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

Apple is killing our harddrives prematurely

dukebound85

dukebound85

macrumors Core
Original poster
Jul 17, 2005
19,218
4,342
5045 feet above sea level
:mad:

Seriously wtf apple

if you have a laptop, you will notice that the firmware causes the drive to click, aka the heads stop or park and then go again and continues this cycle for every like 10 sec. it sounds very faint but definitly audible

how does this kill our hdd?

well hdds only have a certain amt of load cycles they can have before they die

to put it in perspective, if you download smartctl, you can see the amt of load cycles your hdd has been through

my mb, which has 336 power on hrs has 38,587 load cycles

my desktop on the other hand, has a power on time of 8453 hrs with only 672 load cycles

i am convinced that this is the reason why my macbook caused my 250gig hdd to die on me in under a year

how can we fix this?

we should be outraged

anyone know how to fix this?
 
Maybe you have a defective sudden motion sensor that is causing the heads to park?
 
dukebound85 said:
well it seems to be a common issue from this thread
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/688930/

i created this one as i believe it is a fault of apples part, not my hdd manufactuer and needs to be addressed
Click to expand...

So basically what you're saying is you created a new thread just to talk about something that's being discussed in an existing thread which you already knew about?

Just want to make sure I understand this correctly :rolleyes:
 
OMG 9/11 waz a CONSPIRACY by ALieNS from urANUS!!!!

Why do people somehow think that Apple is sabotaging it's own products? Ever think you machine is just malfunctioning?
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
OMG 9/11 waz a CONSPIRACY by ALieNS from urANUS!!!!

Why do people somehow think that Apple is sabotaging it's own products? Ever think you machine is just malfunctioning?
Click to expand...

malfunctioning due to a firmware issue as its software related?

how do i know its software related? because i have taken out the hdd and put it in my desktop and the load cycles do not increase....meaning its not the hdd

r.j.s said:
That app reports nothing on mine ...
Click to expand...

open up disk utility and select hdd and then open that app again
 
dukebound85 said:
yea as per my reasoning above...

do you have anything worthwhile to add?
Click to expand...

Sure I do. Do you think it makes sense to compare your desktop hard drive to your notebook hard drive? Notebook drives are built with a much different duty cycle in mind. Common sense would tell one that it's more common for a notebook drive to have the heads parked when not in use to prevent damage seeing that it's a portable drive. Desktop drives aren't expected to be bumped around, hence the lower number of load cycles.

And it's not Apple's fault that WD and Seagate build ****** drives...
 
hard drives break. anything really with mechanical parts will break, and it seems like your hd is one of those.
 
SHIFTLife said:
Sure I do. Do you think it makes sense to compare your desktop hard drive to your notebook hard drive? Notebook drives are built with a much different duty cycle in mind. Common sense would tell one that it's more common for a notebook drive to have the heads parked when not in use to prevent damage seeing that it's a portable drive. Desktop drives aren't expected to be bumped around, hence the lower number of load cycles.

And it's not Apple's fault that WD and Seagate build ****** drives...
Click to expand...

explain how when i take the drive out of my macbook and put it in my desktop it doesnt increase in load cycles

it means that this is not the hdd, but rather how the machine interacts with the hard drive
 
SHIFTLife said:
And it's not Apple's fault that WD and Seagate build ****** drives...
Click to expand...

Now that's something I can agree with.
As for the OP, do you really understand what is going on? Or just jumping to conclusions based on two numbers that you have nothing to reference against? Seriously, the simplest answer is generally the correct one. And I don't understand the basis of this "firmware" argument. What's that got to do with anything?
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
Now that's something I can agree with.
As for the OP, do you really understand what is going on? Or just jumping to conclusions based on two numbers that you have nothing to reference against? Seriously, the simplest answer is generally the correct one.
Click to expand...

yes i do...

i am not computer illiterate, far from it

why the same hard drive, when in my desktop does not increase in load cycles yet while it increases rapidly in my mb tells me something is wrong on the software side for my laptop

i just want to correct this
 
Does the option to stop activity from the disk is checked in energy saving? Might be your problem.

Or did you tried using another drive then the one you have, just to see?
 
dukebound85 said:
i am not computer illiterate, far from it
Click to expand...

I am not saying you are. But based on these numbers (load cycles) you are claiming it's the firmware and Apple's fault and whatnot, compared to whom/what? If I were you I'd encourage other people here to compare with the SmartCL program you linked to in your first post and see what their numbers are. Good chance you're experiencing normal behavior.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
I am not saying you are. But based on these numbers (load cycles) you are claiming it's the firmware and Apple's fault and whatnot, compared to whom/what? If I were you I'd encourage other people here to compare with the SmartCL program you linked to in your first post and see what their numbers are. Good chance you're experiencing normal behavior.
Click to expand...

id hope so if thats indeed the case
 
I've had my MBP for 2.5 years, with 624000 cycles on 17000 hours...

So a quick check on Hitachi's website shows under 'reliability' is 600000 load/unload cycles.

Should I be worried? The drive isn't showing any signs, but I have Time Machine backing up constantly.
 
yea, the load cycles for the hdd are rated to 600,000

i did manage to fix it though i think

i went to http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

and put both files in my app folder (the unix and plist) I then went to my user account and set those as log in items

what this will do is make your hdd run max all the time so it wont park. this will probably decrease batt life but i dont want my hdd to die on me from all this parking it did
 
dukebound85 said:
yea, the load cycles for the hdd are rated to 600,000

i did manage to fix it though i think

i went to http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

and put both files in my app folder (the unix and plist) I then went to my user account and set those as log in items

what this will do is make your hdd run max all the time so it wont park. this will probably decrease batt life but i dont want my hdd to die on me from all this parking it did
Click to expand...

So instead it'll just kill your battery and ruin your HDD if you ever drop or bump your notebook. :rolleyes:

Did you ever stop and think that maybe there's a reason Apple designed their notebooks the way they did? Like, maybe they tend to be moved around a lot more and thus the drives are better protected by being parked when not in use? I'm pretty sure their engineers are more computer literate than you...
 
r.j.s said:
That app reports nothing on mine ...
Click to expand...
Same here.

dukebound85 said:
open up disk utility and select hdd and then open that app again
Click to expand...
Still nothing. Just get a blank menu other than the Quit function.

I had a PC laptop with a hard drive that made clicking sounds. I ran SpinRite on it and the clicking sounds decreased considerably to almost non-existent. Before installing the Samsung 500GB HD, I ran SpinRite on it. I wonder if that made a difference?
 
Demosthenes X said:
So instead it'll just kill your battery and ruin your HDD if you ever drop or bump your notebook. :rolleyes:

Did you ever stop and think that maybe there's a reason Apple designed their notebooks the way they did? Like, maybe they tend to be moved around a lot more and thus the drives are better protected by being parked when not in use? I'm pretty sure their engineers are more computer literate than you...
Click to expand...

im fairly sure the hdd makers, who specify the load cycle count for their drives know their devices a bit more than apple would

@ Sushi, I opened up dik utility and selected the top drive, not the one with your drive name. i then hit the smtctrl app in the menu bar and it loaded the figures
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
I am not saying you are. But based on these numbers (load cycles) you are claiming it's the firmware and Apple's fault and whatnot, compared to whom/what? If I were you I'd encourage other people here to compare with the SmartCL program you linked to in your first post and see what their numbers are. Good chance you're experiencing normal behavior.
Click to expand...

It does sound awfully similar to a bug that was in Ubuntu about 1.5 years ago...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/378997/
 
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