frequent loud hard drive clicking! soon to be dead?

[thejanglytemblor]

i just got a hard drive from a U.S recycling company off ebay, and it said they thoroughly test and wipe each drive before they ship them. they also said "if it fails the test, we shred them." i have been using my laptops hdd and i mounted it to the bottom of the case. (no official mounting brackets.) and i installed ubuntu just tonight. (dont even think about dissing me on that!) i finally got it booted up for the first time on this hdd, but its clicking somewhat loudly. i looked up some click of death videos, but they described an infrequent loud click. where this is a 10+ ticks per second issue. the drive works fine, and has no apparent issues, ( besides the clicking.) but i just need to make sure its okay, and that its just from old age and wear. i plan to upgrade in about 6 months, and i need it to last that long.
my current specs:
AMD Athlon X4 750K OC'd to 4.62ghz, stock cooler.
4GB single stick ddr3 1600.
zotac geforce gt 620
<< seagate barracuda 7200rpm 250GB hdd >>
400w cooler master psu

i really appreciate any help, except for if you're just trying to set the world record link posting count!

 

[memadmax]

Bad news dude: That hard drive is on it's last legs. Get rid of it.

 

[thejanglytemblor]

i just got the drive though, and it passed the thorough stress tests that the company put on it, this is the first time its been used since that. is it normal for some drives to click? its not as loud as the click of death.

 

[Jake Lloyd]

There's no real "if it does this exact thing it's going to die" sound. If it makes any sort of sound that's not normal then there's something wrong mechanically. If something is wrong mechanically then I'd consider it a faulty drive and wouldn't store anything important on it. Think of it this way, would you put that drive in a raid 0, knowing that if it failed then everything you have on your computer would be gone? If you answered no then bail on the drive and get something else.

 

[thejanglytemblor]

ok, so i know it will fail... at some point. but i never have any important stuff on my pc's anyway. all the stuff i have i can just redownload. how long until it actually fails though? i can always switch back to my lappy's hdd.

 

[FALC0N]

Hard to tell. Had drives click for months before they kicked the bucket.