Seagate Barracuda LP ST31500541AS 1.5TB and loud random clicking noise

I have a new Seagate Barracuda LP ST31500541AS 1.5TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive. This is my second one. The first one I had started to make clicking noises randomly. These clicking noises can be very loud. Also, the hd freezes for a few seconds when it happens sometimes. It took about 3 weeks for the clicking noises to start. They came randomly rather the drive was idle, or if I was surfing the internet. In other wards, this is not from the drive going to sleep and waking up(also, this is my boot drive). The noises were loud enough that I could hear about 7 feet away. I sent that hard drive back and got another of the same model. Now, after 3 weeks of use the clicking noises are begining. It was silent the first 3 weeks. I know it will get worse because that is how my other seagate hd got. what's the chances of this happening twice in a row? This drive(and the one before it) was used as my boot drive and I only use my system for music, internet surfing, and movies so there is no abuse. Is this a known issue of these drive models? Could it have been shipping both times(bubble wrap was used)? Or has Seagate quality hit the floor?

Message edited by dman777 on 10-11-2009 at 01:55:57 AM

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Run Seatools hard disk diagnostics.
You may be able to push some bad sectors back.
There is a 22% failure rate on that drive according to Newegg.com, which is probably worse than actual, because satisfied people normally do not rate the product, while dissatisfied people will rate the product more often. 22% is a little high. I try to stay under 14-15% dissatisfaction rate.

Reply to evongugg

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/f [...] ption.html

I have a ST3500418AS, that is the 1 platter 500GB model, without worries up to now.

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Dissatisfaction rate: sellers' feedback base is too small, leading to statistical fluctuations and possible abuses by manufacturers.

I prefer to use Google, through the ratio:
ST31500541AS problem
to
ST31500541AS
which generally send back hit figures like 10,000 or 100,000, more difficult for manufacturers to influence.

In your case, 5,820/294,000 hits or 2% which is good.

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Same disks shipped back to you? Just check the serial number. You got it written on your floppy when using Seatools, or on HdTune's screenshot, possibly in the hidden hardware list from Windows' hardware manager, and so on.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Pointertovoid

I was just googling wondering how it could happen twice. I have the same situation. The story is exactly the same. The rate of clicking increased over the weeks and in the end, the drive would be no longer recognized by the system, just click constantly from startup. No abuse to the drive at all, it was mostly sitting idle for few weeks. Seagate diagnostic or SMART would not report any problems over that time. Though at some point finishing the surface scan with HDDScan would be no longer possible as the drive would hang during such test. But as far as I could see it would just hang randomly even doing nothing, in a way not related to reading particular sectors.
Well, that was my first drive. I already have a replacement from Seagate. Two weeks have passed and I've already heard the same loud clicking noises few times. Not again!
It's easy to find complaints on the 7200 version of those drives, those had many problems, supposedly fixed with newer firmwares, but there's very little about 5900. Actually, the terrible reputation of 7200 version was my reason to stay away from it. But apparently they have the same design flaws. As for the shipping, my second one came in a box that would easily fit 30 drives, filled with foam, perfect packaging. And as usual, I've started with all built in SMART tests to see if the drive is fine (different serial number btw, and a brand new one if we are to trust SMART data on those matters).
So, are we supposed to sit and wait again until our drives fail again and we can send them back?

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to mjoach

Google thing is not very fair as the models would have to have been released at same time and sold in the same quantities.

Pointertovoid wrote :

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/f [...] ption.html

I have a ST3500418AS, that is the 1 platter 500GB model, without worries up to now.

-----

Dissatisfaction rate: sellers' feedback base is too small, leading to statistical fluctuations and possible abuses by manufacturers.

I prefer to use Google, through the ratio:
ST31500541AS problem
to
ST31500541AS
which generally send back hit figures like 10,000 or 100,000, more difficult for manufacturers to influence.

In your case, 5,820/294,000 hits or 2% which is good.

-----

Same disks shipped back to you? Just check the serial number. You got it written on your floppy when using Seatools, or on HdTune's screenshot, possibly in the hidden hardware list from Windows' hardware manager, and so on.

Reply to zappo

Thanks for feedback, I originally was looking to see if there was a performance hit with this drive at 5900 vs the 7200 on typical drives. Now I think I will buy a Samsung drive instead. I used to by Seagate because of their 5 year no quibble guarantee but this sounds like my data will be at risk.

mjoach wrote :

I was just googling wondering how it could happen twice. I have the same situation. The story is exactly the same. The rate of clicking increased over the weeks and in the end, the drive would be no longer recognized by the system, just click constantly from startup. No abuse to the drive at all, it was mostly sitting idle for few weeks. Seagate diagnostic or SMART would not report any problems over that time. Though at some point finishing the surface scan with HDDScan would be no longer possible as the drive would hang during such test. But as far as I could see it would just hang randomly even doing nothing, in a way not related to reading particular sectors.
Well, that was my first drive. I already have a replacement from Seagate. Two weeks have passed and I've already heard the same loud clicking noises few times. Not again!
It's easy to find complaints on the 7200 version of those drives, those had many problems, supposedly fixed with newer firmwares, but there's very little about 5900. Actually, the terrible reputation of 7200 version was my reason to stay away from it. But apparently they have the same design flaws. As for the shipping, my second one came in a box that would easily fit 30 drives, filled with foam, perfect packaging. And as usual, I've started with all built in SMART tests to see if the drive is fine (different serial number btw, and a brand new one if we are to trust SMART data on those matters).
So, are we supposed to sit and wait again until our drives fail again and we can send them back?

Reply to zappo

I have recently bought 6 of the same 1.5TB drives. I have the same fault as you. Although so far no failures.

Loud clicking noises in more than 1 of the drives. Because there is 6 of them in an array I can't be sure wich ones are the problem.

I will try to upgrade the firmware but am not optermistic.

Reply to Mike_69

I bought 3 of these 5900 rpm drives from Fry's a month apart. All have developed this problem. I copy 0.9 TB worth of data no prob. After some days, the clicking starts. Becomes worse. SMART, etc ok. SeaTools ok.
Seagate suggested its a hardware prob with my P4 motherboard SATA port. I put in a PCI card with SATA 2 and same problem.
It even happens at power up time.

There is something sick with this drive model.

I do have two older (3 to 5 month old) 1.5TB 7200 rpm Seagates. One has not shown this problem. (These have the newest CC firmware.) The other one showed it weakly for a while and then stopped.

At one point, the 5900 drive would recalibrate badly (the click click) on internal SATA but not on an external USB SATA adapter. Later the 5900 had the problem on either internal or external.

I think that Seagate should recall these. I bought a Hitachi 1g as a replacement. I'm afraid of Seagate and 1.5 TB.

Reply to babahu

I went ahead and bought one again for the 3rd time....this time the retail version from best buy. after about 3 weeks it started clicking. ugh. talk about painfull. i wonder if this would be the same on the 2 tb version?

Reply to dman777

All of mine were retail. This has to be some kind of manufacturing defect. I was afraid of the 2TB having the same trouble. So I switched to Hitachi as it was on sale and only 1 TB. Anybody know if 2TB and 1.5TB share the same firmware and hardware?

Reply to babahu

The DENIAL by seagate of what MUST BE a manufacturing defect that produces drives that progressively become more and more faulty simply costs them business. I built 4 NAS devices last week each with 5 drives, we were going to go with Seagate but until this problem is resolved we will not touch ANY of their drives.

Reply to zappo

Man, I can't wait to see how and WHEN Seagate begins to deal with this issue. Sucks, they were my favorite brand hd company and was the only hd company I could trust. Can't believe they would lower the quality control like this.

Reply to dman777

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