not surpass the 34°C mark throughout the wiping process today (I wiped the drive, as I wanted to test its durability). However, even though the write speed began at 200mb/s, it gradually dropped to ~ 110mb/s at the end of the wiping process. I guess that's normal as well, it had been writing for two hours straight for more than two hours at a rate faster than 100mb/s. Isn't that impressive for a mechanical drive, even a modern one?

[@bigbluebananabread]

@@dimitriskaracostas7210 Glad to hear the sound isn't anything concerning! The speeds match up perfectly with the two identical models I have; which are certainly impressive numbers. Given how dense the platters are these days, hard drive speeds are really getting to be quite impressive. For 1TB models, these are quite the fast drives for sure! I've been increasingly impressed with modern larger capacity drive speeds, the 4TB models I have in service sometimes reach close to 200mb/s sustained! But, certainly, these are excellently performing drives, I completely agree. As you also experienced here, they definitely run super cool!

[@dimitriskaracostas7210]

@bigbluebananabread it is way too early to judge the drive, it is just 3 days old. I did not buy it purely for its speed, but for its great speed + capacity + reliability ratio. As long as the speed is not limited to < 70mb/s like my Seagate HDD and it is reliable, I have absolutely no problem with it. I could also have opted for a *Seagate Barracuda 1TB* (ST1000DM010) or a *Western Digital Blue 1TB* (WD10EZEX) drive. Do you think I made a correct choice by preferring the Toshiba over the other ones?

[@bigbluebananabread]

@@dimitriskaracostas7210 Of course, that's very true. Time will only tell! The ST1000DM010 isn't a drive I've had much experience with, but I'm one who usually steers clear of modern Seagate drives, particularly lower capacity drives in the Barracuda line. I'm sure they're fine, but I've heard mixed things with those. The WD10EZEX is also a good line of drives, I'd say they're identical to these in terms of reliability personally, but of course, there's always somewhat of a sprinkling of luck with these things. In my opinion, you made a good choice choosing this model!

[@dimitriskaracostas7210]

Hearing the audio of this video had me thinking... oh this is too loud for a modern hard drive, since my old Seagate one (bought used, 80GB, with exactly 79000 power-on hours as of today) barely makes any noise (it is well-installed in the pc case, and the sound is noticeable during power on and power off) in a 2015 setup (the two fans, one stock intel cpu cooler and one little exhaust fan are able to suppress the sound of the HDD). However, as I wanted to have a closer "look" of what my drive actually sounds like, I removed the side panel, placed my phone on the drive (without any background noise, apart from the fans, of course) and recorded the sound during power on, idle, a crystaldiskmark read/write benchmark and power off. The power on and off were too "soundable", as expected and while the drive was idle, I couldn't hear much, but there was an odd sound, like extremely soft/mild consecutive clicks, which cannot be heard in real time, only with the phone recording. The interesting part was the fact that during the crystaldiskmark benchmark it did not make any different sounds, the same as being idle. The thing is, it does not vibrate much, and the sound of the Toshiba in the video gives me the idea it vibrates more than it should. After all that, I have two questions: 1) How does the Toshiba P300 perform when it comes to sound? Is it okay if it's well-placed in a pc case? 2) Are the consecutive (very, very soft) clicks of my Seagate HDD a warning sign of it facing failure in the near future? I only use it as a storage device and I have bought it used, so I don't know what its previous kind of usage was (as of now, it has 79000 hours of power on time).

[@bigbluebananabread]

Thanks for your comment! Apologies for the late response, I'm not always the fastest at checking my notifications. The gain on my audio amplifier is turned up pretty high for videos such as this, since the microphone I use is a dynamic cardoid type, which makes recording hard drives difficult, especially quiet moden drives such as this. The volume on this video is then normalised so it's audible from the perspective of "what if my ear was near the drive" so to speak. In practice, these drives are exceedingly quiet, the one I use every day is something I can't hear at all! My microphone is pretty "good" at picking up vibration though, so maybe I need to EQ that a bit better in future. Regarding question 1, I'd say they perform excellently audibly. I've used one daily since 2018 and I can't say I've ever heard it in operation (I use a Fractal Design Define R4, which has excellent anti-vibration mounts and sound-proof material etc.). The vibration is louder than seeking honestly, which is quite impressive with these (since the vibration itself is the same as all other 7,200 RPM drives I've used since 2014 or so). If it's installed well, I'm sure you'll be happy with how these are sound-wise! I assume it'd be similar to the Seagate, depending on the model of that drive, when concerning vibration. For question 2, I don't think the soft clicks of the Seagate drive are anything out of the ordinary, since depending on the model it can be doing simple error checking, scans or any other firmware-fed features setup by Seagate. It depends on the model, but it's pretty common for many drives since the early 2000's to have some form of idle activity for miscellaneous processes, which aren't always clear. If the SMART output comes out clean with no bad or reallocated sectors, I'd certainly trust the drive completely. Hitachi/HGST drives are notorious for loud idle noise, so your Seagate drive doing a similar process doesn't sound concerning, since Seagate usually have much quieter idle processes. (at least in my experience) I'll admit though, 79000 hours is definitely quite a lot! Many drives don't even come close to that in terms of mechanical longevity (I've personally only had very few make it past 70k hours), so that drive has done quite well. I hope this answers your questions! Feel free to let me know if I can offer any other assistance.

[@dimitriskaracostas7210]

@bigbluebananabread it's okay, we are not robots, none of us is perfect. Thank you for your answers, they covered me completely. I have one new question, though: what's your opinion as far as the *durability/reliability* goes? PS.1: I should have asked you in the first place, since the reliability is usually what matters most to the majority of users. PS.2: My *Toshiba* *P300* (1TB, 64MB, CMR), which I ordered on Wednesday arrived today and I'm going to install it to my case later in the day, I really need some more space.

[@bigbluebananabread]

@@dimitriskaracostas7210 Personally, I think they're as reliable as you can get with a 1TB drive at the moment. Since the lower capacity P300's are still very much based on Hitachi/HGST designs, they're exceedingly reliable in my experience. For PS. 1: There's always outliers of course, but the two 1TB models I've got have been in operation for 4 years straight with no issues at all (both currently reaching 25k hours each), alongside a 3TB model I've had running 24/7 for the same amount of time (reaching 35k hours, if I recall). I can't say if yours will manage the same of course, but personally they've done very well and show no signs of issues currently. Everyone I know personally has also had great experiences with these, they're the first drives I go to for recommendations! As long as it isn't DOA, alongside particularly after a year of use to get past the first year of the classic "hard drive bell curve of failure", I'm sure it'll last you for quite a long time. Best of luck with the drive installation! I hope it all goes well! Fortunately, I'm lucky enough to have a case with 7x 3.5" bays, I think I'm spoilt :)

[@dimitriskaracostas7210]

Mine only has 4 (with 4 SATA III ports on the motherboard anyway) and my SSD is installed on one of the four bays, as my case does not have any SSD "places" or whatever these are called. I hope my new Toshiba P300 lasts a long time!

[@dimitriskaracostas7210]

@bigbluebananabread so far, I've disconnected my two drives (my SSD and the Seagate HDD), installed the Toshiba in my case and installed Windows 10 Pro on it (it isn't my main drive, but I wanted to do some tests). I'm going to leave this Toshiba drive on for many hours and run benchmarks (as of now, it has 4 hours of continuous power-on time and I've run a few crystaldiskmark benchmarks). The temperature has not exceeded the 35°C mark (95°F). So far so good, no weird sounds, no malfunction...

[@notsoseagatey]

Why does the motor kinda sound like a DT01ACA050 i own lol

[@MaliciousAlfa]

I have the Toshiba HDWD120UZSVA (2TB 7200RPM CMR) and when it comes back out of sleep mode it sounds like it is dying lol. Drive is otherwise healthy.

[@bigbluebananabread]

Haha, that's quite bizarre! I haven't checked out how this one sounds when it wakes from sleep, but I do have a HDWD130UZSVA with incredibly similar sounding behaviour. I do think they're really nice drives though! Thanks for watching by the way!

[@MaliciousAlfa]

@@bigbluebananabread For the price i paid i can't complain (because they where the cheapest 2TB drives i could find brand new) but i did recently aquire a shucked 10TB WD drive (WDC WD101EMAZ-11G7DA0) wich replaced 2 of the Toshiba drives (had 4 of them total but now i have 2 of them in raid 1 for a bit of redundancy and the other 2 are just left over).

[@bigbluebananabread]

@@MaliciousAlfa Yeah, these Toshiba's are really quite cheap compared to the rest! I can't fault them for that really. Those WD101EMAZ's seem super cool! Interestingly, both these Toshiba's and those larger WD's are based on previous Hitachi-designed technology, which is quite an ironic turn of events. Although WD has made a lot of changes, as opposed to Toshiba not doing much at all really.

[@jamesdanton8682]

Loool. I was afraid of this sound and bought a new one HDD. I didn't know that it is normal sound.....

[@dimitriskaracostas7210]

Does it sound like normal?

[@Afd2673]

No es normal

[@blase1856]

That clicking sound is incredibly annoying, personally. Makes me want to throw mine out.