Red_Frog posted... I suppose it could be a fan, but it seems like you may have ruled that out. With some modern variable speed drives they sometimes make odd noises that are a little like a dying drive but possibly not. My best advice at this point, check the following site and look up some videos on Youtube involving drives with clicking which are actually dead or dying. Knowing what the noise is won't help you fix a dying drive, but if you can't identify the noise (or, in fact, if you can) it may not actually be dying.
http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php
Also, there's an element of common sense. You know your own device better than anyone else. If you've had it for a length of time, you know what it normally sounds like and if this new sound is something you could have overlooked before or if it's genuinely something new. If it has a long history of not making odd noises, the likelihood of its failing obviously increases.
Not to fill you with potentially false hope or anything, but I have a pair of drives that have periodically made odd noises since I first put them into service. I was, to put it diplomatically, rather concerned in the beginning. They've been at nearly 100% uptime for almost 9 years.
@Red_Frog i haven't ruled out anything, didn't even think of the fans. i honestly have no idea, most have said and when i read on clicking sounds point to the HDD failing.
one person even said its normal that its the sound of a mechanic hard drive loading. have no idea what that means, i generally thought clicking sounds = bad. that's one opinion out of many i've heard.
thank you for your help.
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