Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

2011 Optical Bay Hard Drive Sudden Motion Sensor Enabled w/ video

SuprUsrStan

SuprUsrStan

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 15, 2010
715
1,015
I bought a 15 inch macbook pro and also picked up a hard drive caddy along with a intel 510 SSD. I put the ssd in the original hard drive location and the Hitachi 500GB 7200rpm drive in the optical bay location.

Whenever I put the computer in a freefall situation, i hear the same click as when it was in the original hard drive location. In the system profile, it says SMS enabled. The general word on the street is that there is no sudden motion sensor capability for the HDD in the optical drive. The hard drive is a HTS725050A9A362 and both that and the retail version HTS725050A9A364 do not have their own built in antishock system. So that means it must be either the MBP sending the signal or the drive is head is banging the platter. :/

Take a look at this video I made of the clicking noise. You might need to turn up the volume.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PU25ziOY8c
 
Last edited by a moderator:
mulo said:
well if it says sms enabled i believe it, and thats good news too.
which optibay did you get?
Click to expand...

Max Upgrades: http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/

Although it says SMS is enabled, I don't if it's actually referring to the actual hard drive or if it's just the command set to enabled. What I am certain is that whenever it experiences freefall, there IS a click from the hard drive. Whether it's SMS kicking in or if it's some hidden Hitachi Travelstar 7k500 feature is unknown as well.


Edit: SMS 1 = enabled.
 

Attachments

  • Screen shot 2011-03-17 at 12.15.21 PM.jpg
    Screen shot 2011-03-17 at 12.15.21 PM.jpg
    79.3 KB · Views: 893
  • Screen shot 2011-03-17 at 12.17.33 PM.png
    Screen shot 2011-03-17 at 12.17.33 PM.png
    36.7 KB · Views: 524
Last edited by a moderator:
Here's the drive information if people were interested.
 

Attachments

  • Screen shot 2011-03-17 at 12.22.41 PM.jpg
    Screen shot 2011-03-17 at 12.22.41 PM.jpg
    99.3 KB · Views: 686
I can't speak on the click you're hearing, but the fact that it says SMS is enabled in the system profile really isn't anything to draw a conclusion from. most likely, that means SMS is enabled for the drive sitting in the proper bay.

You could be right...but I don't know if too many people are willing to take that chance. I'm quite happy with my SSD in my optibay and my regular HDD in the regular bay. Sleep in 2 seconds, no issues.
 
this is superb news, as it would allow for us to buy a sata3 ssd without worrying about the SMS
 
adrian1480 said:
I can't speak on the click you're hearing, but the fact that it says SMS is enabled in the system profile really isn't anything to draw a conclusion from. most likely, that means SMS is enabled for the drive sitting in the proper bay.

You could be right...but I don't know if too many people are willing to take that chance. I'm quite happy with my SSD in my optibay and my regular HDD in the regular bay. Sleep in 2 seconds, no issues.
Click to expand...

Yes I realize that and have said the profile doesn't mean much BUT it is apparent to me that it does have SMS.

The thing is. For people who have 2011 Macbook pro's and are picking up SATA III. The SATA III's are at the same price as the old SATA II Vertex 2's. it's just stupid to put the SATA III SSD in the optical bay. You'd be losing out on 20-30% performance on the Intel 510's and up to 40%+ on the Vertex 3's.

For most people, it's not a real choice where to put the SSD as the hard drive bay is the only SATA III port.
 
adrian1480 said:
I can't speak on the click you're hearing, but the fact that it says SMS is enabled in the system profile really isn't anything to draw a conclusion from. most likely, that means SMS is enabled for the drive sitting in the proper bay.

You could be right...but I don't know if too many people are willing to take that chance. I'm quite happy with my SSD in my optibay and my regular HDD in the regular bay. Sleep in 2 seconds, no issues.
Click to expand...

I'm going to do it this way today (since my 1TB won't fit in the optibay) - what do you mean by sleep in 2 seconds?

Is my only detriment to this setup that I can't use hibernation?

oh I have a 2010 Spring i7. So, no SataIII.
 
Last edited:
syan48306 said:
See that's the thing. For people who have 2011 Macbook pro's and are picking up SATA III, it's just stupid to put the SSD in the optical bay. You'd be losing out on 20-30% performance on the Intel 510's and up to 40%+ on the Vertex 3's.

For most people, it's not a real choice where to put the SSD as the hard drive bay is the only SATA III port.
Click to expand...

oh indeed. if you're going to get a SATA III drive, you're going to have to take the chance. I have only a lowly Intel X25 Gen 2, so SATA II is enough.

when, down the line, I pick up a SATA III monster, I'll be taking my chances with my HDD in the optibay too. lol.

Still, the information you've presented is interesting, but not conclusive. If the system profiler actually specified which drive (or both) is supporting SMS, we would have a conclusion on our hands either way. As it stands, SMS = 1 only tells us that SMS is enabled in some capacity. Maybe it's just for the SSD that's sitting in the main bay. Maybe it's declaring it for both. We simply don't know.

But again...like you, when the SATA III drives become seriously better than the SATA II drives and become reasonably priced, my HDD will be going in the optibay.


b_scott said:
I'm going to do it this way today (since my 1TB won't fit in the optibay) - what do you mean by sleep in 2 seconds?

Is my only detriment to this setup that I can't use hibernation?
Click to expand...
I mean I close the lid and darn near before I remove my hand from the lid the "sleep" indicator light is already pulsating.

And yes, the only thing you lose is hibernation. which only matters if you typically run your battery down so low that you need hibernation. I don't so I benefit from disabling hibernation and saving the 6GB OSX reserves for the hibernation file. Precious space on an SSD.
 
Hopefully this will get tested soon so we can confirm that it has indeed built-in sms in the optical drive bay
 
This would be nice, I've been fearing a lot of drive failures as a consequence of having to put the HDD in the optical bay, and thus losing the SMS function. But if Apples drives have the feature enabled in it's own firmware, all the better.

Btw, since you've done this, how is the vibration sounds coming from the hard drive when in the optical bay?
 
Heilage said:
This would be nice, I've been fearing a lot of drive failures as a consequence of having to put the HDD in the optical bay, and thus losing the SMS function. But if Apples drives have the feature enabled in it's own firmware, all the better.

Btw, since you've done this, how is the vibration sounds coming from the hard drive when in the optical bay?
Click to expand...

Vibration sounds? None. It's no louder than when it was in the old location. Though I went for about a week and a half w/ the SSD only so it was a pain going back to a laptop w/ a rotational disk.
 
I think the fact that you can hear the clicks are enough evidence on it's own to suggest the SMS is working.

On top of that, no extra vibrations are noticable (and i would assume this would be the case for sound and heat) this is very very good news for me.
 
I was under the impression that if drive has build in sms this works In the opti bay. And the sms in the main bay is only because the Apple drive doesn't have it itself.

I bought a scorpio black for.this very reason because that way I can put it the opt bay and not worry
 
Are there any 1TB drives that have built-in SMS?

BTW, I'm getting the NewModeUs optibay that supports 12.5mm hdd's. :)
 
I think you're hearing the SMS of the SSD drive which is now in the original position, although I could, and hope to, be wrong.
 
grayh0und said:
I think you're hearing the SMS of the SSD drive which is now in the original position, although I could, and hope to, be wrong.
Click to expand...

An SSD doesn't have any moving parts. It would be unable to make such a noise.

Perhaps the SMS in the motherboard directs any drive in free fall motion to park its heads? After all, doesn't the operation system doesn't differentiate between SATA ports? Just devices? (<- I could be totally wrong on this and I probably am).

Nonetheless, this is a good thing for us optibayers with SATA III drives :)
 
Well this is a nice discovery, hopefully it isn't destroying your drive like you suggested. It actually does make sense for the system to park all moving elements, even the optical disc drive.

I'm now actually wondering why macbooks need to have the SMS? Newer hard disks come with them built in for all the rest of the computers that don't have them. Can't Apple do away with their own and just use those?
 
KJmoon117 said:
Perhaps the SMS in the motherboard directs any drive in free fall motion to park its heads? After all, doesn't the operation system doesn't differentiate between SATA ports? Just devices? (<- I could be totally wrong on this and I probably am).
:)
Click to expand...

S-ATA doesn't care what is put where. Unlike IDE, which has Master and Slaves, S-ATA is just S-ATA. However, I can't be certain that this is relevant to the SMS function.
 
Well one single case isnt gonna prove anything, I guess we'll have to find people with a similar setup willing to shake their macs for a bit :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back