Wonderful .... but noisy iMac .... and decommissioning the HDD

I've just bought my first Mac (27" iMac i7 3.4GHz 1 Tb Western Digital HDD, 256 Gb SSD, 8 Gb RAM, 2 Gb Video) after a PC lifetime and it's wonderful ..... but noisy .... surprisingly noisy for such an expensive supposedly high-end computer.
The noise is coming from the HDD which I viewed as almost a freebie when speccing the BTO menu as the extra over cost versus a SSD only machine was relatively marginal. Temps and fan speed are all normal as reported by iStat so nothing is malfunctioning per se that would warrant a return under Applecare.
So whilst the noise is irksome and dents confidence and brand image somewhat, I'm pragmatic rather than nuerotic about it and I'm thinking that I can add a Thunderbolt external HDD when the prices drop a little and switch off the internal HDD.
Is anyone please able to confirm that it is possible to electronically rather than physically decommission the HDD so that it will sit silently within the iMac shell, never being used once I have an external TB HDD up and running.

The correct process for resetting the SMC and PRAM is:
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

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