Discussion Brand new mechanical hard rives makes clicking sounds

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TheFabled

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May 12, 2021
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You know that sound HDD's make when they are close to failing? That exact same sound is happening to a lot of brand new hard drives of large size.

I recently bought a Toshiba X300 10TB drive, and mounted it inside my define 7, but the disk started making those clicking noises like it was failing, it was quite loud as well. So i thought the disk actually was about to fail, so i returned it and bought another disk, a HGST Ultrastar 10TB, and it happened with this disk as well, exactly the same.

I tried a lot of different ways to mount the drive. Upside down, on it's side, and so on. Nothing helped. I sent an email to fractal design and told them about this, so they sent me a free mounting bracket so i could attach the HDD directly to the chassis, because we suspected it could be that the HDD was too loose.

But this only elevated the clicking. I could not find any way to mount these drives inside my cabinet without the disks making a lot of noise. So i bought an external USB cabinet, and tried that. And voila, all clicking was gone. But i can feel the drives through my bench, like heavy mechanic drumming, like there is some serious force going on inside those drives.

Anyone else here noticed this? And how did you manage to fix it?

Now i also bought a HGST 18TB, and i have no external cabinet that can handle it, so i have to have it inside my cabinet. Right now i have no idea where to begin, i have been thinking about trying to make a hanging bridge out of cotton string or something, and see if having it just dangling about will solve it. Since it doesn't click inside those external cabinets, those are able to make small movements when the disk is working, it's not countering the HDD.

I don't know if this is what's actually making the disks silent externally, but they sure are not silent internally. But i would really like them to be. It feels mounting the drives to some kind of soft rubber should fix the problem. Something that let's the drives move ever so slightly when they access files. I have no idea, i need to test some things. But maybe someone else here has experienced this and have some answers.

Specs of one of the setups where this happened.
I7-12700K
Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X
RTX 3070
Cooler Master 1250w PSU
4 internal drives total, including the ones clicking. None of the other drives, those that i have had for a long time, does. And they are 3 and 4 TB disks.
 
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Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU and other installed disk drives.

= = = =

Also, regarding "You know that sound HDD's make when they are close to failing? That exact same sound is happening to a lot of brand new hard drives of large size." [My underline.]

Reference link(s)?

= = = =

My thought is power.

Internally, the PSU may not be able to satisfy the drive's power requirements.

Is the external USB cabinent independently powered?
 
I have 5 HDDs in a Define 5 which are the same. I'm not sure what the mounting mechanism in the Define 7 is, but it's certainly to blame in the case of the 5. It basically resonates through the chassis, but once I figured out the drives were fine I just left it because I didn't feel like dealing with it as it doesn't happen often and haven't gotten around to fixing it.
 
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Ralston18 said:
Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU and other installed disk drives.

= = = =

Also, regarding "You know that sound HDD's make when they are close to failing? That exact same sound is happening to a lot of brand new hard drives of large size." [My underline.]

Reference link(s)?

= = = =

My thought is power.

Internally, the PSU may not be able to satisfy the drive's power requirements.

Is the external USB cabinent independently powered?
Click to expand...

I am absolutely sure it's not power, and i have tested this in two define 7 cabinets with exact same result, and i have different setups in both. This is either a problem with the cabinet itself, or new hdd's that are large in size are prone to click, either because they have more moving parts, or are spinning faster, or something like that.

Power was something that was suspected early on, so i ran the disks on it's own power supply just to make sure.
 
thestryker said:
I have 5 HDDs in a Define 5 which are the same. I'm not sure what the mounting mechanism in the Define 7 is, but it's certainly. to blame in the case of the 5. It basically resonates through the chassis, but once I figured out the drives were fine I just left it because I didn't feel like dealing with it as it doesn't happen often and haven't gotten around to fixing it.
Click to expand...

Interesting. what sizes are those drives?
 
thestryker said:
They're all 18TB WD Red Pro
Click to expand...

yeah so really large drives. Yeah you see i don't get any of that clicking stuff on my 3-4TB drives, it only seem to happen on 8TB and up.

But yeah as i mentioned, those external cabinets are on my desk. And every time the disk is accessed, i can feel it's force through the table. They are brutal. I had to buy industry grade dampening mats to have underneath just so my table wouldn't vibrate. I work with sound production, so any noise is bad here. But yeah, i can feel them vibrate with quite some force.

And this of course is what i believe is the cause.
 
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TheFabled said:
yeah so really large drives. Yeah you see i don't get any of that clicking stuff on my 3-4TB drives, it only seem to happen on 8TB and up.

But yeah as i mentioned, those external cabinets are on my desk. And every time the disk is accessed, i can feel it's force through the table. They are brutal. I had to buy industry grade dampening mats to have underneath just so my table wouldn't vibrate. I work with sound production, so any noise is bad here. But yeah, i can feel them vibrate with quite some force.

And this of course is what i believe is the cause.
Click to expand...
Pretty much, and in the case of the Define 5 I'm not sure I can resolve it while using the mounts that come with the case because they're all metal which is where it comes from. It's less bad if I unscrew it from the chassis itself, but I very much don't want them moving around in the case.
 
Ralston18 said:
FYI:

https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/what-causes-hard-drive-clicking/#:~:text=When the actuator is in,causing your hard drive noise.

Google words/phrases etc. such as "why do HDD's click".

Then revise the search criteria as you deem applicable to the situation and problems that are occurring.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Yes i did google this quite a bit. But i haven't really found out anything useful until i now met thestryker in these forums with the exact same issue.
And since he is also on large drives, and is using fractal cabinets, we are surely onto something. maybe a coincidence, quite possibly not.
 
thestryker said:
Pretty much, and in the case of the Define 5 I'm not sure I can resolve it while using the mounts that come with the case because they're all metal which is where it comes from. It's less bad if I unscrew it from the chassis itself, but I very much don't want them moving around in the case.
Click to expand...

Oh, you tried to just have them loose in the brackets and it helped?
I had them mounted with those vibration dampeners that comes with the case, those didn't do anything.

I did try something similar, i had them in the bracket without screws, but with rubber bands around it, that didn't stop the clicking. Maybe the rubber band was too tight. I don't know. Some testing will have to be done.
 
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TheFabled said:
Oh, you tried to just have them loose in the brackets and it helped?
I had them mounted with those vibration dampeners that comes with the case, those didn't do anything.
Click to expand...
The Define 5 comes with a 3 HDD cage and 5 HDD cage both of which have the rubber dampeners. The cages have plastic feet which screw into the chassis itself and undoing this is what made it slightly better. When I hooked it back up I left my hand on the case and any time I heard the noise I could feel the actuation through the case. That's when I checked each of the drives one by one and all caused the same sounds and none of them were actually clicking like a drive with a problem does.
 
What happens if all but one of the HDD's is disabled - e.g., their respective power disconnected?

Does that single, remaining HDD continue to click? Can the actuator be felt?

If not, then try two HDD's, then three, and so forth. When, does the clicking return?
 
thestryker said:
The Define 5 comes with a 3 HDD cage and 5 HDD cage both of which have the rubber dampeners. The cages have plastic feet which screw into the chassis itself and undoing this is what made it slightly better. When I hooked it back up I left my hand on the case and any time I heard the noise I could feel the actuation through the case. That's when I checked each of the drives one by one and all caused the same sounds and none of them were actually clicking like a drive with a problem does.
Click to expand...

Ok. Thanks. Yeah whan i talked to Fractal Design about this, they had no clue. Other than they suspected that bigger drives had more momentum, and that this is causing it. And what i have discovered, just by having the drives in those external cabinets which are just standing on the table, all those noises are gone. And loosing that one screw in your case, makes sense, it makes the entire mount more loose, and free to make tiny movements.
 
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Ralston18 said:
What happens if all but one of the HDD's is disabled - e.g., their respective power disconnected?

Does that single, remaining HDD continue to click? Can the actuator be felt?

If not, then try two HDD's, then three, and so forth. When, does the clicking return?
Click to expand...

The clicking only stops if a drive larger than 8TB is not mounted solid inside the cabinet. I haven't actually tested to have it just laying loose on the bottom for example, with nothing attached to it except the power and sata cable. I need to test that now i recon, just to see if that helps. Not able to do that until tomorrow though.

When i gave the HDD's their own PSU for testing, i tested all kinds of variations. Nothing changed.
Talking to thestryker it seems like it is the mounting bracket inside the fractal cases that causes it, but it only applies to large drives, and for all i know this can happen to other cases as well. Those drives does without a doubt have some serious vibrations in them.
 
Fair enough.

I have no vested interest in the issue being power related or not. Only that a power related problem can be either proven or eliminated.

Appears that power issues may be moot and thus eliminated.

Post a listing of all drives that are installed plus their respective capacities. Product Numbers?

Noted Toshiba and HGST - 10 GB and 18 GB, etc..

This:

"The clicking only stops if a drive larger than 8TB is not mounted solid inside the cabinet."

Late thought: is some RAID configuration being used?
 
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