hard disk behavior

[Dmitry S. Kasterin]

Hi!

2012/2/29, jb <jb.1234abcd at gmail.com>:
> Hi,
> I very often hear this metallic (mechanical) clicking from my hard disk when
> it is active. I experience this behavior under FreeBSD only (not other OSs).
> Is there any way to figure out what it means ?

Some time ago I had a similar problem with an external WD Scorpio Blue disk.
As my point of view, it tends to park its heads too often, even under
heavy load,
so this results in a clicking.

As far as I remember, you can check Load_Cycle_Count from SMART output.
Take some measurements during minute or two. Rapid growth of this parameter
indicates a problem.