Noisy Hard Drive on new iMac

[Caleb Flerk]

Greetings all.

I just chucked my old Windows machine and bought a new iMac 24 inch with 3.06 GHz processor and 1 TB HDD. Had this nice machine for about 3 weeks now and the HDD has begun to make a noise. For up to 30 minutes it will rattle and hum, then go back to quiet. This is happening about every third day...or approximately twice a week...but not at any set time.

Anyone know what this is? Something to worry about or some kind of housekeeping utility? I love this Mac, but the documentation is pretty sparse.

Thanks
CF

 

[rgarjr]

What kind of tasks is it doing when its noisy like that?

 

[Caleb Flerk]

What kind of tasks is it doing when its noisy like that?

Mostly running in the background. I usually have Mail and Safari open, and maybe working on a document or viewing a photo in iPhoto. No strenuous tasks running that I can think of. The HD still has 880 GB of storage on it...so I wouldn't think it to be de-fragging or anything like that.

With my old windows machine the HD was always going off and doing stuff - with scans for bugs and things...and it rattled some, but the sound was mostly lost in all the fan noise.

But this iMac is quiet as a church mouse...except for the HDD doing this sound.