Light HDD ticking/clicking from time to time, is it normal?

[Yuki Core]

I've been digging for an answer for this like forever. I've purchased a new HDD to replace my old one which was making light occasional clicking noises, showing OK at S.M.A.R.T., but most importantly it was gradually losing speed. It was a 7200RPM HDD, which had gone slower than my 5400RPM (same - WD BLUE, different capacity roughly 3 year difference 1TB for 72K, 3TB for 54K)

Now I got a new HDD, also WD Blue 7200 2TB. Now they both are occasionally clicking. Not like the normal writing "Krrr" sound. But some light "TIC... TIC" sounds at random times, usually with long intervals. As I've wrote this post I've yet to hear any of the ticks.

Should I record this noise?

 

[Flyfisherman]

Hi, does it sounds like any of these, then you have a problem:
http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

Best regards from Sweden

 

[XistenZ]

No, it's not normal for HDDs to 'tic...tic'. You should RMA the new one, and don't use the old one until you got another new one to transfer your files to. The more you use a bad drive, the worse it gets and it can go pretty quick when it starts showing symptoms.

 

[Yuki Core]

Hi, does it sounds like any of these, then you have a problem:
http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

Best regards from Sweden

Its definitely not as bad as these examples.

 

[Yuki Core]

No, it's not normal for HDDs to 'tic...tic'. You should RMA the new one, and don't use the old one until you got another new one to transfer your files to. The more you use a bad drive, the worse it gets and it can go pretty quick when it starts showing symptoms.

Here you can listen to a audio file I made about this. You can also hear mouse clicks and scrolls, less distinctively, but still.. don't confuse the two.
The phone is inside my PC case, there are fans humming a bit.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3kAm0MqKUNzT0JBSWVZdHRhcXc/view

Best listen to this with headphones

 

[XistenZ]

No, it's not normal for HDDs to 'tic...tic'. You should RMA the new one, and don't use the old one until you got another new one to transfer your files to. The more you use a bad drive, the worse it gets and it can go pretty quick when it starts showing symptoms.

Here you can listen to a audio file I made about this. You can also hear mouse clicks and scrolls, less distinctively, but still.. don't confuse the two.
The phone is inside my PC case, there are fans humming a bit.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3kAm0MqKUNzT0JBSWVZdHRhcXc/view

Best listen to this with headphones

You don't have any possibility to edit the file? The mouseclicks resemble the sound some bad HDDs make, which makes it pretty hard to spot the actual sound you want us to hear.
But the fact is still that if your HDD is making an abnormal sound (such as clicking, an HDD should NEVER click) it's beginning to go bad. Whirring or fan-like sounds is to be expected from normal use.

 

[Yuki Core]

No, it's not normal for HDDs to 'tic...tic'. You should RMA the new one, and don't use the old one until you got another new one to transfer your files to. The more you use a bad drive, the worse it gets and it can go pretty quick when it starts showing symptoms.

Here you can listen to a audio file I made about this. You can also hear mouse clicks and scrolls, less distinctively, but still.. don't confuse the two.
The phone is inside my PC case, there are fans humming a bit.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3kAm0MqKUNzT0JBSWVZdHRhcXc/view

Best listen to this with headphones

You don't have any possibility to edit the file? The mouseclicks resemble the sound some bad HDDs make, which makes it pretty hard to spot the actual sound you want us to hear.
But the fact is still that if your HDD is making an abnormal sound (such as clicking, an HDD should NEVER click) it's beginning to go bad. Whirring or fan-like sounds is to be expected from normal use.

It's weird that both my HDD's are making this same sound, are you sure this isn't somewhat normal?
Made another sound file. Recorded with each HDD plugged in separately, only 1 click for each hdd recorded. So 2 clicks total. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3kAm0MqKUNzQVlyQ0pYVUJiQzA/view?usp=sharing
First HDD ONLY at 00:00 (Newest HDD)
Click at 00:03
Second HDD ONLY at 00:10
Click at 00:13

P.S. Also I noticed that the new HDD (2TB) I bought isn't actually 7200RPM, but 5400RPM, as the vendor said... I should have double checked... The older HDD (3TB) has some motor noise.

 

[XistenZ]

No, it's not normal for HDDs to 'tic...tic'. You should RMA the new one, and don't use the old one until you got another new one to transfer your files to. The more you use a bad drive, the worse it gets and it can go pretty quick when it starts showing symptoms.

Here you can listen to a audio file I made about this. You can also hear mouse clicks and scrolls, less distinctively, but still.. don't confuse the two.
The phone is inside my PC case, there are fans humming a bit.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3kAm0MqKUNzT0JBSWVZdHRhcXc/view

Best listen to this with headphones

You don't have any possibility to edit the file? The mouseclicks resemble the sound some bad HDDs make, which makes it pretty hard to spot the actual sound you want us to hear.
But the fact is still that if your HDD is making an abnormal sound (such as clicking, an HDD should NEVER click) it's beginning to go bad. Whirring or fan-like sounds is to be expected from normal use.

It's weird that both my HDD's are making this same sound, are you sure this isn't somewhat normal?
Made another sound file. Recorded with each HDD plugged in separately, only 1 click for each hdd recorded. So 2 clicks total. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3kAm0MqKUNzQVlyQ0pYVUJiQzA/view?usp=sharing
First HDD ONLY at 00:00 (Newest HDD)
Click at 00:03
Second HDD ONLY at 00:10
Click at 00:13

P.S. Also I noticed that the new HDD (2TB) I bought isn't actually 7200RPM, but 5400RPM, as the vendor said... I should have double checked... The older HDD (3TB) has some motor noise.

I admit that it's not the worst failure since it's only one click and not all the time. But no, it's not normal. The clicking is the arm that reads from the platters (simply put), it's trying to read from a position where it's not supposed to like center of the drive or the walls of the enclosure. It's metal banging against metal, the arm is extremely thin and fragile so it will at some point bang itself to the wall one too many times.
I wouldn't use these drives, and if the new one is not the drive you bought just have the vendor replace it. You might want to tell them about the clicking so they don't sell it as used to someone else.

 

[Yuki Core]

I admit that it's not the worst failure since it's only one click and not all the time. But no, it's not normal. The clicking is the arm that reads from the platters (simply put), it's trying to read from a position where it's not supposed to like center of the drive or the walls of the enclosure. It's metal banging against metal, the arm is extremely thin and fragile so it will at some point bang itself to the wall one too many times.
I wouldn't use these drives, and if the new one is not the drive you bought just have the vendor replace it. You might want to tell them about the clicking so they don't sell it as used to someone else.

I read this at WD support page.

" Normal drive sounds include:
*Whining noise during drive spin-up

*Occasional clicks during data access

*Hard clicks during a head park operation (shutdown or sleep mode) "

I also wrote them a message, also providing the sound file. I'm curious to what their answer would be. I think the 3TB HDD might have been making these ticks for 6 Months. I always thought that it was the old HDD, because it also had increased motor noise and reduced speed, signs of old age.

 

[XistenZ]

I read this at WD support page.

" Normal drive sounds include:
*Whining noise during drive spin-up

*Occasional clicks during data access

*Hard clicks during a head park operation (shutdown or sleep mode) "

I also wrote them a message, also providing the sound file. I'm curious to what their answer would be. I think the 3TB HDD might have been making these ticks for 6 Months. I always thought that it was the old HDD, because it also had increased motor noise and reduced speed, signs of old age.

That's interesting. I never encountered a healthy HDD that ticked. Most manufacturers probably don't allow the arm to bash into everything and call it normal, I rarely deal with WD drives because the ones I had died rather quick (no wonder why, based on what you said). I did get a WD Red recently which I have high hopes for, despite it being WD.

 

[Yuki Core]

I read this at WD support page.

" Normal drive sounds include:
*Whining noise during drive spin-up

*Occasional clicks during data access

*Hard clicks during a head park operation (shutdown or sleep mode) "

I also wrote them a message, also providing the sound file. I'm curious to what their answer would be. I think the 3TB HDD might have been making these ticks for 6 Months. I always thought that it was the old HDD, because it also had increased motor noise and reduced speed, signs of old age.

That's interesting. I never encountered a healthy HDD that ticked. Most manufacturers probably don't allow the arm to bash into everything and call it normal, I rarely deal with WD drives because the ones I had died rather quick (no wonder why, based on what you said). I did get a WD Red recently which I have high hopes for, despite it being WD.

Sigh... I guess I will have to plug in my old 1TB WD blue to see if it ticks or not. I had it for about 2 years, after I exchanged (RMA) previous one for whining noises after nearly 2 years of usage, but I had used it as a System Drive. Never actually had a long term experience with any HDD in that case.

I built my PC only in 2012 halfway, before I were using laptop as a combo PC. I don't think a quality HDD should last only 2 years, they are probably building them to fail in those 2 years. As for a fresh drive in ticks, I still don't know what I should do. For now I can wait an answer from WD Support.

 

[madmatt30]

WD drives are noisy - end of , the clicking is normal.

The WD blue 2tb is a 5400 drive (WD don't make a 7200 blue drive apart from the 1tb model) because its actually a rebranded WD green now (a reason I don't buy WD drives anymore)

 

[Yuki Core]

WD drives are noisy - end of , the clicking is normal.

The WD blue 2tb is a 5400 drive (WD don't make a 7200 blue drive apart from the 1tb model) because its actually a rebranded WD green now (a reason I don't buy WD drives anymore)

Oh god, you're making me feel relieved. But I'm still interested as to what WD will actually reply to me.
Thanks for the info! Much appreciated. Even though it had some bad news included.

 

[madmatt30]

The tickng/clicking noise is the heads resting/parking .

Like I said the 2tb blue is in reality a green model & it has over aggressive power management.
There's nothing inherently wrong with it but the 'blue' branding has always stood for a performance model drive & I consider the naming convention to be inherently wrong on these drives from an ethical standpoint.

Anything more than a 1tb drive nowadays & I solely buy Hitachi or Toshiba 7200rpm drives

 

[Yuki Core]

The tickng/clicking noise is the heads resting/parking .

Like I said the 2tb blue is in reality a green model & it has over aggressive power management.
There's nothing inherently wrong with it but the 'blue' branding has always stood for a performance model drive & I consider the naming convention to be inherently wrong on these drives from an ethical standpoint.

Anything more than a 1tb drive nowadays & I solely buy Hitachi or Toshiba 7200rpm drives

Well, but the 7200rpm doesn't exactly change the game, the speeds are rather similar between 5400rpm.
20MB/s read/write is the difference. And the 7200rpm's have added noise, which I found annoying, maybe because my WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM was defective, but it's a lot more quiet without it. It was the loudest component in my PC on idle.

Used this for comparison. -
http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/WD-Blue-1TB-2012/Rating/1779
http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/WD-Blue-4TB-2015/Rating/3523

P.S. According to the site, this is the most efficient for the cash HDD - http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Seagate-Barracuda-720014-3TB/Rating/1374
I should have gotten something like that, as I use the HDD I was replacing for game storage, but I had a gift card, and their expiration date was close to an end, so I got a HDD that I thought I could trust, and was the most cost effective from the options given.

EDIT: This picture however is not reassuring.

EDIT2: There are various charts regarding HDD failures, not sure which you can trust.. But Hitachi shows that it's reliable in almost all of them.

 

[madmatt30]

the 5200rpm speed is not the real deal=breaker, what is is the agressive power saving & head parking which can not be disabled.
the majority of the time this is not noticeable but get a game like the dead souls series which chunk load areas & you see stutter & freezing.
| know people that have returned these drives for this reason.
my gripe is that drive is an old caviar green rebranded as a blue,its not particularly cheap & it doesnt perform particularly well.
it has a good warranty & for data/media storage its fine but its not a good drive for an os or for gaming off.
Seagate had a bad patch as you can see from the graph,it appears to be sorted nowdays reliability wise.
toshiba only started manufacturing hard drives in late 2012 - they started off decent but have come on leaps & bounds now - my number one choice for 2/3/4tb drives - fast, quiet, & reliable ,nothing not to like about them.
hgst & hitachi ,always always been the best drives - very very expensive though.

the wd blue 1tb is a great drive, the 2tb is mediocre at best- I have no idea why wd branded it a blue - wellI have really ,its to dupe people like you yourself have been duped.

 

[Yuki Core]

the 5200rpm speed is not the real deal=breaker, what is is the agressive power saving & head parking which can not be disabled.
the majority of the time this is not noticeable but get a game like the dead souls series which chunk load areas & you see stutter & freezing.
| know people that have returned these drives for this reason.
my gripe is that drive is an old caviar green rebranded as a blue,its not particularly cheap & it doesnt perform particularly well.
it has a good warranty & for data/media storage its fine but its not a good drive for an os or for gaming off.
Seagate had a bad patch as you can see from the graph,it appears to be sorted nowdays reliability wise.
toshiba only started manufacturing hard drives in late 2012 - they started off decent but have come on leaps & bounds now - my number one choice for 2/3/4tb drives - fast, quiet, & reliable ,nothing not to like about them.
hgst & hitachi ,always always been the best drives - very very expensive though.

the wd blue 1tb is a great drive, the 2tb is mediocre at best- I have no idea why wd branded it a blue - wellI have really ,its to dupe people like you yourself have been duped.

How do I test that thing you said about stutter and freezing? This worries me, since I got this HDD for gaming, as I mentioned before. I have Dark Souls 3, does that game suffer from this? I also have 1st one in library, but haven't installed, if 3rd shows the symptoms, I'd rather not download install the 1st one back.

If I do get to to a point where I would exchange the HDD, do I take 5400 or 7200rpm Toshiba?

 

[madmatt30]

You can get a .5 second freeze , certainly in dark souls 2 & 3 when the drive spins up from park - it won't happen while anything action wise is going on & isn't a game breaker but is an annoyance
I have no doubt there are other titles we here this can happen but as I said I don't & don't use the ed drives.

The tosh dt01 drives are what I've used expressly in the last 12 months for customer builds & I own 3 of these drives myself currently in use now.

Cannot fault them at all.

 

[madmatt30]

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/fpCwrH/toshiba-internal-hard-drive-dt01aca200

 

[Yuki Core]

You can get a .5 second freeze , certainly in dark souls 2 & 3 when the drive spins up from park - it won't happen while anything action wise is going on & isn't a game breaker but is an annoyance
I have no doubt there are other titles we here this can happen but as I said I don't & don't use the ed drives.

The tosh dt01 drives are what I've used expressly in the last 12 months for customer builds & I own 3 of these drives myself currently in use now.

Cannot fault them at all.

Hmm, I do have 0.5 second freezes when trying out Dark Souls 3, I was in Anor Londo area, got stuck at the boss, so I roamed around that area. But if I remember correctly, I had those freezes when I had WD Blue 1TB 7200rpm too. But this is definitely not something that I would want to deal with for the next 2 years. Especially since now as games get more complex, they have to move more data. The store vendor advised me that SSD is not a good option to play games, as it depletes it's cycles very fast, and you don't need that speed. But either way it's 6X more money for the same storage for SSD, that's a good enough reason for me. And SSD's can crap out unexpectedly.

EDIT: As for Dark Souls 3 stutter, at launch there were very bad problems with that, many people were complaining, later it got a bit better. But I'm not sure if the issue is fixed entirely... some people are still complaining. Sigh, this is getting more and more complicated.

EDIT2: Found this stutter test with random writes http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/28126-western-digital-caviar-green-2tb-hard-drive-review-10.html

 

[Yuki Core]

The sound can't be head parking. Because the noise often happens 3 times per 2 seconds or so.
The WD support only gave me a task to do the disk diagnostic using their tool. And they say if it provides normal results that the HDD is fine, that's all they can do...

 

[Yuki Core]

I got this reply from WD Support

Western Digital Service and Support

We listened to the audio and in the basis that the extended test has passed there is no issue to worry about.

Please know that regardless of any symptoms you may notice we always advise to have your data backed up.

Well then so be it, I will remain using these hard disks, and try to update this thread if I get any problems in the near future.
For anyone curious after 2 years, if I haven't updated, you can remind me.