Hard drive constantly working noisily since update

[bmac89]

Hello,

I have a 2009 iMac 9'1 with 8gb RAM and the stock hard drive. It was smooth and quiet on snow leopard even when opening apps or switching users. The only time the hard drive would be working hard and making noise is at login on a cold boot up. There is over 100gb free space on the drive.

I have just update to El Capitan and even though spotlight indexing has finished the hard drive is constantly working noisily (grinding noise). It is very irritating. I understand that the newer version of OS X are better suited to a solid state drive but I'm still surprised and very disappointed if this is how it is going to run. Whilst it is not as fast as snow leopard it is not slow either. Speed is not an issue, It is just the noise which is driving me crazy and the wear and tear it must be causing the drive.

When I get the chance I will have a look at activity monitor. Is there anything in particular I should keep an eye out for?

Also on a slightly related note I have noticed a high pitched noise coming from inside the Mac immediately since updating to OS X El Capitan. This definetely did not occur previously on Snow Leopard. However I did have the El Capitan beta installed on an external drive and noticed this same high pitched noise but I assumed it was the external hard drive. The noise is constant but every now and then sounds like morse code. Again this is highly irritating and a bit concerning as to why the update is causing this.

Some may not notice the high pitch noise but I do and it is such a relief when the computer goes to sleep or switched off.

Thanks

 

[simonsi]

Any noticeably noisy hard drive should be replaced IMHO, I've not noticed any EC version make any HDD noisy as a result of the update...

 

[bmac89]

Any noticeably noisy hard drive should be replaced IMHO, I've not noticed any EC version make any HDD noisy as a result of the update...

Thanks for the reply.

Im convinced it is not a dying HDD. It doesn't sound like a dying hard drive, it sounds like a hard drive very busily reading or writing.
Whilst the spotlight window no longer shows indexing progress bar suggesting that it has finished, when I looked in Activity Monitor there was multiple entries for MDS which I believe relates to spotlight. Maybe it is still busily doing something despite no longer showing a progress bar?

As for the high pitched noise I don't think it is coming from the hard drive and it definitely only occurs when booted into El Capitan.

 

[bmac89]

Thankfully the hard drive constantly working nosily has now stopped. I suspect that it was spotlight continuing to index despite the progress bar no longer showing as I discovered Activity Monitor showed multiple MDS processes.

As for the high pitched noise it sounds like those charger plugs with transformers that make a whining sound when plugged in as well as generating heat.
I'm wonder whether it is electrical waste/noise like those chargers or maybe the fan making a higher pitch sound. Regardless it continues to irritate me and I would love to know why it happens only when I boot into El Capitan and how to fix it!

I will experiment with a fan control app to see if I notice any differences.

Thanks

 

[simonsi]

Well if the disk is busy the cpu must be doing stuff which may be just causing the fan to run a bit harder.

 

[gslrider]

I updated from Yosemite to El Capitain a couple of weeks ago. Before the update, my Mac Pro 2010 was running nicely. No lags, no noisy drive. Fan would pickup when I was doing something processor intensive, but that's about it. But since updating to El Capitan, one of the drives has been doing exactly as you described. Even though I'm not doing anything. The only time it stops, is when I put my system to sleep, or shut it down. Once it's on, that drive just keeps reading/writing. On top of that, my Mac has also gotten pretty laggy. It's Quad-core system with 16GB of ram. So it's not lacking anything. And as I mentioned, it was peppy under Yosemite.

How long did it take for your drive to finally get quiet again? I'm certain now, after 2 weeks, my Mac should have already stopped indexing.

Anyone else have this issue? A fix? I'm afraid that my good drive, will just go south on me because of this constant reading/writing. Note, the sound of the drive is a consistent pattern. And as the OP said, it's very annoying! This is the reason why I don't like updating unless I need too. And since getting the iPhone 11 Pro, I had to update my iTunes to access the phone. But the new iTunes, required El Capitain to run. So a "damned if I do, damned if I don't scenario". I wish Apple would stop doing this. Why do I need to update iTunes, and consequently update my OS whenever I get a new phone. Stupid or just plain criminal?