I was going to have a service provider do the install for free via Apple's recall, and have them put a Seagate Barrauda XT ST33000651AS 3TB drive. I had read on new egg, that a reveiwer said it was TOO hot and lost control of his fans..they ran at 5,000 RPM constant. I had asked the tech if I needed to purchase a specific drive to maintain fan control. He told me no that there are ways they are able to get around or control that. Is this possible and or what your thoughts of the choice of drive. Thanks
I, too, considered this very option. However, it's not a matter of the drive overheating. Apple modifies its hard drives before installing them in these computers (iMacs specifically). The drives have proprietary firmware which directly informs OS X of their temperatures so that OS X can regulate fan speed. If you install a drive that wasn't modified by Apple, your fan will spin out of control no matter how cool the drive runs. You can install software to control the fan speed at hddfancontrol.com. The trouble with this option is, what happens when Apple releases an update for OS X that causes this software to stop functioning? And what if the developer decides to stop updating it? You're stuck with a fan spinning like crazy 24/7, unless you want to pull out the monitor again, remove your 3 GB, and stick an Apple drive back in the machine. You could have an authorized repair center order a 2 GB drive from Apple, but they will charge you way, way too much for it. And Apple doesn't offer 3 GB drives. For me, the best option was to just take the new 1 GB.