Is this noise normal?

[Alexx28]

Hi.

I got an iMac about 2 weeks ago.
2017 27” 3.4 Ghz, i5, 1 Gb fusion drive.
It makes a strange noise (sometimes) when using it. The noise is very random but i can always hear it when booting up the iMac. I didn't hear the noise at first but started hearing it when I'm in my room in complete silence. I don't hear it very often because I most of the time when I'm using the iMac I'm using headphones with it.

this is the noise:

This noise it completely random except when starting up the iMac.

I installed bootcamp on my iMac and this noise is much more frequent there than it is usually.
The noise doesn't bother me that much, except when I'm not using headphones because then it can because a little irritating.

This is my first iMac so I'm not sure if the noise is normal or not.

Thanks in advance.

 

[J.Gallardo]

Seems you have a fusion disk... I would say that sound is "mechanical HDD". It also seems normal it spins-on more frequently at Windows, as Bootcamp doesn't use SSD part of disk.
(Just an opinion, as I've never had a fusion disk; but it sounds normal, as when I had a regular HDD in late 2009 iMac)

 

[Alexx28]

Seems you have a fusion disk... I would say that sound is "mechanical HDD". It also seems normal it spins-on more frequently at Windows, as Bootcamp doesn't use SSD part of disk.
(Just an opinion, as I've never had a fusion disk; but it sounds normal, as when I had a regular HDD in late 2009 iMac)

Thanks for the reply, I was just wondering if this noise was normal because I haven’t owned an iMac before and if this is because of the fusion drive I’m a bit dissaponted because it can be quite annoying sometimes.

 

[DeltaMac]

You have the two storage devices that are combined, through software, to be used as a single volume.
One spinning hard drive (which is the device that you would hear spinning up during boot), and an SSD, which is essentially silent. The hard drive would spin up intermittently, when the system needs to access it.
You would notice the hard drive more often when booted to Windows, as the Boot Camp install does not use the SSD, Windows is installed only on the spinning hard drive.

It's possible that the hard drive COULD be making too much mechanical noise, and it might be faulty. However, it may simply be a little noisy, but still operating OK, and probably would pass any diagnostics.
You could call AppleCare (you have a 12 month warranty that covers defects), and find out what Apple can do for you.

 

[Fishrrman]

That's the internal platter based hard drive spinning up.
Normal.