It’s been sounding like a dead fan bearing in the rack for a while, there’s really old machines in there. Turns out no! The drive did the screeching. I was stunned for a second when the noise stopped upon its removal.
Platter smoke. Don’t breathe this!
Always nice to see what spinning rust looks like after I run shred -v -z /dev/sda. I bet that drive has lots of zeroes now.