Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB Clicking??

[davidcrofter]

Hiya folks.

I have just recently installed a 1TB Samsung Spinpoint Hard Drive and have noticed it making an alarming clicking noise every second or so, now can somebody tell me is this normal for this drive???

The reason I ask is I have a 500GB version of the same drive installed in the same PC and since day one this has been quiet as a mouse but this is my second 1TB Spinpoint I have installed (first one died after about 6 months) and both have made this annoying clicking noise .... could it be faulty or about to fail again?? Certainly don't think I can suffer it regardless ....

[Will404]

Back up everything important, and turn it off, sounds like its about to die. You could try a scan with a program such as HD tune AFTER you back everything up.

[PeteSmith]

I would say so, clicking generally means it's on its way out. I have 4 x 1 TB F1 drives in my NAS bay, they make a clicking noise but only when they enter hibernation and discs spin down. If the clicking is constant i would assume the worst and backup everything.

[davidcrofter]

Jeez only had it a couple of weeks from the Ebuyer deal posted on here - the other Samsung I have is on RMA duty so don't have anything to back it up on to .... so much for these reliable Samsungs eh??

but thanks for the info guys.

[Blaineoliver]

Stick it in the freezer, then once u got a drive to back up onto, copy onto it.

[ice_chill]

Make sure you have good ventilation where the hard drives are, those 1TB Samsung have 3 platters so they do get hot, and if the temperature in your case builds up, then the hard drive will over heat and the platter will expand.

[peterb]

I would say so, clicking generally means it's on its way out. I have 4 x 1 TB F1 drives in my NAS bay, they make a clicking noise but only when they enter hibernation and discs spin down. If the clicking is constant i would assume the worst and backup everything.

There are three reasons why you might get clicking, one is that the drive is damaged and it is mechanical noise from the platter motors.

The second is that the power supply is inadequate and the current pulse cause by the heads loading causes the supply voltage to drop so the heads park again. This is usually only a problem with 2.5" drives powered from a USB port, and usually means that you can't read or write to the drive.

The third is that a sector (or more than one) at the edge of the platter is unreadable and has been mapped out to one of the spare ones, which happens to be near the centre of the platter, so the head is doing a lot of long distance seeks. However that is unlikely to be a loud click.

If you are reading and writing to it, it would be worth running some softare to examinbe the SMART data, and the mfrs diagnostic tools and see what they report.

How well was the drive packaged? If t was poorly packaged and had been dropped or subjected to shock in transit, it may have suffered internal damage.

Certainly back up the data and after running the tests consider returning it. Samsungs have a pretty good reputation for reliability, but if they are damaged in transit, it is outside the mfr's control.

Stick it in the freezer, then once u got a drive to back up onto, copy onto it.

Pointless. If you are reading and writing from it, just back it up. The freezer trick is only of use (if at all) on old drives where the bearings may be seizing up.

Make sure you have good ventilation where the hard drives are, those 1TB Samsung have 3 platters so they do get hot, and if the temperature in your case builds up, then the hard drive will over heat and the platter will expand.

The drives would have to be VERY hot for expansion to be enough to cause the platters to expand so that they interfere with the casing - the drive electronics would have failed before then. The mfr's data sheet will give the permissible temperature range.

[watercooled]

Jeez only had it a couple of weeks from the Ebuyer deal posted on here - the other Samsung I have is on RMA duty so don't have anything to back it up on to .... so much for these reliable Samsungs eh??

but thanks for the info guys.

How well did ebuyer package it? There's a chance it was damaged in transit - especially as it's playing up so soon.

Edit: Posted before I saw the above post^

[davidcrofter]

It was posted pretty well by ebuyer in a protective sleeve, plenty of bubble wrap and a box. I have it installed in a Coolermaster Cosmos case which I think is certainly not the best for hard drive cooling!! I leave my machine on for weeks at a time so that would certainly not help. But as I say no problem with an 18 month old 500GB Samsung Spinpoint encountered so far.

I will run the Samsung diagnostic tool again on this drive to see what the score is, but thanks for all the suggestions so far - report my findings soon ....

[ice_chill]

The drives would have to be VERY hot for expansion to be enough to cause the platters to expand so that they interfere with the casing - the drive electronics would have failed before then. The mfr's data sheet will give the permissible temperature range.

You obviously wasn't around in 2002-2003 when IBM released their Desktar and they kept failing due to platters overheating and expanding.

Sure you need a lot of heat to bend a think piece of metal, but hard drive platters are nano technology, and 0.1nm expantion doesn't need much heat but is enough to cause platter mulfanction.

And what makes you think it has to interfere with the casing to cause damage ? it's enough for the track to go out of shape.

[peterb]

You obviously wasn't around in 2002-2003 when IBM released their Desktar and they kept failing due to platters overheating and expanding.

There were indeed problems with the deskstar series, one was caused by a controller problem, the other was caused by the heads contacting the drives, although I have not found any evidence to suggest that it was caused by overheating, but more likely to be contamination of the platter chamber. Furthermore, those platters were made of glass, and the correct type of glass (for example 'Pyrex' has a very low coedfficient of expansion.

However if you can point me in the direction of an authoratitive source that says that the failures were caused by platter expansion caused by overheating, I'd be interested to read it.

Sure you need a lot of heat to bend a think piece of metal, but hard drive platters are nano technology, and 0.1nm expantion doesn't need much heat but is enough to cause platter mulfanction.

The hard drive platters are not that thin - about 1 to 2 mm, and while warping of the disk might be a problem if they were heated unevenly, that is unlikely to be the case in a hard drive. They will absorb (and generate) ambient heat, but that heating will be a gradual process, and the servo mechanisms in a modern drive can (and do) compensate for changes in the platter dimensions caused by heating.[/QUOTE]

And what makes you think it has to interfere with the casing to cause damage ? it's enough for the track to go out of shape.

Clicking can be caused by the heads contacting the platter surface, which is likely to be the result of mechanical shock causing internal damage. However I didn't say that the only way that damage could be caused was by the platters touching the casing.

I said that it was unlikely that the platters would get hot enough to expand to the extent that they could contact the case, and ruled that out as the cause of the clicking noise.

[jimborae]

Argh yet another Samsung F1 failure, they really are ****e drives. Doesn't seem to be restricted to the 1tb models either. I had a 2.5" laptop F1 drive die on me, only 3 weeks old and I've read loads of stories of other owners having similar issues. Seems like Samsung have inherited the DeathStar mantle so I expect that they'll be a class action lawsuit to follow by those crazy americans.

[peterb]

Argh yet another Samsung F1 failure, they really are ****e drives. Doesn't seem to be restricted to the 1tb models either. I had a 2.5" laptop F1 drive die on me, only 3 weeks old and I've read loads of stories of other owners having similar issues. Seems like Samsung have inherited the DeathStar mantle so I expect that they'll be a class action lawsuit to follow by those crazy americans.

There was an interesting item on the Scan forums to the effect that the returns on Samsung drives were no higher than any other make. Considering the vast numbers of drives that are made, even a small percentage of failures is a relatively large number, and of course you only read about the failures, not about the hundreds of thousands of disks that operate without problems.

[ice_chill]

I would assume there are more Samsung drives failing because there are more Samsung drives sold.
For a very long time Samsung 1TB was the best performing and best priced 1TB drive.

And before the 1TB drive Samsungs have generally performed better than others.

[davidcrofter]

Update: Well after testing the Samsung 1TB Hard Drive with EStool and it coming back with no problems whatsoever, I then turned my attention to the 500GB Samsung Spinpoint ... and guess what no errors either.

Looks like (or sounds like lol) the clicking is coming from my Corsair HX520W PSU - how would I be fixed on getting a replacement for this as the clicking is very annoying in an otherwise pretty quiet PC?? I would say the PSU is probably 2 years old ...

[Will404]

my HX520 use to click, and I took it out, and placed it in again to stop this. It was caused pressure being put upon the fan by sommin