Question Why is my hard drive making random clicking sounds?

[Supernano]

I've had my hard drive for about 4 years and for some reason it started making random clicking noises. On some days, It only does it for a couple of seconds and then it stops, but on others days, my hard drive doesn't do the sounds at all. Is this one of the symptoms that my hard drive is going to bad or it's something not to worry about?

 

[USAFRet]

It's talking to you.
That is HDDSpeak for "Help meeee...I'm dying"

New noises in a spinning drive are never good. New clicks are especially bad.
It might last another year, it might die as I'm typing this.

 

[Alabalcho]

While you can still access the drive - copy the files, starting with most important ones. Your drive is dying, as simple as that.

 

[USAFRet]

Time to institute a good automated backup routine, and prepare for replacement.

What is your backup situation at home? What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong... forums.tomshardware.com