Third MacBook Pro in 10 days - is now making strange noises in the HDD...

[macgirl89]

Honestly, I don't understand how that noise can be "annoying" or the cause of concern because you really have to be in an almost-silent room to hear it. Also, if you take it to the Apple Store, it's very likely that the noise won't happen while you're there because it doesn't happen that often (at least on mine).

I think you should put your worries to rest, OP. This seems to be a quite common occurrence. If your hard drive starts making a crunching sound, then be worried.

 

[applemax]

Honestly, I don't understand how that noise can be "annoying" or the cause of concern because you really have to be in an almost-silent room to hear it. Also, if you take it to the Apple Store, it's very likely that the noise won't happen while you're there because it doesn't happen that often (at least on mine).

I think you should put your worries to rest, OP. This seems to be a quite common occurrence. If your hard drive starts making a crunching sound, then be worried.

You'd be surprised, I can hear it in practically any environment - it's louder than it is on the audio clip I attached.

 

[macgirl89]

You'd be surprised, I can hear it in practically any environment - it's louder than it is on the audio clip I attached.

Is it louder than the noise that happens on start-up? (Now that is a noise that I find a bit annoying.)

 

[jon08]

You'd be surprised, I can hear it in practically any environment - it's louder than it is on the audio clip I attached.

Have you tried "hdapm" as I suggested? It has eliminated all HDD clicking for me and ever since, working in a quiet environment is no longer painful!

 

[applemax]

Is it louder than the noise that happens on start-up? (Now that is a noise that I find a bit annoying.)

Yeah, it's at 0:15 in the audio clip in the first post.

 

[applemax]

Have you tried "hdapm" as I suggested? It has eliminated all HDD clicking for me and ever since, working in a quiet environment is no longer painful!

Nah, I'm going to the store tomorrow to ask for their advice.

 

[Stridder44]

You shouldn't have to settle for lack of QC. Go back and politely ask again.

Totally agree. How much did you pay for your MacBook Pro again OP? Yeah, exactly. You shouldn't have to settle for "mostly works." What's the worst that can happen, they turn you down and say no?

That said, it really doesn't sound like any kind of problem, and more like just the HDD heads moving around (like drtech pointed out). I hear it all the time on mine as well.

 

[poena]

My mbp has that same exact click. It happens every 10 seconds when computer is idling. It might very well be the heads parking but it's definitely annoying as the previous hard drive was dead silent. I can hear it over normal background noise easily.

 

[WotanAgain]

If there are no SMART errors, the drive is perfectly fine. Different drives from different manufacturers behave differently. Perhaps the other two laptops had Samsung drives and this one has a Toshiba drive. Who knows. Again, if there are no SMART errors, the drive is perfectly healthy and fine.

 

[applemax]

If there are no SMART errors, the drive is perfectly fine. Different drives from different manufacturers behave differently. Perhaps the other two laptops had Samsung drives and this one has a Toshiba drive. Who knows. Again, if there are no SMART errors, the drive is perfectly healthy and fine.

Mine's a Fujitsu

 

[shoulin333]

Thanks for your help - can you decipher this data? It doesn't look good to me...

Value = Current Reading

Worst = The worst reading ever recorded for your HDD

Threshold = Any VALUE below this is bad


Everything looks good from your pic. One thing to remember if you have never had a segate or Fujitsu hard drive is that they tend to be louder than WD or Hitachi.

 

[applemax]

Is there any identifier of the hard drive type on the outside of the box?

 

[drtech]

Is there any identifier of the hard drive type on the outside of the box?

No. Apple will typically use runs of drives, so it is very likely you would receive the same brand of hard drive in two Macs manufactured around the same time (months, and sometimes a year or more). We typically see Toshibas, Seagates and Hitachis coming out of Macs.

There were some issues with the Seagate Momentus 5400.2 drives in some MacBooks (Google will reveal a BUNCH of posts). After that settled down, we stopped seeing Seagates in Macs for a while. Nobody knows (except Apple of course) if they pulled the plug on Seagate or simply switched to another manufacturer that gave them a better deal.

That being said, ALL hard drive models and hard drive manufacturers will have some drives fail. That is the nature of the equipment (and anything manmade for that matter). The drive manufacturers don't share the exact failure rate, but given the tremendous number of drives made, it is small.

The question I get most often is "what type of hard drive do you use?" Answer: it depends (cop-out, I know). What *I* do is BACKUP religiously. That's always your best bet. We also use true RAIDs for our important stuff.

You can see what type of drive is in your Mac in System Profiler. Start by clicking the Apple menu, selecting "About this Mac", then clicking the "More Info" button. Select the "Serial-ATA" bus on the left (or "ATA" on older Macs..... or "Parallel SCSI" on ancient Macs).

I have swapped my drive a couple of times so it's not OEM.

Jeff

@spinnerlys - Thanks. I appreciate it... I could wax poetic about the inner workings of hard drives for hours, but then again, that doesn't necessarily make one the life of the party!

 

[applemax]

No. Apple will typically use runs of drives, so it is very likely you would receive the same brand of hard drive in two Macs manufactured around the same time (months, and sometimes a year or more). We typically see Toshibas, Seagates and Hitachis coming out of Macs.

There were some issues with the Seagate Momentus 5400.2 drives in some MacBooks (Google will reveal a BUNCH of posts). After that settled down, we stopped seeing Seagates in Macs for a while. Nobody knows (except Apple of course) if they pulled the plug on Seagate or simply switched to another manufacturer that gave them a better deal.

That being said, ALL hard drive models and hard drive manufacturers will have some drives fail. That is the nature of the equipment (and anything manmade for that matter). The drive manufacturers don't share the exact failure rate, but given the tremendous number of drives made, it is small.

The question I get most often is "what type of hard drive do you use?" Answer: it depends (cop-out, I know). What *I* do is BACKUP religiously. That's always your best bet. We also use true RAIDs for our important stuff.

You can see what type of drive is in your Mac in System Profiler. Start by clicking the Apple menu, selecting "About this Mac", then clicking the "More Info" button. Select the "Serial-ATA" bus on the left (or "ATA" on older Macs..... or "Parallel SCSI" on ancient Macs).

I have swapped my drive a couple of times so it's not OEM.

Jeff

@spinnerlys - Thanks. I appreciate it... I could wax poetic about the inner workings of hard drives for hours, but then again, that doesn't necessarily make one the life of the party!

Here's a shot of mine, attached. Thanks for your help everyone, I'm taking it to the Genius Bar tomorrow.

 

[twoblacklabs]

Sorry but I can't help myself. IMHO, going to the Genius Bar and expecting them to actually hear a subtle clicking, among the chatter in an Apple Store is a dream. The acoustics in the retail stores is horrible. Ironically, I noticed it the first time I was in one. There is simply nothing (other than the "Genius") to absorb any sound. I really had a difficult time focusing on what was being said, much less a soft clicking sound.

 

[applemax]

Here's an update for everyone - just got back from the Apple Store. They replaced it for a new one, without question - extremely helpful. The replacement has a Toshiba HDD instead of Fujitsu and is whisper quiet...

Oh yes, and there's no warped screen...

 

[PolySciSurfer]

OP, are you buying your Macs at an official Apple store?

 

[Mighuel]

The sound you're hearing is HDD parking it's head(s) when idling. OS X and other UNIX based systems have too aggressive HDD power management and it's causing HDDs to park almost constantly. As someone here suggested hdapm eliminates this problem. Mobile hard disks are designed to endure more load cycles than desktop disks but OS X definitely parks heads way too often essentially shortening HDD life span. Mobile hard disks can usually take over 600,000 load cycles, some disks have been witnessed to take over one million but still less load cycles the better.

 

[jon08]

The sound you're hearing is HDD parking it's head(s) when idling. OS X and other UNIX based systems have too aggressive HDD power management and it's causing HDDs to park almost constantly. As someone here suggested hdapm eliminates this problem. Mobile hard disks are designed to endure more load cycles than desktop disks but OS X definitely parks heads way too often essentially shortening HDD life span. Mobile hard disks can usually take over 600,000 load cycles, some disks have been witnessed to take over one million but still less load cycles the better.

When I replaced my stock MBP HDD with Scorpio Blue 500 GB it kept parking head every 10-30 secs and within a week it accumulated almost 4000 load cycles! I got uneasy about that so I installed "hdapm" and ever since, I get 1 or 2 load cycles PER WEEK, haha. Plus all the clicks got eliminated, which is neat.

 

[skfarkowsky]

My HDD clicks and when it starts system slows down for several second. I cannot watch movies or listen to music. I dont understand instructions on my mac fixes blog regarding hdapm....

 

[6-0 Prolene]

You might have your "put your hard drive to sleep" setting on or something ridiculous. Just disable HD sleep and the noise will probably be less frequent.

 

[ARF900]

If your paying $1000+ for something you shouldnt have any problems, take it back and politely explain the problem and see what they say. Or you can call if you dont want to bring it in.

 

[Macvy Ricky]

Two things :

1. Is it a fujitsu hard disk? Then it makes noises. NOthing wrong with it. It just does.

2. If not, then turn off the motion sensor for the hard disk. Some hard disks shipped with MBPs have motion sensors built into them already and they conflict.