Noisy Toshiba External HDD

[Dart77]

Hi, I have six Toshiba Canvio external HDDs. some are 500Gb, some are 1TB. They all run quietly except one that occasionally, (and sometimes often when it is working), makes a chirping sound, which is a little irritating. It doesn't seem to affect it's operation but I am wondering if this is normal or within its tolerance of operation? If I put my ear up to it while it is working I can hear the motor kicking in and out and and the high chirp sound is when it either starts up or stops momentarily.

For example it does it quite often when it is being read (copying or writing data) or when doing a defrag on it. And is it ok to defrag these ext HDDs? Or does that wear them out quicker?

Thanks

 

[johnb35]

I would have to say that if you have 6 of them and 1 of them makes a noise and others don't, then its not normal and you need to contact toshiba for an rma.

 

[Delt4ninj4]

I'd recommend you use a utility called "Victoria", it's a hard drive utility to test for bad sectors and the overall health of the drive.

-Delt4ninj4

 

[Agent Smith]

Check the drive with HDtune and/or Hard disk sentinel. I've also used HDD Guardian. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/hddguardian.html

But these tools sometimes won't tell you if your drive is going south. Like what was mentioned, if the drive sounds different than all the others it's more than likely going bad and I would replace it ASAP.

Yes, defragging can take its toll on a HDD. It's only necessary like once a month or so.

 

[johnb35]

Yes, defragging can take its toll on a HDD. It's only necessary like once a month or so.

Not even once a month. Once every couple or more. Unless you are constantly changing data, installing/uninstalling programs and such.

 

[Darren]

Not even once a month. Once every couple or more. Unless you are constantly changing data, installing/uninstalling programs and such.

Windows defrags it automatically anyway, you don't ever really need to do it manually anymore.

 

[Dart77]

Windows defrags it automatically anyway, you don't ever really need to do it manually anymore.

I have Win XP, which doesn't.

Check the drive with HDtune and/or Hard disk sentinel. I've also used HDD Guardian. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/hddguardian.html

But these tools sometimes won't tell you if your drive is going south. Like what was mentioned, if the drive sounds different than all the others it's more than likely going bad and I would replace it ASAP. Yes, defragging can take its toll on a HDD. It's only necessary like once a month or so.

Thanks very much for your reply, I will try that.

I'd recommend you use a utility called "Victoria", it's a hard drive utility to test for bad sectors and the overall health of the drive.

-Delt4ninj4

Thanks for your reply, I will try it

I would have to say that if you have 6 of them and 1 of them makes a noise and others don't, then its not normal and you need to contact toshiba for an rma.

That is what I would think too, but it has never done anything bad reading writing.

 

[The VCR King]

I have two 500GB Canvio hard drives I use for backups and school stuff. Neither of mine make much noise or have ever "chirped."

 

[beers]

You could also pull SMART stats out of the drive (smartmontools or CrystalDiskInfo, etc) to see if there's anything out of the ordinary the firmware detected.