[SOLVED] HDD Makes weird noise (not ticking)

[Royvds]

I've got a WD Red Plus 2TB in my PC, which is making a strange noise frequent and irregularly. Though, only when it is actually doing something (it's a second harddrive). E.g. when I'm just playing games off my SSD I won't hear it at all. Only when writing or reading files.
However, it's not your usual ticking noise. I've asked some people that I know but I cannot find out what could be causing it and whether it is the Hard Drive doing something odd or that it might be my PC doing weird stuff (perhaps cutting power to the HDD for some reason?). CrystalDiskInfo says it is all good, and the drive works just fine. Even when I hear the noise nothing really happens on the pc. Windows event log also shows nothing peculiar. The drive is about one and a half year old now.

The noise sounds like this: https://voca.ro/1hWjSLvfZCv9

Anyone got a clue to what could be the cause of this noise?

 

[edave91]

Hi, can you record an audio during the hdd start up?

 

[Royvds]

Hi, can you record an audio during the hdd start up?

Here is a startup of my pc (microphone direct infront of HDD)
https://vocaroo.com/14Alz48sbNFF

Just to be clear for the first recording, I'm talking about the little beep that you hear about midway, the other noise is actually something you don't hear normally. It is just tiny noises my microphone picked up because I had the gain all the way open and it was right in front of the drive. In the startup I don't hear the beep at all for example.

 

[edave91]

The startup seems normal.

This below is what I found online about the beep

What Happens When Your Hard Drive Beeps
Hard drive beeps aren’t an intentional feature built in by the manufacturer, like BIOS beep codes are. And so there aren’t any distinct “hard drive beep codes” that can clue you in on hard drive failure. Instead, these are sounds you hear as a result of hard drive failure, just like the “Click of Death”.

When your hard drive beeps, what you are hearing comes from the spindle motor inside the drive. The spindle motor usually spins the hard disk platters inside the drive at thousands of revolutions per minute. If something happens to impede the motor’s movement, you get those beeps you hear. The beeps are the result of the spindle motor trying (and failing) to spin the platters.

Could means that the hdd have a spindle motor malfunction, but you should notice that while using it. Did you try to check if the write/read speed drops during these operations?
For me it's more about a power / data problem, try to check or change the sata cable. Even the PSU can give some problem, but rarely.

 

[Royvds]

After testing things for ages (and contacting WD support, but they weren't helpful) it seemed to have been some kind of weird software issue. I recently did a complete clean install (actually switched from windows 10 to Fedora 37) and I haven't heard the drive make that noise again. I have no clue how this works, but I suppose it is something power-management related, since I've had issues with randomly disconnecting USB ports for ages and that also seems to have been resolved now.