Quick question about drive noise

[jnyl42]

I just set up my first NAS with some hardware I had lying around and 6x 3TB WD Reds...

Is it normal for the drives to make "drive noise" in pulses rather than a consistent stream like they would in a regular desktop configuration? Or is it bottlenecking on my limited (8gb) RAM? The best way I can describe it is it sounds like someone eating crunchy breakfast cereal.

Thanks!

 

[enemy85]

Are u sure u don't have a faulty drive?

 

[jnyl42]

Pretty sure. It's not a "bad" sound... just regular old disk noise, only in bursts rather than a stream. I ran WD Lifeguard on all the drives when I got them and they all checked out fine.

Here is a sound sample... this is with the case open and the mic right next to the drives:
I also should have mentioned this is all during writes.

 

[rs225]

If you are using ZFS, yes, it is pretty normal that the writes happen in bursts. As for the sounds ..?