New mini- three knocks when starting or waking

Question

I have a about two month old mini with the duo core processor.
Last week it started making three knocks or click noises . It does this when waking from sleep, and when you initially start it up. at the very start of waking or at initial start up you get three clicks real close together then its fine.
My sound speaker is on low using the monitor screen control at the top of the monitor screen.
what can the cause of these clicks be?
Thanks

Answer 1

It's powering up, checking all the components. At that point it is therefore starting to supply current to the drives, which would cause the internal HD to spin up, and the heads to un-park and zero. That fact doesn't help in itself though, because while it's almost sure to be the noise of that activity you are hearing, it could also be that the noises are an indication of drive malfunction at that point. It isn't likely because, as said, you'd expect some variance in the symptom since faults are by their nature not predictable events, but it's possible.
I would do as Boece suggests, and verify the drive to make sure the data is intact. After that, I'd use the system as normal, ensuring you have good backups in case of failure, and simply monitor it to see if the noises change. If they don't, then I don't believe you are experiencing the onset of failure.