[SOLVED] Why is my external hard drive making a quiet noise

[Keithngan162]

When ever I unplug my external hard drive, it makes a whining down sound. The hard drive is a 2tb hard drive from one of my laptops (i think it is a WD black). But when I click the "safely eject" button, it doesnt make the sound anymore.

The hard drive is in a hard drive enclosure. it is very cheap, costs about 5 bucks. It has no power off button and cannot use an external power source.

Does this sound mean my drive will fail soon?

 

[PC Tailor]

The wind down sound is perfectly normal, presumably you are ejecting the device in windows before unplugging?

It will basically be the disk and spindle "winding down" to a stop when you eject it being as it isn't powered off normally like a shutdown.

A good way of checking the integrity of the drive is to check the SMART status of the drive using something like CrystalDiskInfo or HD Sentinel.