Hard drive activity noise

[jonnyfriendly]

My Imac has developed a constant low level clicking /crunching noise, similar to noise made by hard drive when writing to or accessing files. Is this a sign of an ageing or failing hard drive or possible to do with memory. ( I have 24 gb Ram and 1 TB internal HD).

Would it be worth doing a Apple Hardware test to see if anything shows up ? I assume such a test won't damage the computer.

Apart from an occasional screen flicker the mac is working fine (it's just irritating)

Any comments gratefully received

Thanks in advance

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Use SmartReporter to see how the hard drive is operating. Does not sound good and have every thing backed up.

It has a demo offer but for ten bucks it is a vital app:-

Mac SMARTReporter - protect your data with disk failure prediction

mac app to monitor hard disk drive health

www.corecode.io

 

[kohlson]

Back it up! (But of course, you've already done that, right?)

 

[jonnyfriendly]

Thanks
Yes have backed up and will have a look at SmartReporter. Am i right in assuming that Apple hardware test is not particular good at determining hard drive issues?