Question Is this 12TB disk failing? HDDScan results.

Hoggorm

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Jul 30, 2012
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Hello,

A few months ago, I bought two 12TB disks to complement the two 8TB disks I already had in my DS920+

I immediately noticed that at least one of the new disks made a very high pitch sound from time to time. This was not correlated with disk beeing active meaning the NAS was not necessarily sending or receiving data when this noise appeared.

I did a HDDScan 4.1 Verify test of the disk and it came up with the following result:

HDDScan result

I am not able to interpret the result fully. I do see there are no Bad sectors (?) but there are one with more than 500ms read time?

During a SMART test of both 12TB disks I did a small 10 sec video and you can hear a distinct difference in the noise created by the two disks.

Now what I'm wondering is if this is normal, or should I seek a replacement for the disk?

Please see the videos below:

Disk 1 noise

Disk 2 noise
 
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Lutfij

Titan
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Image URL doesn't work for, shows as an error on DropBox's end. As for the noise, that cricket'y noise is a sign that the drive might be on it's way out. I'd backup the contents of the drive that's exhibiting the noise and then RMA the drive if you're under warranty period.
 
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The mentioned SMART report matters. The sound itself though is just the head disk assembly (HDA) moving back and forth as it mechanically seeks different cylinders. The sound is what happens normally for mechanical drives, but you hear it more on some models than others (e.g., helium filled models tend to make this more noticeable than nitrogen filled, and faster seek time models tend to be louder than slower seek time models).
 

Hoggorm

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As for the noise, that cricket'y noise is a sign that the drive might be on it's way out. I'd backup the contents of the drive that's exhibiting the noise and then RMA the drive if you're under warranty period.
The sound itself though is just the head disk assembly (HDA) moving back and forth as it mechanically seeks different cylinders. The sound is what happens normally for mechanical drives, but you hear it more on some models than others (e.g., helium filled models tend to make this more noticeable than nitrogen filled, and faster seek time models tend to be louder than slower seek time models).
I see Lutfij thinks the sound is crickety and I would agree. I'm curious if you watched both videos to compare them? Both disks are 12TB WD Red. Same model number. Disk 1 sounds fine to me, disk 2 certainly do not. This is what WD considers abnormal sounds:

Abnormal drive sounds during during normal operations are (from this website: https://support-en.wd.com/app/answe...Dv8Q~ViNGnAe~yJj1jUqDy75Mv9o~zj~PP_h#subject4)
Beeping
Clanking
Clicking
Clunking
Chirping
Grinding
Humming
Vibration

This disk 2 has a very different sound than disk 1.

For comparison: Here are the HDDScan reports of a WD Red 8TB disk, 12TB Disk 1 and 12TB Disk 2. I do not know what the blue bar tells me but it sure stands out on Disk 2... And please remember that it is exactly the same as disk 1.

WD 8TB Disk

WD 12TB Disk 1

WD 12TB Disk 2 (The one making the vibration and what I would call a grinding, chirping, crickety noise (maybe even clanking or clicking as well?)
 
... I'm curious if you watched both videos to compare them? ...

Although I did compare both, I thought the "other" sound is from fans. If that is actually coming from the drive, then I'd say back it up as fast as you can. It's hard to make good recordings of individual components if the computer itself has fans. I do think that the drive seeking sound follows the search of the HDA movement.
 
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USAFRet

Titan
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Bottom line:
Drives making noise can be normal. Or bad.
Drives making no noise can be normal. Or bad.
Drives making new noise is rarely a good thing.

Always always always keep a good backup, and be prepared for any storage device to die at any moment.
Do NOT rely on noise, or software, or anything else to protect your data.
 
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Hoggorm

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Although I did compare both, I thought the "other" sound is from fans. If that is actually coming from the drive, then I'd say back it up as fast as you can.

Yes the clicking sound is actually coming from the drive... I've contacted WD support and hopefully they will approve my request for RMA.

Always always always keep a good backup, and be prepared for any storage device to die at any moment.
Do NOT rely on noise, or software, or anything else to protect your data.

Yes. This disk is one of four in a RAID system, so one disk can fail and all data on the NAS will still be available. Should a 2nd disk fail I luckily do backups both to external HDDs that I keep in house, and also one backup session four times a day that goes to another NAS at my parents house.

I am not too concerned, but have ordered a new drive that will arrive Monday evening. It will replace this one. As mentioned I also hope WD will approve my request for a RMA on this specific drive as I do not trust it will last long...
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Yes. This disk is one of four in a RAID system, so one disk can fail and all data on the NAS will still be available. Should a 2nd disk fail I luckily do backups both to external HDDs that I keep in house, and also one backup session four times a day that goes to another NAS at my parents house.

I am not too concerned, but have ordered a new drive that will arrive Monday evening. It will replace this one. As mentioned I also hope WD will approve my request for a RMA on this specific drive as I do not trust it will last long...
OK, good.

I recently had a 16TB Toshiba in my NAS go from apparently great to 15,000+ bad sectors in under a week.
No noises or anything, just .... poof.
Tosh replaced it, but there were very very slow on that.