Apple HDD Firmware: What's it for?

[bstreiff]

After realizing that the 160GB drive in my MacBook just wasn't enough, I ordered up a 320GB drive from Newegg and swapped them.

So now I've got this 160GB drive on my desk (that I'll probably throw into my mini once I'm feeling masochistic enough to open it up again); however, I noticed that on the sticker is written "Apple HDD Firmware 2007"

What makes this so special? Clearly, any hard drive, Apple Firmware'd or not, will work in a Mac; and this hard drive will work in any other machine, Mac or not. So what's up with the special firmware?

[chipchen]

apple has their own firmware on most of their hard drives.... probably just for noise and temperature requirements. i wouldn't worry about it... just do what you wanna do.

[bstreiff]

I wasn't worrying about it-- just curious.

[Saladinos]

Possibly something to do with the sudden motion detector in the notebooks.