Is it dying?

[Darren]

My Seagate Barracuda 1TB hard drive almost seems like it's dying. Sometimes when I try and open a folder on the drive or play a song in iTunes it hangs for a second then I can hear an audible noise from my hard drive in my computer and it works. I've noticed this before but it seems to be doing it more frequently. Is it on its way out?

 

[johnb35]

What do you mean by audible noise? I have a feeling its just that the power settings is allowing the drive to park when not in use. My 500gb WD data drive will do the same thing. It will access right away after booting the system up but if its been on for some time and I go to access it, then it takes a couple seconds before the drive can accessed.

Edit--- Just looked at my advanced power settings and it will turn off after 20 minutes.

 

[Darren]

What do you mean by audible noise? I have a feeling its just that the power settings is allowing the drive to park when not in use. My 500gb WD data drive will do the same thing. It will access right away after booting the system up but if its been on for some time and I go to access it, then it takes a couple seconds before the drive can accessed.

Edit--- Just looked at my advanced power settings and it will turn off after 20 minutes.

That would actually make sense. IT's kinda like a gentle thunk? I guess that's the best way to describe it. I'm using iTunes now and it doesn't seem to have problems playing more music.

I just changed the power setting for the HDD to 9999 minutes to see if that helps. As for it happening more frequently recently it's probably because I spend so much time cooped up in my dorm on my computer.

 

[FuryRosewood]

harddrive is probably sleeping on you, windows seems kinda aggressive on harddrive sleep time....mine defaulted to 20 min, i rather let it spin down if things go idle for about 2 hours

 

[spirit]

If you're worried run Seatools on it.

 

[Darren]

I think it was just sleeping. Never really thought about that until John brought it up.