HDD making weird noises

[mkdrive2]

I just bought a WD Red 8TB and noticed that it sometimes makes strange noises, like so: https://vocaroo.com/i/s1US5DVuwemY

In the file above, the HDD does the sound three times. It is a little different than the usual clicking sound that I know from pretty much all HDDs (which my WD Red does, too).

Whenever the HDD makes this noise e.g. while writing something I think the writing speed slows down a little bit.

Is this normal?

 

[seagate_surfer]

mkdrive2, bassed on the sound, looks like the drive has gone South. Best to get in touch with the drives support line.

 

[mkdrive2]

Thank you. I contacted the WD support, and they also said I should return the drive. After that I wanted to hear my drive do the same sound one time again, so I made a random access read test. After that I tried moving some important files from this drive to another to prepare for returning the WD drive, and it made this sound (https://vocaroo.com/i/s1utecoAufep) for a long time, with transfer rates of about 10 MB / second. Fortunately the WD drive stopped making that sound at some point, and I am now successfully moving the remaining files to another drive at about 120 MB/s. But still, I am now convinced, too, that the drive is probably toast... 🙁

 

[seagate_surfer]

Happy to hear, that you were able to move the important files and safe them elsewhere.