MAC OSX Hard drive Clicking.

[greengiant912]

I have noticed a slight clicking with the 7200 rpm hard drive I put in my macbook pro.

 

From what I heard it can be caused by the energy saving options and the hard drive is being put to sleep or something.

 

I turned those options off and I still hear the slight clicking noise. I also heard that this could be a solution but I have no idea how to use it lol http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/ I read the instructions and it said to copy it to the /usr/local/bin which I cant find in the system o.o I am a Mac noob lolz. It is very Unix/Linux like but there are some quarkyness with things that I don't understand yet. Here are the instructions....

 

hdapm
hdapm is a Mac OS X command line utility for setting the power management (APM) level for ATA hard drives.
Why?
Some models of laptop hard drives exhibit annoying “clicking” or “clunking” noises, due to the drive heads (or “sliders”) being repeatedly loaded and unloaded when the drive is idle. This behavior can often be alleviated by setting the drive to the “maximum performance” APM level.
Alternatively, in some environments it may be desirable to set a low APM level to save power and spin down the drive more aggressively than with the default OS settings.
Caveats
Be aware that setting a drive to the “maximum performance” level may adversely affect battery life, depending on the driveʼs firmware.
Compatibility
hdapm should work with any ATA (PATA or SATA) that supports APM. It is not compatible with external drives connected by USB or Firewire.
Installation
Copy hdapm to somewhere on your system - I suggest /usr/local/bin. If you want to have hdapm run automatically at startup, also copy the hdapm.plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons
Note that you may need to edit hdapm.plist with your desired settings. By default it assumes you installed the hdapm binary in /usr/local/bin, and will set the primary drive (disk0) to the maximum performance APM level.
Usage
hdapm device level Example: hdapm disk0 max
hdapm takes two arguments: the device name of the target drive (usually disk0), and the desired APM level. The APM level is a number between 1 and 254, inclusive. The exact meaning of each value depends on your driveʼs firmware, but in general lower numbers mean more power saving and higher numbers mean more performance.
The following APM levels are pre-defined, and can be used in place of a numeric value: • max - maximum performance. Use this setting to eliminate “clicking when idle” noises. • min - maximum power savings. • default - return to default setting.
Uninstalling
To completely remove hdapm from your system, delete the following files:
/Library/LaunchDaemons/hdapm.plist /usr/local/bin/hdapm

 

btw I am running snow leopard

Edited October 9, 2009 by greengiant912

[ir_cow]

i would just like to say all mac drives seems to click, they always so loud.

[greengiant912]

i would just like to say all mac drives seems to click, they always so loud.

 

It is not the stock drive that came with the Macbook, It is a drive I bought from newegg to replace the 5400rpm drive that came with the MBP..

 

**edit I was able to run it out of terminal, just took a little getting used to the syntax of the commands the clicking has seemed to stop after a reboot, I will keep monitoring it and see if it keeps doing it.

Edited October 9, 2009 by greengiant912