I have a Seagate Barracuda about 6-8 months old that has had an occasional clicking (not loud but audible) since it was installed (12-14/7 usage). Seagates own tool and chkdsk in Windows or Safe Mode show no problem and labor intensive programs make no difference and I thought nothing of it but I read it may be a sign of impending failure. Is there a problem or might this just be a quirk of this HDD, the reason I ask is that I use True Image which sometimes freezes during a restore making Windows unbootable (subsequent restores fix this) which I understand may be HDD related but another computer also freezes only in ATI (not during restores) so I took that to be ATI? Thankyou
I would say there's nothing to worry about, it's only every now and then Though, i still have an old WD 40GB HDD (6 Years) that makes noise when under lots of work (Defragging etc.), and it have never failed me once
Yeah, I would have thought the clicking would worsen over time if something was going on but I will check with their support just in case, thanks.
Hmmmmmm...a friend earlier was just ranting about Seagate's new RMA scheme(warranty returns)..Anyway, (IMHO and based on experience) it would not hurt if you still test the drive using 3rd party dianostic tools available out there. I had 3 Seagate IDE hdd's and 1 SATA 2 hdd that SeaTools showed to be okay(passed) and later had to be replaced through RMA. The remanufactured ones also failed close to a year(SATA year+). Ditched it and bought Western Digital drive ever since. As of now no issues whatsoever. Have also seen some member posts before that have mentioned Seagate drives. Ideas and links here may be of interest to you: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=287914 https://www.wilderssecurity.com/archive/index.php/t-261924.html http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php A couple of years ago there were problems with the Barracuda 7200 series drives: www.obsessable.com/.../seagate-offers-solution-to-7200-11-hard-drive-failure-epidemic/ - Oh and by the way, the new Return Material A....(yikes forgot what "A" means...lol) scheme, you now have to pay for the shipment if you want to avail of the warranty via the RMA unlike before if it's still under warranty no payment whatsoever. Seagate shoulders all shipping costs to and from your location. (IMHO a way of discouraging users to not avail of the warranty and just buy a new one).
All harddrives make clicking sounds. But they should not get louder and louder over time. Some are louder than others and some computer cases do a pretty good job of isolating and dampening sounds from within so you don't hear them at all. The clicks are typically the read/write head's arm hitting the end-stops. If it is louder than it used to be, or gets louder, then you do have reason for concern for that means the mechanical alignment of the arm is coming out of alignment. I would keep running Seatools periodically. There are other diagnostics out there but Seagate won't argue with you if you report that Seatools is finding errors. Do make sure you also periodically run a backup of any data you don't want to lose. And I agree with Cudni - contact their tech support to get on record that this is happening.
Definitely has not worsened over time despite heavy usage over 6-8 months since it was new. I do make regular backups, couldn't function without some type of backup program, don't know how anyone does. I'll bet ATI has saved me, over the years, 30x what it cost and there are plenty of other programs that do the same. It was only the freezing of True Image and not sure that isn't a bug in 2011.
