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HDD clicking

TomH
By TomH
in Storage Devices
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Hey guys, I was downloading some game updates last night and I noticed my HDD was clicking (sounding a bit like a Geiger counter) and I wondered if this was normal? I don't think I've heard it do that before so I was a bit concerned. The sound was very random and had no pattern.

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A geiger counter is more of a scratching sound than a clicking sound, which would be pretty normal for a HDD reading or writing. Some drives are louder than others. Actual clicking would indicate drive failure. Run a diagnostic tool like crystaldiskinfo to check your drive health.

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Just now, NelizMastr said:

A geiger counter is more of a scratching sound than a clicking sound, which would be pretty normal for a HDD reading or writing. Some drives are louder than others. Actual clicking would indicate drive failure. Run a diagnostic tool like crystaldiskinfo to check your drive health.

I will do that thank you

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Can be many reasons...

 

for one allocating free space to write in... like a teens room floor your drive gets cluttered... and to place something on free space you need to jump around the stuff already lying there...

 

If your HDD is cluttered and not "optimized/defragged" those sound can occur.

 

The worst case is that it is slowly dying. You can download Crystel Disk Info and check the S.M.A.R.T. Values to see if your drive is still ok or already has errors.

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You can also download our free diagnostic software SeaTools to check on the health of the drive as well.

And the best cure for storage paranoia is a strong backup strategy: The rule-of-thumb for any important data is known as the 3-2-1 method: Keep 3 copies of your data, 2 on different mediums, and 1 kept off-site somewhere to prevent against disasters.

Seagate Technology | Official Forums Team

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