Funny noises, beachballs and application hangs (MacBook Pro 2010)

Hi,
My late 2010 model 17 inch MacBook Pro frequently makes an odd noise (seeming to come from the left side) when I am using it.  It sounds a bit like a click or a whirr (or both); if this happens application I am using will often hang for seconds to a few minutes, before the noise recurs and everything goes back to normal.  It is quite irritating!
Interestingly, the Finder itself doesn't crash and I can switch to other applications; these also hang if I try to use them but all is restored when the noise happens again.
The most obvious app is iTunes, which will stop playing music when noise happens then restart as soon as the problem rectifies itself.
Any suggestions as to what this could be?  It's been happening for years now and my machine still seems ok
Thanks

You have a failing hard disk   BACKUP YOUR DATA IMMEDIATLY. Assuming you are using an MBP with a physical disk and not an SSD (which is most like the case for a 2010 model MPB)  then the clicking noise you are hearing is the HDD equivilant of a stroke.  The reader head hits a piece of "interesting" data, flips out, smacks against the axle of the disk, and then the disk has to spin up again,  causing the application hangs.   When the disk is going through this, no data can move in or out.  The reason finder still works is that some data is pre-loaded.  You may still have functionality for a few seconds even after the disk quit working.  Since these are tiny blips in data, the finder still works.   Applications, which are constantly passing data, hang and wait for the data.    Usually, if you go into the system.log file, you will see a stack of I/O errors stemming from the disk/sector in question.    Again, BACK UP YOUR DATA IMMEDIATLY and take the laptop to a genius bar.
The Whirring noise you hear is probably the disk moter spinning up during this process. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAkHzaKULPk  a visual of what is happening

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