Hard drive making a clicking noise vs. Verified SMART status

[zinynano]

I'm using a unibody MBP 15" that I had for about 2 years. After being awakened from sleep mode, the hard drive started to "click" for about 3 mins straight (I was on XP at the time, although that's probably irrelevant). I was so convinced that my hard drive was about to die, so I backed up my data.

Then I ran a "repair disk" on disk utility to see what's up. There was something about "missing thread record" and "invalid volume file count," but eventually it was repaired... It now says the drive is fine.

So my question is, should I still expect the drive to fail on me pretty soon? I know what I heard, and it was pretty bad. It seemed like a hardware problem that can't simply be fixed by running a program. At the same time, I'm a bit puzzled by the SMART status saying the drive was verified. Is it SMART that unreliable?

 

[chatoyer]

How are your finances? I ask because, these days, with drive prices so low it is probably safest to clone that drive to a new one. Use the old one as backup. I've read bits here and there about not trusting SMART all that much, but then I've read that you most certainly can and some people have been rescued. Hard to know, really.

 

[shrakner]

If you keep good Time Machine backups, I think you'd be OK waiting. Maybe keep an eye out for good deals on hard drives though. If you make at least daily backups, then a day would be the most you would lose if your drive gets worse or dies. And, if you have AppleCare, Apple should replace your drive for free.

 

[DragonJade]

If you've had the same hard disk for two years, you're probably running out of room by now. Get a new drive - it'll give you peace of mind, greater capacity, and will run faster.