Hitachi 1TB HDD's, NetBSD 6.0.1 and RAID1 - soft errors and clicking noises!

[Carl Brewer <carl%bl.echidna.id.au@localhost>]

G'day,
I'm trying to put together a RAID1 mirror for root on a new server with 
a couple of Hitachi 1TB HDD's.

NetBSD disklabel disk geometry:
cylinders: 1938021, heads: 16, sectors/track: 63 (1008 sectors/cylinder)
total sectors: 1953525168

BIOS disk geometry:
cylinders: 1023, heads: 255, sectors/track: 63 (16065 sectors/cylinder)
total sectors: 1953525168

Partitions aligned to 2048 sector boundaries, offset 2048

Partition table:
0: <UNUSED>
1: <UNUSED>
2: <UNUSED>
3: <UNUSED>
Bootselector disabled.
No active partition.
bash-4.2# disklabel -r wd1

disklabel wd1
# /dev/rwd1d:
type: ESDI
disk: Hitachi HDS72101
label: fictitious
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 1008
cylinders: 1938021
total sectors: 1953525168
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0           # microseconds
track-to-track seek: 0  # microseconds
drivedata: 0

5 partitions:
#        size    offset     fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]
 a: 1953523120      2048       RAID   #
 c: 1953523120      2048     unused      0     0        #
 d: 1953525168         0     unused      0     0        #

disklabel: could not read existing label
bash-4.2# fdisk -0ua /dev/rwd1d
fdisk: primary partition table invalid, no magic in sector 0
Disk: /dev/rwd1d
NetBSD disklabel disk geometry:
cylinders: 1938021, heads: 16, sectors/track: 63 (1008 sectors/cylinder)
total sectors: 1953525168

BIOS disk geometry:
cylinders: 1023, heads: 255, sectors/track: 63 (16065 sectors/cylinder)
total sectors: 1953525168

Partitions aligned to 2048 sector boundaries, offset 2048

Do you want to change our idea of what BIOS thinks? [n]

Partition 0:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 0 is:
<UNUSED>
sysid: [0..255 default: 169]
start: [0..121601cyl default: 2048, 0cyl, 1MB]
size: [0..121601cyl default: 1953523120, 121601cyl, 953869MB]
bootmenu: []
Do you want to change the active partition? [n] y
Choosing 4 will make no partition active.
active partition: [0..4 default: 0]
Are you happy with this choice? [n] y

We haven't written the MBR back to disk yet.  This is your last chance.
Partition table:
0: NetBSD (sysid 169)
    start 2048, size 1953523120 (953869 MB, Cyls 0-121601/80/63), Active
        PBR is not bootable: All bytes are identical (0x00)
1: <UNUSED>
2: <UNUSED>
3: <UNUSED>
Bootselector disabled.
First active partition: 0
Should we write new partition table? [n] y


The funny part to my eye us the start at 2048 not 63?  Is that right?

# /dev/rraid0d:
type: RAID
disk: raid
label: fictitious
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 128
tracks/cylinder: 8
sectors/cylinder: 1024
cylinders: 1907737
total sectors: 1953522944
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0           # microseconds
track-to-track seek: 0  # microseconds
drivedata: 0

4 partitions:
#        size    offset     fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]
 a: 1945134336   0     4.2BSD      0     0     0  #
 b:   8388608 1945134336       swap        #
 d: 1953522944         0     unused      0     0        #
~


Correct?

Newfs runs, and then the drive makes some clicking noises around midway 
through, the console shows :

Feb  7 13:14:11  /netbsd: pciide1:1:0: timeout waiting for DRQ, st=0xd0, 
err=0x00
Feb  7 13:14:12  /netbsd: wd1a: device timeout writing fsbn 286776192 of 
286776192-286776255 (wd1 bn 286778240; cn 284502 tn 3 sn 35), retrying
Feb  7 13:14:16  /netbsd: wd1: soft error (corrected)


Is that normal?  Should I ditch the drive?  It seems to be going ok for 
now, and it seems there's just the one error so far.