Is this the HD "click of death?"

[GanChan]

Every now and then one of my hard drives will decide to go click-happy. I have a Mac Mini attached to a Western Digital 80-gig external drive, both the same age (2 years old). I can't actually tell which one of them is doing the clicking at any given time -- perhaps both of them -- but it's a rhythmic "click, click, click" about once per second. It goes for a while until I perform some operation that makes it go silent again. It may stay silent for days, then it'll have another episode of clicking again.

In disk Utility, the hard drive name is printed in black, not red, so the utility thinks it's still OK. S.M.A.R.T. status is "verified."

Normal disk activity or the beginning of the end? I've been backing up to a third drive, my iBook, so it's not a disaster, but maybe I could use it as an excuse to shop for a new computer....

 

[fairnymph]

I just got a new HD (Samsung Spinpoint 500GB) and it's been doing that since day one. I've had it a little over a week. No other problems with it and it's otherwise very quiet.

Except mine definitely has the clicking episodes more like a few times a day.

 

[kuebby]

I'm pretty sure that hard drive clicking is not a good sign, especially if it's a chronic problem. As far as I can remember I've never had a hard drive do any serious clicking but the one that died on me I can't remember.

 

[yadmonkey]

It depends on the hard drive. Clicking can be a part of the norm when drive heads fire up. The older IBM travelstars were very clicky.

That said, I suggest using a utility like Tech Tool to do a surface scan to be sure it's OK.