Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

Jookia · 2012-07-01 08:11:47

So after a previous hard drive crash, I bought a new hard drive, a mechanical 2TB one. But it's been clicking since I installed it. Most the clicking was noticable during the installation, and I woke up to it this morning. So I recorded it using my camera, and got the audio.

Here's the download link: http://www.filefactory.com/file/6sgak6o … ickery_tbz
It's a bzipped tarball containing two MP3. One is the raw audio, the other is the clicks themselves separated. The clicks separated start around 30 seconds in to the raw audio.

Something to note, my root partition is the first 11gigs of my 2TB drive. Oh, and all the clicks are one minute apart, if you ignore that one minute didn't have a click. I'm thinking this is some kind of log writing to a bad part of the disk?

Either way, it clicks, I want to know what type of click it is, and how badly it's going to destroy my drive.

Roken · 2012-07-01 08:58:37

Whilst there are perfectly legitimate and worry free reasons for drive clicking, I've always taken the view that a clicking drive is a bad drive (especially newer drives. Older drives tended to be prone to all sorts of clicks and whistles under normal operation). I've listened to a brief segment of your mp3s and it sounds to me like a mechanical click, possibly the heads catching something. Since this is a new drive I'd be tempted to return it for replacement rather than run the risk, but it's your call.

You could also take a look at http://harddriveclicking.net/ to aid diagnosis more.

Jookia · 2012-07-01 10:53:26

Hmm. I'll check the power route, but it only really happens at odd times. As I said, it may be the root parition or start of the drive that's messing up.

Trent · 2012-07-01 18:02:14

If it's been clicking since you installed it, that is almost certainly sufficient reason to demand a replacement. If you get the new one and it also clicks in the same way, then maybe it was nothing to worry about -- but clicking is quite rare with working hard drives.

I wouldn't even bother trying to troubleshoot it. Call the manufacturer or the place that sold it to you and explain that they sold you a clicking hard drive. Chances are you can return it for a replacement no questions asked. Wipe it before you send it back to them, of course.

satanselbow · 2012-07-01 18:10:52

I've got and old 200G IDE drive in one of my machines that developed a periodic click about 2 years ago - it still reads / write without error or corruption... If the click had been there from new I would have immediately returned it for replacement.

I don't / wouldn't trust it to store any "mission critical" data for any great length of time however

Zancarius · 2012-07-01 19:22:42

Trent wrote:

If it's been clicking since you installed it, that is almost certainly sufficient reason to demand a replacement. If you get the new one and it also clicks in the same way, then maybe it was nothing to worry about -- but clicking is quite rare with working hard drives.
I wouldn't even bother trying to troubleshoot it. Call the manufacturer or the place that sold it to you and explain that they sold you a clicking hard drive. Chances are you can return it for a replacement no questions asked. Wipe it before you send it back to them, of course.

I'd have to second this. RMA that drive now while you don't have a need to depend on it.

As with others, my only experience with clicking drives has usually come a couple years into the drive's life and lead to its inevitable death. It might not be an issue in your case, but it's certainly not normal. Drive operation should be relatively silence save for soft noises from the head during seek.

Like Trent said, you should contact whomever you purchased the drive from. Most online vendors give you 30 days to return defective items (pretty much standard return policy in the US; outside the US you may have more or less time). After that, you may have to take it up with the manufacturer as it's legally out of the retailer's hands (again, US law).

mosquitogang201 · 2012-07-03 01:40:24

Some of these new hard drives call this clicking a "power-saving" feature, especially if it is a laptop size drive. The click is from the hard drive parking it's head. Try opening your console and running "hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda" as root. Of course change /dev/sda to whatever your hard drive is if it is different. Then see if the clicking stops. I have this set to run whenever my computer starts up or resumes from suspend. Clicking can't be good for the life of the hard drive. Of course if running hdparm doesn't stop the clicking, I'll second what everyone else says.

Jookia · 2012-07-03 17:59:08

mosquitogang201 wrote:

Some of these new hard drives call this clicking a "power-saving" feature, especially if it is a laptop size drive. The click is from the hard drive parking it's head. Try opening your console and running "hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda" as root. Of course change /dev/sda to whatever your hard drive is if it is different. Then see if the clicking stops. I have this set to run whenever my computer starts up or resumes from suspend. Clicking can't be good for the life of the hard drive. Of course if running hdparm doesn't stop the clicking, I'll second what everyone else says.

Hmm. If it's power saving, it wouldn't explain why it'd power save so often why I was installing my system to root, but be on all the time when I'm watching YouTube videos or copying massive amounts of data around on my /home partition.

It's 4AM so today I'll see what I can do about returning it.

Last edited by Jookia (2012-07-03 18:01:53)

Jookia · 2012-07-11 08:05:23

Okay, I think I solved it. I turned off APM by doing the whole 'hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda' thing, (255 being TURN THAT OFF). Seems to have stopped the clicking.

nomorewindows · 2012-07-11 12:15:16

Sounds like maybe you solved it, you can always read sensors from your hard drive using smartmontools. While some of the readings are trivial, it can help tell whether your drive is toast.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-07-01 08:11:47

Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

#2 2012-07-01 08:58:37

Re: Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

#3 2012-07-01 10:53:26

Re: Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

#4 2012-07-01 18:02:14

Re: Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

#5 2012-07-01 18:10:52

Re: Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

#6 2012-07-01 19:22:42

Re: Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

#7 2012-07-03 01:40:24

Re: Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

#8 2012-07-03 17:59:08

Re: Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

#9 2012-07-11 08:05:23

Re: Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

#10 2012-07-11 12:15:16

Re: Can somebody help me identify this hard drive click?

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