The way it use to sound but with the addition of a constantly/intermittently mini cement mixer (imagine little Construction Working Pixies) with a few good sized rocks in there. This has been my experience with dying hard drives.
Also if it randomly sounds like it has very quickly gone off and on in standby mode, this (to me) is another signal of a drive on it's way to the Junk Planet.
Thanks for those comments. While i've heard some strange things from my drives, they haven't sounded like a cement mixer.
BTW i think the regular clicking sounds more metallic, like a wire tapping against spinning metal.
But i still haven't gotten a good answer to when to know when to switch drives. Should i just wait for the bad clicking to start or are there any other signs of trouble. I get the feeling that when the clicking starts time is short, and as such bad decisions are made. Remember that when i started this thread i thought that i had mere hours left and was really in a panic.
BTW thrax you should update your guide concerning good versus bad clicking. You wouldn't want people to get new drives if it's just doing maintenance. Then again if that's the case the other signs wouldn't be there.
Pretty rare?? I've heard it twice this week. I ran the quick DFT test a few days ago and it turned up nothing. Perhaps my drives are more prone for autocorrection. Or i'm in trouble.
Have you tried hdd - there is a trial version.
Edit\:HddLife
...and I meant a very very small cement mixer!:bigggrin: That has just been my experience but the only hard drives I have had fail on me have been from the P2/P3 era - I have either been really lucky so far or I am not putting excess stress on any of my newer drives.
Thanks for the help but i want something to monitor from linux. I found smartmontools and installed it along with smart-notifier. The problem is that i can't find a link for the notifier. Or do i need to reboot. I found this guide and uncommented the line as i should but i don't understand the rest. Why should i edit smartd.conf in the way it says. BTW i got monitor up and running, apparently you just type the name in a consol. It didn't say anything so i guess i need to reboot to get the deamon running. Tried to start it using
/etc/init.d/smartmontools start
but that did nothing. I'll feel alot better if i can monitor the drives in real time and not have to reboot.
I added the line in the conf file and replaced the adress with my own but when i try to start the deamon is says fail at the right side of the window. What am i doing wrong.
Ok i've had some success. Though i still can't get the deamon started i find a command line that works. Using
smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sda
seems to do what this page says. Look at the picture i attach, it's the log printed by that command. If it's reliable then my drives should last for another 9500 and 10000 hours. Still though it says a lot of prefail and old age in one column. What's that about?
Perhaps i should stop worrying about the deamon since the app seems to be working, still i really need some input on just how reliable those numbers are because if they are right my drives have about a year to live. Can i count on that give or take a couple of days/weeks.
So how reliable are those numbers and could they change quickly? If i get a good answer to that then i can consider this thread finished. I can't say closed but i would at last have an answer to the original question.
If you can afford it go for a new drive now IMHO. At least within the next 6 months. Why take the chance on loosing something you have spent hard work and time on. I'm reading from your attachment that the drive is experiencing problems that very likely will get worse - especially if you are using it continuously.
Maybe wait for someone more astute with modern hard drives to give you an answer.
If you can afford it go for a new drive now IMHO. At least within the next 6 months. Why take the chance on loosing something you have spent hard work and time on. I'm reading from your attachment that the drive is experiencing problems that very likely will get worse - especially if you are using it continuously.
Maybe wait for someone more astute with modern hard drives to give you an answer.
Yeah you're prolly right. I wonder what breakthroughs will happen as far as SSD is concered. At the moment it looks best to stick with the ordinary kind of drive. Unless i win the lottery. :bigggrin:
Comments
It would however be cool to have recordings of the noises somewhere.
So how would one decribe the "bad" clicking compared to the "good" in more detail?
Good click: Very quiet, sounds like a credit card being snapped gently against another piece of plastic.
Bad click: Sounds like a marble dropped in an empty coffee can.
The way it use to sound but with the addition of a constantly/intermittently mini cement mixer (imagine little Construction Working Pixies) with a few good sized rocks in there. This has been my experience with dying hard drives.
Also if it randomly sounds like it has very quickly gone off and on in standby mode, this (to me) is another signal of a drive on it's way to the Junk Planet.
shhhCLICK....shhhhCLICK....shhhhCLICK
the point is there's a very quiet but noticeable hiss before the click, like something is dragging on something and then hitting a wall...
BTW i think the regular clicking sounds more metallic, like a wire tapping against spinning metal.
But i still haven't gotten a good answer to when to know when to switch drives. Should i just wait for the bad clicking to start or are there any other signs of trouble. I get the feeling that when the clicking starts time is short, and as such bad decisions are made. Remember that when i started this thread i thought that i had mere hours left and was really in a panic.
BTW thrax you should update your guide concerning good versus bad clicking. You wouldn't want people to get new drives if it's just doing maintenance. Then again if that's the case the other signs wouldn't be there.
However if the drive is failing mechanically, any of the popular HDD diagnostics would tell you. HDs are pretty intelligent now.
Edit\:HddLife
...and I meant a very very small cement mixer!:bigggrin: That has just been my experience but the only hard drives I have had fail on me have been from the P2/P3 era - I have either been really lucky so far or I am not putting excess stress on any of my newer drives.
But what the heck do I know anyhooo
Hope you find the info you need.
BTW i'm on ubuntu so an app that doesn't require windows would be nice.
http://www.hddlife.com/
And I do believe there is only a Windows version!
Perhaps i should stop worrying about the deamon since the app seems to be working, still i really need some input on just how reliable those numbers are because if they are right my drives have about a year to live. Can i count on that give or take a couple of days/weeks.
Maybe wait for someone more astute with modern hard drives to give you an answer.
Is it constantly being used, and left on 24/7?
Nope, not at all. Pay attention to the total uptime shown on the attachment.
Its typically on from 4PM-10:30PM on the weekdays and from 8AM-11PM on the weekends.
This might help!
http://www.hddlife.com/eng/faq.html
Yeah you're prolly right. I wonder what breakthroughs will happen as far as SSD is concered.