WD HDD Tick/Chirp

[Will_60]

Recently my WD Blue has been making some odd ticking/chirping noises. The noises occur on average about once a week, if not a little less, and then dissipates after no longer than 10 or so minutes. I've had the drive for about 3-4 months. No internal scans show any signs of defect, although I know if there's something physically wrong it would not be picked up. File browsing and data transfer works just as well as it did a few months ago with no signs of degradation. It's main use is for image/work/extra program files, and serves as my primary scratch disc when working in Photoshop.

I do have all my data on back up, and would just like to avoid any issues if there is one ahead of time. If I need to go out and by another HDD, sure, otherwise I'd like to avoid wasting the extra $$$ if it's unnecessary.

HDD: WD Blue 1TB
Recording of noise: https://youtu.be/JXPU9E-yG7o
(disregard the last 2 seconds of loud)

Any input would be much appreciated! I've looked over many similar issues, but none seem to be matching the type of sound I'm getting from my HDD. It's very quiet and happens at a frequency at which there may be some internal work being done with it. I dunno. That is at least what I'm assuming at this point. Thanks!

 

[bobmanuk]

I would suggest checking with Crystal Disk Info and see if everything looks ok or if it reports caution.

I had a similar issue with a DVR hard drive and the same problem, after a few weeks of constantly writing data to the drive it started making the noises far more rapidly before giving out completely.

Personally i would say its only a matter of time, how much time... well, depends on how much you use it and how important it is to you.

 

[Will_60]

I did do a scan with CDI and it came up blue, no problems detected at all. Ran smart check and the Seagate Tool scan as well, everything was clean and passed. Will probably go and give it another scan. :/

The data on it is kind of important, but as I've said it is all backed up and I do it quite regularly. It's tough, I suppose, since there's really nothing I can do in the interim aside from waiting to see if it gets better or worse.

When/if I do decide to pick up a new drive, what would you suggest? I was originally going to get the 1TB Black drive, but decided against it last minute.

Also, I've got it set up on my SSD/OS to have all of my downloads/saves to go directly to this HDD. All I did was move my downloads and picture folders to the HDD. By replacing it, would that mess any of those settings up?

EDIT: I forgot one more thing. When installing a new HDD, is there any software drivers that need to be downloaded along with it? When I built and installed my PC I didn't do any of that for the HDD. Wondering if this might have something to do with it perhaps?

Thanks!

 

[bobmanuk]

If you prefer Western Digital Drives (I Do) then it entirely depends on what you will be doing, if you are making a lot of data writes/reads to your drive, the black is supposed to be the better, though between blue/black the difference is negligible. Red and purple are for other purposes NAS/DVR respectively, though they will work in a normal PC.

Unless warranty is important go for whichever is cheaper.

As far as i know, only SSDs have specific software (for firmware updates) or best practices for partition layout (so the drive has space to move data around) other than that, you should be ok.

Im not sure what you mean, you changed windows to save downloads to the possibly faulty drive? moving them back or changing them wont affect the drive

 

[Will_60]

I will probably just go with another blue then as I read the same thing in regard to the marginal difference in performance.

Yes, I did exactly that. If I have to re-do the process on a new HDD, then so be it. It's a bother that it always seems like a gamble with PC parts. I suppose I will just let things run their course and get a new drive if this one shows any further signs of degradation.

Thanks again!