My hard drive is getting louder!

[Lmn55d]

Hey guys. I've had an inspiron 9200 since june/july of this year. Today I noticed that the hard drive noise (the noise it makes when it's doing something or accessing files, etc.) is noticably louder than it used to be. When it's not doing too much the volume is the same, but when I am opening programs or something it is louder.

I leave my computer on most of the time and have things usually running in the background such as 10 tables of party poker and party mine which is always accessing the hard drive. Is this bad? Am I killing my baby?