Any validity to this WD hard drive complaint/observation?

[Buzzworms]

I bought a Western Digital Scorpio Black WD3200BEKT 320GB 7200 RPM HD that I have yet to install in my MacBook 1.1. I found the following review on the Newegg site. Accurate or not?

"It should be noted that this drive doesn't work very well with MacBooks and/or Macs in general. I didn't do much research on this product before purchasing it, my mistake. It turns out that some Western Digital Scorpio Black drives have a problem with an OS X battery saving feature. This means that the drive will spin up more often than not, causing load/unload cycles to spike. This causes something like a "clunk" sound every 10-20 seconds. These excessive load/unload cycles can cause premature failure of the drive and very noticeable noise. I also noticed, aside from this noise every 10-20 seconds, the drive was just generally loud. This could just be because it's 7200RPM and I had a 5400rpm drive before and I wasn't used to the faster drive, but it was the equivalent of my MacBooks fans on at 70% (4000rpm). Other than the noise issue and the possible early failure rate, this drive was great. It was noticeably faster than the 5400rpm drive."

 

[Ainze]

I know it's a problem with some newer MacBooks with newer Scorpio Blue drives, like 500gb and 640gb. I have the current MB Pro and a 640 scorpio blue and this problem occurs. I get around it by using hdapm. It's a shame it comes to that but at least I can use my drive properly. As for the scorpio blacks, they might well have the same problem, but I can't say first hand.

 

[Jay S.]

I am using a scorpio blue 500gb HDD and have no issues whatsoever. This is in a late 2009 unibody white MB.

 

[windowpain]

I have a late 2007 macbook and the 320gig scorpio black. I've had no problems whatsoever, it is a really nice drive. Was a little noisy at first (or maybe I just noticed it more) but now it is silent, and apart from a slight vibration (due to the 7200rpms) I wouldn't know it was there.

It is noticeably faster than the blue (my previous drive) and given my macbook a spring in it's step.

 

[GfulDedFan]

I installed this exact drive in my first gen May '06 MacBook. It worked great. I have since moved it to my 5,1 Aluminum MacBook and still no problems.

 

[Buzzworms]

Good to know. Thanks all.

 

[lyons238]

many drives have this problem. you may not even notice it until you look at your load cycle count and if it's high after only a short period of time you most likely have this problem.