TerraMaster Forum

Just picked up a D4-320. For testing, I've put one drive (tried both Bay 1 and Bay 4 so far).

Despite the LED on the unit being solid (indicating no activity) and Windows Task Manager showing there is 0 activity on the drive, it's sounds like it's getting hammered. The noise isn't vibration of the case or anything, I can put my hand on the drive itself and feel the heads moving. It's like something is forever being read or written to the drive.

If I initiate any kind of drive access - most easy is to just start copying a large file either to or from the drive - the access noise is no longer constant. It becomes what I'd consider 'normal' - it's the same noise, just relatively intermittent. In fact it's SO much more quiet when copying a file.

However as soon as the copy is done, it sounds like the drive is constantly being accessed. Just a constant BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

What gives? Is this DAS hammering my drive to death or something?

Honestly I'm ready to pack this up and return it after one day.

D4-320 only provides a usb bridge between your hard drive and your computer, it is not able to hammer your drive. if your drive operat with unnormal noise, it could be possible your drive is dieing. Please check if your drive is healthy, or replace another drive to try again.

That's what I thought, except the drive does not exhibit this behaviour when installed/connected directly to the motherboard, or using a different USB enclosure. The noise only occurs when the drive is installed in the D4-320.

This is a bit hard to understand. Unless the D4-320 is not providing enough power to the disk? Are you using the original power adapter? Otherwise, there is no other factor that could cause the hard drive to make unusual noises.

Hello,
Sorry for the late reply, but something similar has happened to me and the solution was (if you are in Windows) in Power Options.
- Set the USB settings -> Selective suspend setting to "Disabled"
- Set the PCI Express-> Link State Power Management to "Off"

It messed with the power of my enclosure (OWC ThunderBay 8).

Hope it helps!