Hmm... click of death?

V

venm11

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
2,236
I have a 1.5tb seagate barracuda (7200.11 ST31500341AS) which occasionally makes loud mechanical clicking noises (like metal on metal) when idle. SMART shows nothing out of the ordinary and Seagate Seatools says it's ok. It's always made these noises, which make me a bit uncomfortable.

Now that the drive is filling up, and since I'm not using RAID or backups, I'm worried about this failing. Is this noise out of the ordinary? Drives are so expensive now and I'd rather hold off on buying for backup or redundancy, if possible.
 
venm11 said:
I have a 1.5tb seagate barracuda (7200.11 ST31500341AS) which occasionally makes loud mechanical clicking noises (like metal on metal) when idle. SMART shows nothing out of the ordinary and Seagate Seatools says it's ok. It's always made these noises, which make me a bit uncomfortable.

Now that the drive is filling up, and since I'm not using RAID or backups, I'm worried about this failing. Is this noise out of the ordinary? Drives are so expensive now and I'd rather hold off on buying for backup or redundancy, if possible.
Click to expand...

If your data means anything to you then a backup is a necessity. If it is a single click, and then a spin up sound and then another click, the drive may just simply be coming out of sleep mode, but any other metal on metal grinding or clicking sounds are not normal. I would back up any important data ASAP. As another point, if your 7200.11 is of the firmware sequence SDxx, if your drive has any firmware earlier than SD1B I would update it immediately (again, having a backup in place first just in case) as earlier firmwares can cause your drive to lockup just by restarting. You can get the firmware update if you need it here http://knowledge.seagate.com/articl...l_ATA_Drives_Seagate_Barracuda&fs=Search&pn=1
 
If it is a single click, and then a spin up sound and then another click, the drive may just simply be coming out of sleep mode
Click to expand...

Try disabling the drive spin down option in the power settings to see if the noise is just a normal spinup.
 
Seems to be getting worse. It's repeated clicks; it will make 5-10 clicks in a row every 1.5 seconds, then go quiet, then start again.

I tried disabling spin down in power options (this is win server 2003-?) but that has no effect.

I haven't figured out how to identify the firmware version. I know I did update it, because of the problems with certain firmware versions on 7200.11 drives.

SMART appears to be showing problems with drive temperature and ECC corrections now; it was minor before but increasing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top