Intermittent hard drive click

after_shock3000

So I'm hearing the familiar click of a hard drive on the way out from my system every so often. A few clicks in a row every few days, upto 20.
My problem is that the clicking stops before I can figure out which drive is doing it.
I've got just over 5tb of storage spanning over 5 drives, and I don't have the space or the funds to back up every drive, so I want to try and figure out which 1 is about pack it in before it fails completely.

Is there any (relatively) safe way to bring on the clicking so I can hear which drive it is and try to get all the data from it backed up?

Serephucus

HDTune Pro has a health tab you could look at.

yeppydeppy

The simple answer is no. If you have 5TB over 5 drives you should know better and have it set up as a raid array.

after_shock3000

Serephucus wrote: »

HDTune Pro has a health tab you could look at.

Thanks for that. I'll check it out tonight.

yeppydeppy wrote: »

The simple answer is no. If you have 5TB over 5 drives you should know better and have it set up as a raid array.

The space lost in a raid array and the cost isn't worth it in this situation. I can get everything back in the case of a failure, it'll just take time. All I'm trying to do is save myself that time by catching it before it fails.

Dublin_Gunner

If its a mechanical issue, you may not get a warning in any program informing you of its impending death.

Best thing to do would be to power the drives 1 by 1 until you find the one with the intermittent click.

armitage_skanks

Its madness to try and predict which drive is going to fail first and only back that one up.

A clicking noise can be a sign of failure or it can just be a harmless power-saving feature. And you can have one drive making clicking noises and it keeps going for years while another drive just goes kaput out of the blue.

Backup whatever data is important to you. You say you can't afford more storage but can you afford to lose your data? Its a choice you have to make.

Serephucus

yeppydeppy wrote: »

The simple answer is no. If you have 5TB over 5 drives you should know better and have it set up as a raid array.

Not true really. For a RAID 5 array, he'd need a dedicated card, which is at least €150. Add to that the space lost from the parity drive, and you're looking at another €1-200 for another hard drive.

armitage_skanks wrote: »

Its madness to try and predict which drive is going to fail first and only back that one up.

Backup whatever data is important to you. You say you can't afford more storage but can you afford to lose your data? Its a choice you have to make.

He's not talking about backing up only one drive permanently; that would be stupid. He's talking about backing up the one that's clicking in the interim so he knows the data is safe while a new drive is on order. It's unlikely that another drive will up and die in that short span (though not impossible).

armitage_skanks

Serephucus wrote: »

He's not talking about backing up only one drive permanently; that would be stupid. He's talking about backing up the one that's clicking in the interim so he knows the data is safe while a new drive is on order. It's unlikely that another drive will up and die in that short span (though not impossible).

But that's my point, he is trying to predict which drive will fail next.

You can't do that with any degree of accuracy, and certainly not based on a clicking noise.

I have seen drives fail out of the blue with no smart errors or previous signs of trouble, and I have seen 'clicking' drives operate for years.

Tea_Bag

fwiw, I've got a drive thats been clicking... for about 4 years. its a Samsung F1, and I use it as a boot drive for my server. if it died, it would set me back a reinstall, nothing more, so I'm not worried about it, but I'd say if it was dying, Itd be dead by now.


to test for clicks, I'd say try copying a very large (20-30gb) folder with many file types inside into it. a game install folder, or 2.
That should spin it up, and write bits all over it, which would hopefully start the clicking.

after_shock3000

Serephucus wrote: »

Not true really. For a RAID 5 array, he'd need a dedicated card, which is at least €150. Add to that the space lost from the parity drive, and you're looking at another €1-200 for another hard drive.

He's not talking about backing up only one drive permanently; that would be stupid. He's talking about backing up the one that's clicking in the interim so he knows the data is safe while a new drive is on order. It's unlikely that another drive will up and die in that short span (though not impossible).

Spot on. That's exactly what I'm trying to do.
I just couldn't justify the price of setting up a RAID for this.

armitage_skanks wrote: »

But that's my point, he is trying to predict which drive will fail next.

You can't do that with any degree of accuracy, and certainly not based on a clicking noise.

I have seen drives fail out of the blue with no smart errors or previous signs of trouble, and I have seen 'clicking' drives operate for years.

I'm not trying to predict which drive will fail next. I'm merely trying to find out which drive is causing the sound that I'm hearing.
That will allow me to replace a drive that has an increased chance of failure. I'm not saying that the other drives don't have a chance of failing because they aren't clicking, but the nail that sticks out gets hammered.

It's pretty loud when it happens and not a normal sound for any of the drives that I have in there to make, so I wouldn't assume it as a power saving feature/head parking.

Serephucus

Maybe pull the drives out of the case, and lay them in a line (as spread out as cabling will allow) on a desk or something. Should make it a bit easier to identify.