Dear Gurus

I know that this has been brought up some times, but your experience might help me clear out the situation for me.

I got a pair of Seagate ES.2 ST3250310NS drives from a HP server on RAID 1.
Both of them do a repeated low clack-sound for about 5-6 secs and then motor spin-down.

I have seen in topics that these models (manufactured up to 2008; mine are 2006) regarding a firmware issue.
Also I seen in the topics that is suggested that 'if clack-sound and spin-down' then it's a heads issue. Although I think a bit strange to have a 'heads' issue on both drive concurrently.

Any general ideas on how to continue?
Thanks in advance...

The drives sticker show:
Barracuda ES.2 250GB 7200rpm SATA

S/N:
1. 9SF0KDMC
2. 9SF0KDMH
ST3250310NS
P/N: 9CA152-783
Firmware: HPG2
Date Code: 09106
Site Code: KRATSG

STX-ST3500320NS (B)

HP MODEL: GB0250C8045
HP P/N: 454141-001
CT: 28045013XWIM4L
HP GPN: 397377-013

My PC-3000 show the following ID information. (capacity is wrong)
CONFIGURATION GENERAL INFORMATION:
ATA device
Fixed device and/or controller

Logical cylinders count..................................... 16383
Logical sectors per track................................... 63
Logical heads count......................................... 16
Model....................................................... ST_M13FQBL
Serial number............................................... QNR_BFW
Firmware.................................................... 11291209

Maximal block size for READ/WRITE MULTIPLE commands......... 16

Features
Stop Timer Value
IORDY............................................. Supported
LBA Mode.......................................... Supported
DMA Mode.......................................... Supported

Current Logical Parameters
Cylinders......................................... 16 383
Heads............................................. 16
Sectors........................................... 63
Capacity.......................................... 16 514 064 Sectors (8 063,5 Mb)
Capacity available in LBA Mode.................... 8 089 950 Sectors (3 950,2 Mb)
Capacity available in LBA 48 Mode................. 8 089 950 Sectors (3 950,2 Mb)

Available DMA Mode
Multiword DMA Mode 0
Multiword DMA Mode 1
Multiword DMA Mode 2
Active DMA Mode

Active UDMA/33 modes
Ultra DMA/33 Mode 0
Ultra DMA/33 Mode 1
Ultra DMA/33 Mode 2
Ultra DMA/33 Mode 3
Ultra DMA/33 Mode 4
Ultra DMA/33 Mode 5
Ultra DMA/33 Mode 6
Current UDMA/33 mode........................................ Ultra DMA/33 Mode 6

Current PIO mode
Supported Enhanced PIO Modes
PIO MODE 3
PIO MODE 4

Minimal multiword DMA cycle time............................ 120 ns
Recommended multiword DMA cycle time........................ 120 ns
Minimal multiword PIO cycle time w/o stream control......... 240 ns
Minimal multiword PIO cycle time with IORDY................. 120 ns

Supported standards
ATA - 3
ATA - 4
ATA - 5
ATA - 6

Supported Command Sets
S.M.A.R.T functions
Security control

Security system............................................. Supported
condition flags :
password set...................................... NO
HDD Locked........................................ NO
HDD Frozen........................................ NO
wrong password count exceeded..................... NO
security erase support............................ NO
security level.................................... HIGH
Master code................................................. FFFE

Assume the worse, "head crash," and hope for the best, "faulty PCB" and send to a professional lab for a diagnosis before it is too late.

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Usually this is really bad news. If you can jumpstart the drive try to gain access to SA. If no joy, heads/preamp are toast or there is a serious failure.
I see this kind of things continuously - people do not replace routinely the drives on the array after reaching reasonable EOL, they wait till they hear grinding sound or see smoke from the server

Maybe the problem is limited, but only a thorough diagnose can tell. Best of luck.

P.S. let me suggest you NOT to post complete serial numbers of drives

THanks alot for your suggestions!

Unfortunately I've seen this situation several times, when redundant RAID arrays are poorly monitored.

Multiple disks are often bought at the same time in the original system, so any batch-problems have a greater chance to affect more than one disk. After some time, disk A dies but since there is (was!) redundancy, no-one notices... Then later, disk B also dies (perhaps for the same batch-related reason which caused disk A to die), someone looks at the RAID array for the first time in months or years, and sees that both disks A and B have died. The customer might (wrongly) think that both disks failed at the same time, when actually, they should be blaming their own poor sys-admin of the RAID array(s)

I see this VERY frequently... often the last disk to fail has some severe unrepairable error and the first failed disk is old and stale.

Very true. Unfortunately many home users and "mom & pop" businesses (i.e. SMEs without much IT experience) don't understand that RAID arrays are not the same as having backups, so when the above situation happens, they are stuffed.

Have a cleanroom?

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Not yet. I just wanted to make sure that there's nothing I can do, before outsourcing it.

Sorry, the next step is cleanroom examination.

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts