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[pkarlos_76]

Anyone know why the NAS device goes into a weird mode with constant access to my 1 TB drive on the right side for several days, I tried leaving it and kept going clicking away each day, so only way to resolve it is to reset the device, I wish there was an easy way to see waht the device is doing to the drive ie activity monitor in the status page!


I wish I knew the cause or could see what it is doing.....

P.S. And when I say several days I mean it, I bet i could leave it indefinitely making noise if I didnt restart it.

Running Firmware 1.09

[dosborne]

A "clicking noise" usually indicates a failed or failing hard drive.

[pkarlos_76]

A "clicking noise" usually indicates a failed or failing hard drive.

The noise only occurs during some sort of process and sounds like a read/write click. And restarting the device results in the issue not showing up for several days. Still sound like a HDD failure?

[JavaLawyer]

Is the clicking becoming more frequent over time or did the drive always behave this way? Depending on the severity, intermittent clicking can be a warning sign of impending hard drive failure.   Did you run a S.M.A.R.T. test on the drive?

[fordem]

The noise only occurs during some sort of process and sounds like a read/write click. And restarting the device results in the issue not showing up for several days. Still sound like a HDD failure?

There's no such thing as a "read/write" click - hard disk drives are near silent during read/write operations.

If your drive is clicking the way you say it is, it's failing.

[scaramanga]

Read/Write does generate noise, if read/write head moves alot.
Also, if this is one of those green drives, then it probably parks the heads after a very short period of idle time (a few seconds), which means clicking sounds, as well as noticeable delay. Under light use, it happens a lot (and might shorten your HDD's life).

See a write-up on load cycle count (LLC) in WD HDDs here: http://www.timoroso.com/journal/9

[fordem]

Read/Write does generate noise, if read/write head moves alot.

First - head movement may generate noise, dependent on how far & fast the head is moved - read/write does NOT.

Second - depending on how much data needs to be written, read & write can occur without movement of the head - remember - the disk is spinning and moving relative to the head - and if there is more data than can be written in one cylinder, the incremental head movement required is virtually silent.

In the case of a badly fragmented disk there may be considerable head movement as the head jumps from track to track, from fragment to fragment - this will also occur with large numbers of small files as the head jumps back & forth between the data areas and the allocation bitmap - this however produces a rattle rather than a sharp click - if you have an older band stepper drive (which have probably been out of production for more than a decade) this rattle is distinctly audible, but the "voice coil" mechanisms in current use are a lot quieter, and more often than not inaudible.

If the drive is making a repeated clicking noise - it is not "read/write" noise - it's a sign of distress and impending failure.

Let me point something out here - I gain nothing, lose nothing by being right or wrong, if I'm right and the OP fails to heed the advice of myself and dosborne - the end result may be lost data.  I used to fix these things for a living - disassemble, swap heads, platters, reassemble, recalibrate - I know what they look like, I know how they work, and bottom line - it's not my data at risk.

[scaramanga]

First - head movement may generate noise, dependent on how far & fast the head is moved - read/write does NOT.

That's what I meant to write. If it wasn't clear, I apologize.
I know first-hand that my WD Green drives make a clicking sounds when accessed after a time period of being idle. It happened very often (every few seconds) before I changed the LLC value using WD's tool.

I only added my input here to suggest that there may be another explanation to this clicking noise. I'm not suggesting that this might not be some kind of warning sign of HDD failure. From OP's post it is unclear how frequently does this clicking noise occur.

Best approach here should be to assume the worst, and act accordingly.

[fordem]

If you have a drive, "green" or not that is allowed to spin down & park between accesses - you will probably hear a click when it spins back up - most drives have a latch or lock that holds the head in the rest position, and it sometimes releases quite audibly - it's going to be a single click, followed by some other noises as the drive calibrates the head position and then finally settles at track 0.

What we're discussuing here is a completely different noise - a repetitive clicking noise.

[scaramanga]

If you have a drive, "green" or not that is allowed to spin down & park between accesses - you will probably hear a click when it spins back up - most drives have a latch or lock that holds the head in the rest position, and it sometimes releases quite audibly - it's going to be a single click, followed by some other noises as the drive calibrates the head position and then finally settles at track 0.

What we're discussuing here is a completely different noise - a repetitive clicking noise.

Those green drives, by default, park heads a lot. And by "a lot" I mean every few seconds, which causes  repetitive clicking noise. I experienced that first hand with my WD Green HDDs (see my sig, below? I used WDIDLE3.EXE to increase LLC to 5 minutes from the default value of 8 seconds)
A quick googling for "load cycle count click" will show this might be what's going on here.

Some examples:
http://forums.cnet.com/7723-7592_102-177797.html
http://mymacfixes.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-do-i-stop-clicking-noise-from-hard.html

Again, I'm not suggesting to assume this is what's happening, I'm only stating that it just might be something other than HDD failure.