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Hard Drive Clicking Noises on Seagate Free Agent Drives
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Hard Drive Clicking Noises on Seagate Free Agent Drives Ouch 04-07-2008
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Posted by Ouch on April 8, 2008, 12:53 pm
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>
>>
>>>
>>>>The other day, I bought an external 500 gig Seagate Free Agent drive. It
>>>>made a few clicking noises when writing data, so after some research on
>>>>internet, I decided I would return it. So I purchased from another store
>>>>a
>>>>750 gig Seagate FreeAgent drive. Now this drive does exactly the same
>>>>thing,
>>>>so I'm most reluctant to return this one because I know that Seagate is
>>>>a
>>>>very good brand and that all hard drives have to make some operating
>>>>noises.
>>>>A year ago, a friend bought a 500 gig Seagate Free Agent drive, and it
>>>>makes
>>>>no clicking noises at all when you write to it, so that's why I thought
>>>>something might be wrong with mine.
>>>>
>>>
>
>
> I have seen comments that Seagate uses a New ? feature that moves the head
> around so that it does
> not heat the track/disk.
>
>
> I have a 320G one and I don't hear any noise but then my system is not to
> quite, some 4 case fans,
> plus 2 in PSU and 2 in CPU/GPU, some 8 fans in total.
>
>
Thanks Brian, that's interesting. I have made a temporary video of the noise
the drive makes while it is writing a 1.4GB file. You can view this video
here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxZ89UJQvmU

Do you think this could now be a "normal" operating noise for a Seagate
drive if a new development moves the head around?


Posted by Dave Taylor on April 8, 2008, 2:47 am
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> Thanks for your help.

Check on Seagate's web site , maybe their seatools supports the usb drive?

Anyways, does it click when it is idle, or in the middle of when you are
actively writing a large 2 gig file to it? My usb drive has a sleep mode
and that is a click of the heads parking and the platters stopping.
My drive is not the same as yours. I have an Western Digital.
I hope that helps.
--
Ciao, Dave

Posted by Ouch on April 8, 2008, 12:45 pm
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>
>> Thanks for your help.
>
> Check on Seagate's web site , maybe their seatools supports the usb drive?
>
> Anyways, does it click when it is idle, or in the middle of when you are
> actively writing a large 2 gig file to it? My usb drive has a sleep mode
> and that is a click of the heads parking and the platters stopping.
> My drive is not the same as yours. I have an Western Digital.
> I hope that helps.
> --
> Ciao, Dave

The drive doesn't click when it's idle. The noise happens when it's writing
a large file to it. To clarify the situation, I have made a temporary video
of the noise the drive makes while it is writing a 1.4GB file. You can view
this video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxZ89UJQvmU

Thanks for your help.


Posted by Dave Martindale on April 9, 2008, 9:54 pm
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>The drive doesn't click when it's idle. The noise happens when it's writing
>a large file to it. To clarify the situation, I have made a temporary video
>of the noise the drive makes while it is writing a 1.4GB file. You can view
>this video here:

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxZ89UJQvmU

That sounds like normal head seek noise to me.

There are two sharper "click" sounds within the first 2 seconds of the
video that I can't identify; perhaps they are from something else in
the room? But all the other noises sound like normal seeks.

Now, most drives don't do that much seeking when writing one large file on
an empty disk; you'll hear this only when the disk is randomly accessing
files, or writing onto a badly fragmented disk. But someone else
suggested that some Seagate drives avoid leaving the head in one place,
and this noise is consistent with occasional random seeks.

        Dave

Posted by Ouch on April 9, 2008, 11:46 pm
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>
>>The drive doesn't click when it's idle. The noise happens when it's
>>writing
>>a large file to it. To clarify the situation, I have made a temporary
>>video
>>of the noise the drive makes while it is writing a 1.4GB file. You can
>>view
>>this video here:
>
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxZ89UJQvmU
>
> That sounds like normal head seek noise to me.
>
> There are two sharper "click" sounds within the first 2 seconds of the
> video that I can't identify; perhaps they are from something else in
> the room? But all the other noises sound like normal seeks.
>
> Now, most drives don't do that much seeking when writing one large file on
> an empty disk; you'll hear this only when the disk is randomly accessing
> files, or writing onto a badly fragmented disk. But someone else
> suggested that some Seagate drives avoid leaving the head in one place,
> and this noise is consistent with occasional random seeks.
>
> Dave


Thanks a lot Dave, the video on Youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxZ89UJQvmU

has been studied by Seagate Support (? in China) and they also say that the
noise is normal for a Seagate FreeAgent Drive. I downloaded Seatools for
Windows from Seagate's web site (diagnostic software) and this confirmed
that the drive has no problems, so I will keep it and see how it goes over
the next few months. The drive is a bit noisier than expected, I certainly
don't hear noises like that from my laptop's hard drive, but perhaps this is
because it is completely enclosed, while the 750 gig Seagate drive is an
external drive?




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