Hitachi HDD making weird sound

[QueBert]

It's a semi new 1TB drive. I pulled it out of an external Toshiba HDD case with a bad PSU. It's worked for a month or so. Yesterday though it started to make a random noise. It's not really a click of death but it's definitely not something it was doing before. Happens only a couple times an hour, maybe 4 and never more than once at a time. I know I read about some of the older Hitachi drives making a weird chirping sound from time to time. But this is closer to a click than a chirp. I've had drives with heads and they were always much louder when they clicked. Anyone here ever RMA'ed a drive to them? Advisor said the drive was fine (of course) and SMART isn't reporting any problems. But I'm guessing it's a head problem and the clicking like sound will get worse and worse until the drive dies. My RMA question is, since the drive was originally in an external case is it still RMA'able? I tried to call Toshiba to ask but all I got was a recording saying leave a message and they'll call me back. I threw the case out but I'm hoping the HDD will still be RMA'able.

 

[Russwinters]

Run some tests with HDDScan and watch the "map view"

to watch the map view once you start a test double click it then select the map tab.


make sure the drive is not your OS drive when you are testing it or it can produce false results.

a new 1TB drive shouldnt have any sectors that take longer then 10ms to read, really 5ms, but im being generous.


It could be the drive attempt to perform recalibration for some reason, could thermal recalibration, self testing, etc.

Drives perform all kinds of maintenance and things that we are never aware is going on. This maintenance requires the heads to move to different locations of the disk, and it will try to do so quickly so it doesn't interrupt performance.

 

[QueBert]

Thanks for the info, it's not an OS drive so I'm good there.

 

[Modelworks]

Is it running in an environment that is warmer than before ?
I use Hitachi drives and they do a thermal calibration every so often that some not familiar with it think is drive problems.

 

[QueBert]

Is it running in an environment that is warmer than before ?
I use Hitachi drives and they do a thermal calibration every so often that some not familiar with it think is drive problems.

It has been a bit warmer lately, but it was doing it at night. I plugged the HD back in and listened closely. With my panels off it's a bit louder and definitely reminds me of a clide of death, just one at a time and on a random basic. I should try to record it and maybe you could listen and tell me. If this is the normal thermal calibration sound Hitachi needs to change it because it had me instantly worried.