Hard Disk Monitoring

Hi,

So today a new HDD I ordered arrived, namely a Seagate ST1000DM003 1TB HDD. Upon getting it in the case and cabling it in properly and powering on the PC I was greeted by especially loud pulsing vibration (talking of the kind that not only loud, not only it resonates the PC case, but you could "feel it" on the computer desk by just having your hand on the mouse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXUdNSr_mJA ).

Aside from that it seem to be working fine, bios and windows seeing it properly, but still feeling unsure about moving anything to it while it's like that I did the thing any sane person would do and run a test on it with hard disk sentinel. Here is what I got on the fresh out of the packaging Seagate HDD:

http://i.imgur.com/ifdhqzY.jpg
Speed graph: http://i.imgur.com/YgW7KCM.jpg
In comparison there is my 5+ year old Samsung HD502HJ's read test http://i.imgur.com/MtW8ZRM.jpg.

Funny thing is that since OS is running from my older Samsung HDD it couldn't dismount it for the test and OS and things were accessing files "which could provide worse results then the situation actually is" and the brand new Seagate still seems to be in a LOT rougher shape.

My question is that should I be able to get my money back or at least a new HDD if it came out of the packaging like that?

Thanks for the images, yes, the surface map and the performance graph alone indicate problems with accessing high number of sectors. Plus the really high vibration is more than annoying.
I completely agree you, I'd not feel safe to use this drive to store important data on it.

Just to be 100% sure, I'd give it a try in a different PC and/or an external USB 3.0 enclosure/adapter/docking station.
If it performs similarly there (both the vibration and the fluctuating performance will happen again), then we can surely say it's related to the hard disk drive itself, surely can't cause by the operating environment (for example the PC case, the power supply, power / data cables, etc.)
It is possible that the hard disk may be damaged during shipment.

Personally I'd try to ask a replacement because of these issues as even if the HDD seems new, "perfect" (no errors: no damaged/bad blocks reported on the surface and its health is 100%) there is high chance that the problems or even sudden failure may occur soon.

Yesterday I did some more research and found out that the vibration is caused by something I wouldn't believe if I not tested it myself. Apparently it's not too uncommon when a PC running 2 different brand of HDD that's supposed to run at the same speed (in my case, both my old Samsung and the new Seagate on 7200rmp) because since different brands, they might "just slightly" spin at different speeds and the "pulsing" vibration like sound is the peak point of the difference.

The moment I took the Seagate out of the case and set it standing on it's bubble wrapping outside of the case the noise is completely gone.

As for the surface, someone suggested to run them from safe mode as even the slightest use of PC in the mean time can cause difference even if the PC access nothing from the specific HDD being tested which I managed to confirm (guess sudden jumps in cpu load can cause access speed of sectors to fluctuate wildly on test too). On a second read and write test from safe mode the HDD practically "came up clean".

So for now I only have to figure out a way I can safely get it in the case in a way for the 2 HDD to not cause such noise.

Yes, the vibration can cause so weird things. One of them is the noise and the sensible effect which is annoying - but yes, this can even cause head-positioning issues which may affect not only the performance of the hard disk drive, but can also cause data corruption or even failure.

To be honest, this is why I recommended to try testing in a different operating environment outside that PC, as I was not 100% sure if this is the problem with the hard disk drive at all - or resulted by something else.

In the original PC case, you may try to install the new drive to a different position, maybe leave some additional space between the other and this new hard disk drives.
Also it is possible to use anti-vibration kits / mounts, these can help lots in reducing noise and vibration in general.