I have been having this same issue, if this is permitted here are a couple of videos.
You can hear the noise here (they are at 5s intervates starting from 3s but there are 2 louder noises which is my arm on top of the case)
Check out 3s, 8s, 13s, 18s, 23s, 28s (You will need the volume up loud)
This is also with JUST the 10TB drive plugged in (This happens with both my current running and backup drive) the first few seconds is just everything powering on including fans but after a few seconds you hear the drive. It is outside the case next to my phone.
It is extremely annoying considering I paid ~£750 for the pair.
The clicking noise is at idle and its just storage for media streaming so no installed programs.
PS I have no idea about smart info but spinup time on the one in my machine has changed from 0 to just under 30mil and the backup spin up time on HDSentinel had no bar there but on the left it went up to 100,000,000 so I am not sure if that is the max HDS can show.
I am off to bed now after restarting my computer over 20 times today to unplug drives one by one to narrow the problem down and its 3am but I may try leaving the sata cable unplugged and keep the power in.
One of these drives holds 6TB of content, the second is a backup of the first and I couldnt afford a third so if there is anything wrong I cannot send both off at once to get sorted.
If this is just common with these drives then I am going to have to live with it because I cannot afford another 2 10TB’s from a different maker, I have had nothing but WD drive since they have served me well including my 640GB WD Black thats been running over 10 years pretty much 24/7 I am going to be extremely disappointed if this is the end of the road of the relationship.
PS
Note that I tried these drives in 2 different machines which means different leads.
Edit
I even tried playing back a video from the drive itself so it wasn’t idle anymore but still made that noise every 5 seconds.
Edit god knows what number this is now lol
On these 10TB Drives the Power Off Retract Cycle Count and Load/Unload Cycle Count are exactly the same every time they go up and since the 20th of September 2017 (Last month) when I installed them they are at 4,029 after 21 days power on time.
The 6TB Drive I have also in my machine which has been running for 901 Days is showing Power Off Retract at 15 and Cycle Count is 24,436 which at a daily rate is 10x less than the 10TB but as I said I have only had 2 so am unsure of what all these smart details are or how the 10TB drives operate.
