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Clicking hard disk on brand new 2012 mini - advice?

M

moral-hazard

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 27, 2009
197
3
Just got a new mini about a week back and unboxed it today. The first thing I noticed is that there are occasional soft "clunk" noises (perhaps heads parking?), and then light clicking whenever the drive is doing work. The mini sits about 2 feet away from me on my desk & it is definitely noticeable. The drive is not doing any hard work at the moment (no spotlight indexes or backup running, it's basically just idle and still noticing the noise). I searched and saw another thread where a number of people complained about this (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1483592/).

I'm wondering if it's worth taking the time to go to the apple store and bug them about it, or if it's just the standard that these drives make a bit of noise. None of my other machines have audible HDD noise, so this seemed a bit weird to me. However, it looks like this machine has a Hitachi disk which (in my experience) tend to be clunkier / lower quality than WD, so maybe this is normal?

I have an OWC data doubler, 120gb SSD, and 750GB Scorpio Black on the way, so the hitachi drive won't actually stay in the machine, but was hoping to use the stock disk for time machine backups, so I'd like to make sure it's functional. Any advice would be appreciated!
 
Have to agree with Macman45 here, a new drive should not make those sounds, I had a couple of 2'5" drives doing this after connecting them to a USB port in an internet cafe, they all failed with the same noises.
 
There were some threads on this before Xmas. It's likely the hard-drive parking the head every few seconds. Can't remember the details, but it has to do with a particular OEM HD and the firmware. Lot's of info in those threads. Good luck.
 
Thanks all. Going to take it in and presumably they'll swap me out a new one. Worst comes to worst I get another one with the same problem. Just wish I didn't have to wait two days for a genius bar appt :(
 
Went in today. They weren't willing to help out with this issue unfortunately. The guy who helped me out at the genius bar said that 5400rpm disks rarely go bad and didn't think that there was a problem. Disk tests were green so they sent me on my way. I guess it doesn't matter, I'm tearing the whole machine apart as soon as my OWC order gets here.

For anyone having the same problem with the new mac mini disks, I'd suggest trying HDAPM to see if adjusting power settings for the disk helps. Or alternatively, just going aftermarket and replacing the disk with something a little nicer that's not made by Hitachi. :p
 
My 2012 i7 mini hd clicked for a couple of days when i first got it, has since settled down. Now I have no issues. Only noise i hear is the occasional fan noise under load. Hope this helps.
 
I hear a lot of sound from my mini i7 2.6 , fan and hd read/write and some clicking. But i have very silent apartment. but f... it I have two years warranty and time machine
 
I have the same clicking. I presume you have the 1TB drive. If you go into an Apple store and find other Mac Minis with the same hard drive, you will hear the same clicking. Although it's annoying, it's likely just a mechanical feature of this particular drive. Either way, I am curious as to whether or not it indicates increased wear.
 
I am having the same issue on a 1 month old mini. It just started a couple of days ago. I might give Apple a call but chances are the next one will do the same thing.
 
I think absolutely no mini is not dead silent. rather it depends on hearing and mends around :) also my iphone 4s make some hig frekvenci thing but i can hear it only in deep night in our country :) but as i sad i have super ears
 
I have the 500GB drive. Confirmed that HDAPM and possibly turning off 'put hard disks to sleep' helps the situation.
 
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