Loud Click Every Few Hours

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alpha202ej

n00b
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May 3, 2005
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Hello All,

Just built a new system and have been hearing a loud click every few hours when under heavy load from my hard drive (Seagate 320 GB SATA3.0Gb). I havent noticed any performance issues with my computer since it has started but I am still concerned as to why this might be happening.

I know that loud clicking is very bad when talking about hard drives, but this is only one click, and it seems to happen under heavy load only. Again I only hear it say two to three times a day at most.

Thanks!
 
I would do an advance replacement from the OEM, ghost your contents onto the new, freshly re-partitioned drive, then send in the old one.

Better to pay the $8 in shipping the old drive back than deal with clicking, be it problematic or just annoying.

-jkpq45
 
hmm, I have the same drive and that happens to me as well. Don't know what it is supposed to mean. I never thought much of it, can it be bad?
 
I had a drive that wouldn't shut up after a while; in the beginning it was just a click every few hours. I ended up losing it and the data on the RAID0 array of which it was a part.

I've since RMAd the drive and switched to RAID5. Got a spare adapter for up to 8 drives, if anyone's interested.
 
I just got off the chat thingy with the new egg rep and I am going to RMA the drive back (I ordered a replacement one for the mean time).

Thanks for the advice!
 
This is strange, I just got two of these drives, and I'm getting an intermittent click every once in a while too. I can't seem to replicate the issue, however...it just does it when it wants to. In that regard, I'm having difficulty figuring out which drive it is. Do you think I should RMA it?
 
I would rma it unless you can afford to lose the data and be without the drive for a while. Usually a clicking noise means you have a few days to a year or more before the drives takes a crap.
 
I've been having the same exact issue with a new (two and half months old, roughly) Seagate 7200.10 320gb sata drive. It occasionally makes audible single click sounds, and it's done this since day 1. Interestingly, the drive "seems" fine. No system instability or problems- at all. Also, the drive seems quiet enough during operation, except for the intermittent single clicks. When I ran SeaTools DOS, the drive passed both short and long tests.

I've done some research on the matter and there's a few forum threads out there that suggest that it may be normal:

A few posters here suggest that it may be a form of recalibration or sector check system

Another thread

Then again, there's a few threads that suggest that it is abnormal and it may be a sign of impending failure:

A few people here mentioned that they RMA'd the clicking drives and got back drives that made no clicking sounds

More discussion

Also, I found an interesting site that has a few audio files for noises that indicate a drive failure. My own drive wasn't making any of these noises. In the end, I'll probably RMA the drive just to be on the safe side, but I'd like to hear some more opinions on the matter.

Also, JohnnyNapalm, are you using a molex to sata power adapter or y-cable on either of the drives? Just curious.

Edit: Found some additional info from Seagate's knowledge base

Normal sounds include:

Whining noise during drive spin-up.

Regular clicking or tapping sounds during drive access.

Hard clicks when the drive heads park.
Click to expand...
 
I like to refer to this noise as "The Click of Death".
Every time I have ever had a hard drive that started clicking occasionally... it only had a month or two to live after the first sign of symptoms.
The first time it ever happened to me was with a 250gb hd in my xbox. I had formatted it without correctly patching LBA-48 support so once I used up more than 137gb it started with data corruption and a couple weeks later started clicking, dont see how it's possible that they're related but it sucked.
And just recently I had a 160gb hd that died on my after starting to make loud clicking noises every half hour.

of course I am talking about a loud "click" almost like a snap, that's very audible, much more so than a hard drive's arm locking in place.
 
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