failing hard drive signs

[nunes013]

so lately programs in my computer have frozen a lot and i get the beach ball often in safari. i just had my logicboard replaced because of flickering by Apple so i know its probably not that. so could this be a failing hard drive?

EDIT: also programs like skype and itunes take forever to open sometimes and once and a while itunes wont open at all

 

[GoCubsGo]

Why not run a verify disk using disk utility? There are a number of reasons for your beach balls. I would also verify and repair permissions and start backing up.

 

[nunes013]

Why not run a verify disk using disk utility? There are a number of reasons for your beach balls. I would also verify and repair permissions and start backing up.

i did that about a week and a half ago and everything was ok but ill try again. i backup once a week so thats not a problem

 

[nunes013]

So i verified the disk and it says its corrupt and need i to start with the mac os x cd to repair the disk with disk utility. could this explain the beach balls? ill repair tomorrow because its late but ill post results then.

 

[AlphaDogg]

So i verified the disk and it says its corrupt and need i to start with the mac os x cd to repair the disk with disk utility. could this explain the beach balls? ill repair tomorrow because its late but ill post results then.

It could.... But the drive could also be physically failing. No certain way to tell...

 

[nunes013]

It could.... But the drive could also be physically failing. No certain way to tell...

well i was looking at the seagate momentus xt so this might be a good incentive to get it

 

[AlphaDogg]

well i was looking at the seagate momentus xt so this might be a good incentive to get it

Yes that could also be good. I was going to get it, but I decided just to save ~$60 and go for a regular 500GB 7200RPM drive (it happened to be a Hitachi Travelstar 7k500).

 

[nunes013]

Yes that could also be good. I was going to get it, but I decided just to save ~$60 and go for a regular 500GB 7200RPM drive (it happened to be a Hitachi Travelstar 7k500).

nice, i was going to originally get WD scorpio but i looked at the XT also, it got ok reviews but had a lot problems but it looks like seagate ironed them out with the latest firmware. i really want to try booting the OS from the ssd in it. i would like a 256 gb ssd but i cant afford that because im getting ipad 2 when it comes out

 

[AlphaDogg]

nice, i was going to originally get WD scorpio but i looked at the XT also, it got ok reviews but had a lot problems but it looks like seagate ironed them out with the latest firmware. i really want to try booting the OS from the ssd in it. i would like a 256 gb ssd but i cant afford that because im getting ipad 2 when it comes out

If booting the OS from the 4GB SSD cache is worth $60 to you, then go ahead and buy it. It is not recommended to blow $60 just for speedy OS boots...

 

[Eddyisgreat]

Don't forget the momentus xt only has 4 GB of flash storage and still has to pull things up from the disk at traditional speeds before it's cached for quick access. An SSD is costlier but quicker all around.

 

[nunes013]

Don't forget the momentus xt only has 4 GB of flash storage and still has to pull things up from the disk at traditional speeds before it's cached for quick access. An SSD is costlier but quicker all around.

maybe ill just do a 7200 rpm drive like scorpio because i guess if i want pure speed i would do ssd not just cached apps. but that will be my next computer lol

 

[NickZac]

One thing about hard drives is that they frequently fail without warning (as shown by the hard drive study by Google). SMART is not as 'smart' as some people had imagined, so knowing when a HDD will fail is kind of like predicting the weather; to some degree you can, but not to a significant level of accuracy.

As far as replacement, the Cavier and Momentus are both great HDDs. If you are considering a SSD, I say get it. The speed is amazing and it has numerous advantages over the HDDs. I love mine and would gladly pay the price for again (oh wait, I already did get a second ).

Google Labs' Test on Hard Disk Drives