Beautiful Sounds of a Failing Hard Drive

[brent0saurus]

I've been worried that my newly installed HD is messed up because it makes the occasional click like sound every 30 seconds or so, so i tried to find examples of bad hard drive sounds and found a decent library!!

Luckily my HD sounds nothing like any of these. It seems like it need to be a consistent sound, like a rhythm, not the occasional noise.


Anyway, I figured i'd share this library of sounds with everyone.

Bad Hard Drive Sounds

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Nothing to worry about. My Seagate external makes little clicks, but that's only when I'm watching a movie file that's on the drive. Other times, it's quiet and makes the occasional click (like once every few days, etc).

 

[brent0saurus]

Nothing to worry about. My Seagate external makes little clicks, but that's only when I'm watching a movie file that's on the drive. Other times, it's quiet and makes the occasional click (like once every few days, etc).

my drive makes clicks much more often than that. like i said, every 30 seconds or minute or so... so it still makes me a little nervous since the drive that came with my pb didn't do that but hopefully you're right and it's nothing....

 

[PowerBookRelic]

My PBG4 sounded like head damage 4 before the HDD went. I didn't really know what the sound meant, just that it wasn't good. So, I was smart and backed everything up Could yours be clicking because it is paging information to your HDD, is your RAM fully useD?

 

[brop52]

Nothing to worry about. It probably sounds like a little ping every 20-60 seconds. It is aggressive power management to park the drive heads to save energy and battery life. It is controllable with hdapm. Though obviously long term your drive won't last quite as long. Mine does the same thing but I've chosen not to "fix" it. (Make sure you have a good manufacturer warranty and back up. Or just get a good deal on the drive now and in years down the road buy a faster and better drive). By the point the drive will fail SSDs will be much cheaper and probably mainstream.

 

[brent0saurus]

Nothing to worry about. It probably sounds like a little ping every 20-60 seconds. It is aggressive power management to park the drive heads to save energy and battery life. It is controllable with hdapm. Though obviously long term your drive won't last quite as long. Mine does the same thing but I've chosen not to "fix" it. (Make sure you have a good manufacturer warranty and back up. Or just get a good deal on the drive now and in years down the road buy a faster and better drive). By the point the drive will fail SSDs will be much cheaper and probably mainstream.

that's what i'm confused about. why would parking the head very often reduce the life of the HD? everyone has been saying that but it seems like the intent of it is to extend the HD's life.
also, is hdapm dangerous? i'm very curious about it and it says it could extend your battery life, but again, i thought parking the heads would make your battery last longer, and it seems like hdapm is meant to NOT do that...

SO CONFUSED! hopefully someone can clear this up for me

 

[brop52]

It reduces battery life (probably insignificant). It reduces the life of the HDD because each click puts it closer to its eventual end of the lifespan. The HDD can only take so many clicks. This is called the load cycle count.

 

[davidwarren]

It reduces battery life (probably insignificant). It reduces the life of the HDD because each click puts it closer to its eventual end of the lifespan. The HDD can only take so many clicks. This is called the load cycle count.

what? I thought the 'click' was the sound of the heads stopping against the bumper or whatever stops the heads....

 

[brent0saurus]

i just restarted and the sound i hear happened a few times while starting up. so maybe it's not the heads parking? why would this happen during start up??