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MP 7,1 Clicking HDD sound

T

tomf

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 11, 2009
179
5
I have 3 drives in my 7,1 mac pro - SSD and 2 x HDD

I'm often getting a muffled clicking noise, not high pitched, no problems with the drive, but the sound does my head in. It does it every now and then.


Aside from replcing them with SSD's, Any ideas how to stop this? or at least dampen it down?

Thanks
Tom
 
Good shout. didnt think of that. Is there a limit to how long a usb lead can be for this? Could do with about 4-5m i reckon to get them to the back of the room.

Will having it on a usb mean i'll lose speed of accessing the drive?

Also, good idea to wrap the enclosure in something if they still make noise? Or will that hard the drive?
 
The recommend length on a regular USB 3.0 cable is about 3m. But you can go further on a good cable (Cable Matters, Monoprice). I've used good 4-5m passive USB 3.0 cables. Didn't have any issues. So, you should be fine if that's as far as you need to go. As long as these are self powered enclosures. Which they will be for 3.5" drives.

If you want to go further you'll need an Active USB 3.0 Extension cable. Quality matters a lot on this type. So, they aren't cheap. Depending on how long you go. You might need one with a power adapter.

Speed shouldn't matter for HDD. USB 3.0 is much faster than a HDD.

I would not insulate any enclosure. Maybe you can find one which is sound dampening already. Maybe if it uses a vent fan. As long as you do not obstruct any ventilation.
 
Well the drives running so i just guess no problems. Its about 6 months old. Toshiba 8tb

UPDATE - I have taken out the internal pegasus j2i caddy and swapped the two drives around - alas no noise now! touch wood.

I'm hearing a tiny bit of crunching of them but its not like it was. I'll need to work on it over the next few days and see how it goes but if that helps anyone else, it's worth looking at.
 
While I was tempted because it is Cheesegrater! I let it go and didn't install any spinning rust within 7,1 either. I kinda figured the acoustics would be sub-optimal and why bother, have Pegasus RAID via TB, and NAS.
 
Update - spoke to soon - still making noise lol
 
You wouldn't, by chance, happen to have the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" enabled in the Energy Saver control panel? Other than that I'd suggest downloading a utility to check the SMART status. Do not rely on the SMART status in the built-in System Report. I believe DriveDX has a free trial.

Is the sound new of has this been occurring since install? Some drives can be pretty "chatty" when the actuator arms are moving across the disk.

Oh, and I'm sure you're making backups in case the drive goes south.
 
Last edited:
Dayo said:
There are two types of HDD ... those that have failed and those that are about to fail.
A clicking sound on an HDD is often a symptom of imminent failure.
Click to expand...
Everything is relative. On 5,1 I ran a 4-drive RAID0 across Hitachi Deskstar HDDs, I had backups, expected an eventual blowout, and ya know what... a decade later Spinning Rust keeps spinning. Go figure.

forums.macrumors.com

4 x 4TB hard drive RAID 0

I've been running a 4-drive RAID0 in a 12-core MacPro 5,1 for about 3 years now. Zero problems, zero drive failures. I used the 3TB Hitachi Deskstars and purchased 4 more spares for when I needed them, I never have. Here's my performance on that 4-drive HDD RAID0: In theory this is...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

Having said that, a clicking sounds tends to be super-bad and your drive is saying, "hey, you backed me up right?" Crunching sounds are normal, your drive(s) are just hungry. A 7,1 case probably provides awesome acoustics! ;-)
 
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I dont think the hard disks are put to sleep when possible. The disk in question is in use most of the time anyway.

It's not a clicky sound like its going to fail, its more like you say, pretty chatty as it works away on the disk. Its been like it since day one.
Im going to back it up anyway, there's only 1tb left on it, then get a SSD, then use the SSD for my day to day stuff and leave the clicky one in there as i wont need much access to it then so it shouldnt be as chatty.

Maybe i'll get a external caddy for it if it continues.

I'll check out driveDX, thanks
 
it might be the fan clicking because of dust. I have sometimes a clicking in the Mac Pro and its because I believe dust on the fans when they ramp up different speeds as well. But only once in a while depending on the rendering or graphic task, usually the machine is quiet and is always on for like months at a time. Backing up is good though, just in case.
 
good tip, i have recently cleaned and vac'd inside but its worth looking again. Thanks
 
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