Hard drive makes clicking sound when system starts but works if I keep it disconnected at start and connect after three seconds

Question

I have a testing system with two 500 GB HDD (RAID 1) with an Intel based MB and Linux OS. (I don't know if these information are useful, the problems seems unrelated to OS or similar but I wrote them anyway).

When the system starts, one of the drives makes a clicking sound and is not recognized. This only happen if I leave both drives connected to SATA power at start. If I disconnect the power to this drive, wait three seconds at start and reconnect the power, the drive works, no clicking sound, and is recognized by the system.

This is the smart from smartctl:

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       1
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0026   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0023   083   001   025    Pre-fail  Always   In_the_past 5177
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       3461
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   252   252   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   252   252   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0024   252   252   015    Old_age   Offline      -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       9714
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   252   252   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       3572
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0022   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       6061150
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0022   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   064   059   000    Old_age   Always       -       30 (Min/Max -10/41)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   252   252   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0036   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x002a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       354
223 Load_Retry_Count        0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
225 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       3608

This is really weird.

What is going on here?

Seems that is something related to how the disk is "initialized" at startup.

NOTE: I know the best choice is to replace the drive, but the system is for testing only and there're no critical data on it. I'm just curious about this weird behaviour

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EDIT I add some extra information I missed (reading comments)

• PSU: 450W and the system is a low power one
• the RAID is software, no hardware controller

Answer 1

It seems like your PSU doesn’t have enough of the juices to power up all of your disks simultaneously. RAID controllers typically have what’s called a “spin up delay” feature to reduce peak current, they power up disks one-by-one with 2-3 secs of delay. Get some beefier PSU to run a short experiment. If confirmed just keep it, if not… It’s a particular disk bearings are on the death row.

Answer 2

Short answer:

If it's clicking:

• replace it immediately.
• This is a physical hint of failure.

But sometimes it seems to be just an underrated Power Supply, but with 2 Hdds it should not matter usually

It may still function at times, but its demise is inevitable.

• Remember to backup your data aslong the device is keeps working

reference: 25 year of Experience in Hardware

Answer 3

450W is rating, how well it actually performs? To answer this, you need an oscilloscope, unfortunately; preferably, at least two-channel. It's graphs of voltages you want to see, during system startup. The power wires usually come with several connectors for devices along the line, so tap into +5 (red), +12 (yellow) and ground (black) on the tail connector.

If you see it dips noticeably at some moment, it is likely faulty PSU, because 450W should definitely sustain simultaneous spin-up of two hard drives. But also, if two hard drives hang on a single PSU power branch and the wires it it are thin, it might be just the wires aren't able to deliver so much power and their resistance becomes an issue. (Easy way to verify this is to measure the same voltages on an unloaded branch and see if it makes any diffefence.) Split them, then, and always make your best to spread the devices to branches as evenly as possible.

At last, as suggested, you can also try to set up staggered spin up. Some BIOSses support it, not just dedicated controllers; it's worth exploring.