Exactly how sensitive are drives to vibration (and how to test)?

Question/Advice

Tldr: If I have one drive that naturally vibrates more than others in a JBOD, could that be an issue for the other drives? This is for an Unraid array with mixed drives.

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I am shucking 3 WD MyBooks (first time shucking) to swap drives in my Unraid array:

  • 2x WD80EDAZ-11CEWB0: 8 TB, 5640 rpm, idles ~35° in external enclosure
  • 1x WD80EDBZ-11B0ZA0: 8 TB, 7200 rpm, idles ~55° in external enclosure

I have a 4-bay JBOD (QNAP TL-D400S) that will hold these, plus an 8 TB WD Red Plus as parity.

The 7200 rpm drive vibrates more noticeably than the other two when spun up and idle (unmounted), and also runs hotter. I assume there's nothing wrong with the drive and this is natural for a higher speed drive (I believe this is my first 7200 rpm drive).

I'm assuming the temp will be less of an issue once they're all in the JBOD since it has a fan (correct me if wrong). But I'm concerned about the long term vibration. Could either of these be an issue? And is there any way to test them before and after installing the 7200 rpm drive to see if the vibration is causing an effect?

TIA!

Posted Mar 1, 2026, 2:28 PM UTC

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