Solved Caviar Black intermitent clicking worry

[masplin]

I just replaced my 3rd drive with a WD Caviar Black 1.5TB. This drive only stores photos and has no programs or OS on it. I ran the full set of WD diagnostics on it after formatting and seems perfect. My worry is that even when I have my photo editing programs closed the drive seems to be making a noise, like a gentle clunk, every 10 seconds. Apart from being very irritating I am concerned it should be completely quiet if I am not doing any operations that access the information on the disc.

I have rerun all the extedned WD diagnositcs and says fine. Should I run any other tests? Is this normal? If so I don't think I put up with the irritiation so have I chosen the wrong drive?

Thanks Mike

 

[1Bowtie]

If it's new i'd get an RMA started with WD, they carry a 5 year warranty. I have 3 Cavier Blacks and don't hear anything like that on mine, so now would be a good time to get started before it's to late.

 

[masplin]

It seems ot have gone quiet now. i was reading other people hearing this clunking sound due this intellipark system that tries to save energy by parking the heads after 8 seconds. I would have thoguht that I might get one clunk after I perform the last photo edit but not go on for 15 minutes. I thikn i need ot monitor exactly what happens after I have been using the drive, but it woudl be hwlpful if someone knew if this feature could be the culprit.

 

[1Bowtie]

That i don't know, but mine have never done that they are quiet as church mice.

 

[Nitro58]

I have one also a 1TB, and it's never made any noise. You may want to replace it while it's under warranty, and before you lose all your data.

 

[masplin]

Hmm just opened it up to be sure its coming form the new drive not my RAID and it seems extremely hot compared to my OS drives. Doesn't seem good, but suprised it passes al lthe tests with a clean bill of health. Suspect I'm gonig to struggle with WD if I can't generate any tests that show there is a problem. Is there any way of testing the temprature of the drive?

 

[masplin]

after going back and forth with WD support I am not really any fiurther on if the intermittent clunking sound is normal. My uneducated expectation is that if I am not actually working on the files on this drive then the head will aprk once and the drive will only become active agian if i try to use some data on it. If this is true the drive should be silent. Can someone tell me if this is correct please? If the OS keeps checking up on all the drives for some reason this might explain why the drive is making a constant noise.

WD have suggested I use HD Tune to look at my drive, but since I have never used it I'm not sure what that will tell me differnet to the WD diagnostics. will HDTun be able to log all the actvity on the drive to see if it is being accessed all the time? If so do I need the pro rather than free version. I can of course RMA the drive, but trying to eliminate it being an issue with the system before wasting a lot of time on that. WD initially suggested it might be a power issue, but i don't have an alternative power source as all used up on the RAID drives. Again if there is anyway of testing this that might eliminate that as a cause.

Thanks agian for any advice.

Mike

 

[masplin]

For anyone who cares I have found the cause. WD were very good and let me RMA the drive as we weren't getting anywhere.The new drive arrived and within hours was making the same noise. By turning off every application and service in turn I eventualy found it was Perfect Disc Defragmenter that has a background auto-optimiser. Obviously it was waking the drive up every so often and then the drive would go back to sleep because of the power save feature creating a constant cycle of waking and sleeping. Removing the drive from the auto optimise now means I have peace.