Seagate 500GB drive making odd thudding noise

[Kwad Guy]

I have a Seagate 500GB ST350064 hard drive in an external USB enclosure. Although the drive appears to be working properly, it has started making a relatively frequent "thud" noise. Now, I've experienced the _click_ of death with drives that are starting to fail, but never a _thud_ of death 🙂

I ran a surface scan through the Seagate online (interactive) utility, which said the drive is OK. But I still don't like that thud noise.

Is the thud noise I'm hearing indicative of drive failure for this drive?

I wasn't able to run the real SeaTools utility since the drive is in the external enclosure. I guess I can break down and put it into a PC to run SeaTools for real, if that might help.

 

[Nocturnal]

I have heard of the 7200.10 drives making weird noises. Is this drive one of the 7200.10 drives or is it the 7200.9? I would try to run Hitachi's Diagnostic tool on the drive. Connect it as a slave into a spare system and run it.

 

[Oyeve]

I have a 400gb 7200.10 that makes a noise different from my other 5 HDs in my case. Sounds like wood creaking or something like that. Drive passes every single test. I do have very sensitive hearing so I may just be noticing the drive mechanic differences between the drives.

 

[olmer]

Yep, my 320GB Seagate 10-series also makes strange woosh-clang noises (mild as they are), when all of my 3 WD JS-series run/boot/switch off with no noise at all. I guess it is drive?s mechanics. Is the noise occurs only when heads are parked or all the time? IBM/Hitachi has good noise library.