Read this before you do anything else
Switch it off now, and don't switch it back on.
The click is the head assembly failing to find its reference position, retracting, and trying again. A head that cannot fly properly is a head in contact with, or close to, the surface holding your files. Every power-up scrapes a little more of it away, and that damage is cumulative and permanent. A drive power-cycled forty times by a hopeful owner is a materially worse job than the same drive brought in after the first click.
Emergency
NAS clicking
If your NAS is making a clicking noise, the most useful thing on this page is above this paragraph, and it is free. What follows is what the fault usually turns out to be, how recoverable this class of failure is, and what it would cost, including the cases we would tell you to take elsewhere.
What this usually turns out to be
In an array the click is coming from one member, and the array itself is the more urgent problem. A NAS that detects a member misbehaving will usually try to help: it drops the disk out and, if a spare exists, begins rebuilding onto it. A rebuild reads every remaining disk end to end, which is the heaviest sustained load those disks will ever see, and it does it at the exact moment one of their siblings has already proven the batch is aging. The clicking disk is the symptom. The rebuild is what turns one failed disk into a lost array.
An array is a set of member disks plus the arrangement that binds them. Losing the arrangement loses the data even when every disk is healthy.
Head assembly failure
The heads themselves are damaged or misaligned and cannot read the servo information they navigate by. This needs the drive opened in a controlled environment.
Failing or seized spindle motor
The platters cannot reach or hold speed, so the heads never get a stable surface to read.
Servo or surface damage
The factory-written reference information the heads navigate by has been damaged, usually by earlier contact.
Underpowered or failing power supplybetter news
An external drive not getting enough current produces a convincing click that has nothing to do with the heads. The drive inside is often perfectly healthy.
Failed USB bridge board in the enclosurebetter news
The interface board between the drive and your computer has failed while the drive behind it is fine. Ordinary work, and it ends well.
What to check first on a NAS
- Work out which bay is clicking before you power anything down, by ear or by the bay activity light. Once the unit is off, that information is much harder to recover.
- Photograph the front of the unit and label every disk with its bay number before removing any of them. Disk order is part of the data, and an array whose order is unknown is a much bigger job than one whose order is written on the disks.
- Check the unit's own storage manager for which members it considers healthy, and write down what it says rather than acting on it.
What not to do
Do not let it rebuild, and do not accept the prompt to repair the volume. If a rebuild is already running, powering the unit down mid-rebuild is usually the better of two bad options. Do not reinsert a disk the NAS has ejected, because that is what starts the rebuild you are trying to avoid.
How recoverable this is
Wide, and it splits early into two very different groups. A genuine head failure needs mechanical work in a cleanroom before a single byte can be read. A power or enclosure fault that merely sounds identical is routine work with a good outcome. Which one you have is the first thing an assessment settles, and it is free.
What moves it, for your device specifically:
- How many times it has been powered on since the noise started
- Whether the click is mechanical at all, or a power or enclosure fault imitating one
- Whether the platter surfaces are still intact where your files live
- Whether donor parts for that exact drive family are obtainable
We will not give you a percentage for your device, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Nobody can know what is recoverable until the media has been imaged and read. What is above describes this class of failure; your drive gets its own answer after an assessment, in writing, at no cost.
What it costs
Assessed free, then referred at no charge
Cleanroom mechanical work
Clicking, seized or head-crashed drives need internal mechanical work in a controlled environment. We don't have one, so we assess it, tell you what we found in writing, and refer it on. That referral costs you nothing here.
Nothing is charged until you have seen a fixed quote for your actual device and agreed to it, and the assessment that produces it is free.
Other faults on a NAS
Clicking on other devices
Next step
Tell us what failed.
Free assessment. Fixed quote before recovery starts. No recovery, no fee. Sydney drop-off or Australia-wide by tracked post.