No, but that's a good suggestion. I'll try it in my wife's uMacBook and report back on the results. It no big deal as her uMB has the latched panel to access the HDD.
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Has anyone who has upgraded your stock HD to a 500GB Scorpio Blue regretted it?
- Thread starter jamesryanbell
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No, but that's a good suggestion. I'll try it in my wife's uMacBook and report back on the results. It no big deal as her uMB has the latched panel to access the HDD.
Wow, you get the pro and she gets the mb?!? 
My fiancee took over my mbp when her windows desktop died, and she won't give it up! This is like when I see my neighbor lady across the street mowing her yard: I want to walk up to her and offer her $20 to tell me how her husband got her to do that!
Only using apple approved engineered hard drives is another example of AGATA on new machine releases: 'apple giveth, apple taketh away'. A gotcha that people only find out about AFTER they buy their new machines.
Could you imagine how full disclosure would affect keynotes:
Phil Schiller: "And the new models have increased speed and hellacious battery life!"
<thunderous applause>
"Oh, we can only offer this because our new machines take advantage of hard drives specifically engineered to work on them. You won't be able to take full advantage of 3rd party hard drives that work on every other modern laptop in existence. We'll also only offer bigger and faster drives as a build to order option on new machines ordered through the website. Forget about trying to get us to upgrade the drives after you buy the machine. We may decide to fix this with a firmware update if we decide to do so."
<stupefied silence interspersed with the sounds of crickets and some boos coming from the crowd>
My fiancee took over my mbp when her windows desktop died, and she won't give it up! This is like when I see my neighbor lady across the street mowing her yard: I want to walk up to her and offer her $20 to tell me how her husband got her to do that!Only using apple approved engineered hard drives is another example of AGATA on new machine releases: 'apple giveth, apple taketh away'. A gotcha that people only find out about AFTER they buy their new machines.
Could you imagine how full disclosure would affect keynotes:
Phil Schiller: "And the new models have increased speed and hellacious battery life!"
<thunderous applause>
"Oh, we can only offer this because our new machines take advantage of hard drives specifically engineered to work on them. You won't be able to take full advantage of 3rd party hard drives that work on every other modern laptop in existence. We'll also only offer bigger and faster drives as a build to order option on new machines ordered through the website. Forget about trying to get us to upgrade the drives after you buy the machine. We may decide to fix this with a firmware update if we decide to do so."
<stupefied silence interspersed with the sounds of crickets and some boos coming from the crowd>
Wow, you get the pro and she gets the mb?!?
My defence is ... she got the uMB as a Christmas gift and I have had to endure her constant enjoyment of her new uMB for the last 6 months while I was stuck with the old "plastic" MacBook. I just couln't take it anymore, but by the time I went to get one the uMB's for myself it was discontinued and I was forced (by Apple) to buy a 13" uMBPro instead.
HAHAHA. That's too funny! ... and it certainly sounds like it has the ring of truth to it!!
I just installed the Scorpio Blue into my wife's uMB and can conform that it has the same issues as when it is in my 13" uMBP - clicking noises every 10 seconds or so and constant slight whirring sound. It does not make the clicking sounds in an external enclosure, so the drive is fine - it appears to be a compatibility issue with certain MB's and MBP's
Conclusion - if you have a newer '09 13" uMBP or late '08 uMB, you should avoid using the WD 500gb Scorpio Blue.
One good method: Buy an external drive. Format it correctly and copy the internal hard drive over (Disk Utility will actually do both quite easily). Reboot with option-key pressed and reboot from the external drive. Make sure that everything works fine. Shut down the Mac, and swap the drives. Put the external drive which now contains your original drive away and don't touch it for two weeks, because most problems with a drive will come up in the first two weeks
I'll trade you for my screwdriver experience! I was popping the WD Blue into my MBP (which actually went rather easily), and taking the 300gig from there and popping it directly into my PS3. The metal used on the PS3 screws was of such poor quality that it took a combination of needle nosed pliers, and in two cases taking a flathead screwdriver and pushing it deep enough into the metal to "turn" the screw into a flathead in order to remove them. Literally, one turn with a phillips was enough to strip the screw into practical uselessness....
I guess it would be a question of how to delineate the revisions. I'm on a newer (but not newest? Feb '09) unibody Macbook Pro 17" (2.93ghz, 4GB ram, etc), and the only thing I've noticed soundwise from the stock 300gig drive is a "slight" increase in noise. Slight in that I'd have to have my head right next to the unit to detect it. I've not heard any parking noises whatsoever, nor any overly loud fan noises. One of the lucky ones, I guess?
It might not be a bad idea, pending interest/participation, to begin cataloging this kind of information. Things like specific drive model information, where/when it was purchased, how it was installed, how the OS was installed, how are the power saving settings configured on the machine. It might be due to some kind of setting, and it might just be a faulty batch of drive.....not enough info to really figure out at this point.
Hey I notice if I put slight pressure on my right palm rest (above the HDD) the noise goes down quite a bit.
Does anyone if it would be possible to put in some foam to apply pressure or something to dampen the noise?
Does anyone if it would be possible to put in some foam to apply pressure or something to dampen the noise?
Ordering the Seagate momentus 500G. See if it can make a difference with the WD.
I just got a WD 500GB drive for my 13" MBP and it has the clicking problem. It is only noticeable in a quiet room; if you're watching TV and doing stuff on the MBP at the same time, I don't hear it.
I have worked out that the first minute after not using any programs at all, the clicking will occur approximately once every 12 seconds and then after that it stops altogether.
Also, the clicking becomes much less frequent when you are using an application that constantly accesses the hard drive either to read or write data. Even typing in a program such as Word or Pages is enough to prevent the clicking sound.
So although it would have been nice to have gotten a perfectly quiet hard drive, I can live with the fact that it's a problem that is relatively minor and there are certainly more pressing issues in life to worry about! (Also with a planned future upgrade to a SSD, the problem will go away, and the current HD will become an external backup drive.)
Edit: On the other hand, all those clicks may well be greatly shortening the life of the hard drive, so it is a concern. There is talk that Snow Leopard may improve power management and there is hope that all these clicking issues will go away then, though I won't hold my breath.
I have worked out that the first minute after not using any programs at all, the clicking will occur approximately once every 12 seconds and then after that it stops altogether.
Also, the clicking becomes much less frequent when you are using an application that constantly accesses the hard drive either to read or write data. Even typing in a program such as Word or Pages is enough to prevent the clicking sound.
So although it would have been nice to have gotten a perfectly quiet hard drive, I can live with the fact that it's a problem that is relatively minor and there are certainly more pressing issues in life to worry about!
(Also with a planned future upgrade to a SSD, the problem will go away, and the current HD will become an external backup drive.)Edit: On the other hand, all those clicks may well be greatly shortening the life of the hard drive, so it is a concern. There is talk that Snow Leopard may improve power management and there is hope that all these clicking issues will go away then, though I won't hold my breath.
I have no doubt that the life of the WD Scorpio Blue drive will be shortened somewhat by all the unnecessary head parking and I would expect the battery life to take a bit of a hit too. My battery indicator sometimes shows as much 8+ hours with the stock Fujitsu, but I only saw 7+ hours with the Scorpio Blue.
Interestingly, from reading here and other places it seems the clicking (frequent head parking) with the Scorpio Blue only happens with late '08 and June '09 uMB/uMBP's, owners of these models may be wise to consider a different drive, just my 2¢
Mine's installed in a SR MBP 2.2 - still acceptably quiet overall, no clicking sounds. Runs cool (currently 95F/35C after hours of running) and has not decreased my battery runtime.
I also am coming to the conclusion that it's an Apple hardware/firmware issue with the constant head parking. I haven't updated my MBP firmware since the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" adage seems like wisdom to me. My MBP runs cool, I don't have the clicking HD issues, so I'm gunshy about applying fixes to mysterious things I don't really need, only to end up with a laptop that runs so hot or other stories abounding here on these forums.
I have a 500gig Seagate external (Freeagent Go) that works great, absolutely quiet. My WD Scorpio Blue 500gig give me the same experience as an internal drive. So, I'm undoubtedly lucky.
But it would be interesting if someone would compile a list of MBP models/builds, etc that have the problem. It would make the buying decisions so much easier than relying on a bunch of different user experiences adding to the confusion of a prospective HD buyer.
PS: Carl, I'm glad you're new Seagate drive seems to be at least acceptable... and I'll get back to the canine photography soon enough... been working on video more lately.. thanks for the thoughts...
thank you pdxflint for your response, i'm 1 step closer to making the purchase and installing into my SR MBP 2.2
hopefully all goes well
Edit: 1 question i just remembered!
When using CarbonCopy, will it copy the hard drive EXACTLY as the old, including the Bootcamp partition?
hopefully all goes well
Edit: 1 question i just remembered!
When using CarbonCopy, will it copy the hard drive EXACTLY as the old, including the Bootcamp partition?
17" MBP 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor - Santa Rosa
Mine stays plugged in and runs 24/7
Currently 36C
And I have installed all Firmware updates
No noise at all, extremely quiet
No clicking
Woof, Woof - Dawg
Got the Seagate Momentus 5400.6 500G. Replaced the WD Scorpio, and guess what, it's a mixed bag.
The crisp clicking sound was gone. But the vibration was much bigger than WD. I could feel it clearly with hand on the right palm rest. With WD, I could barefly feel anything.
There was also a low pitched clicking sound. It's even more frequent than the crisp clicking sound from WD.
The battery life was better. It was the first time I saw a "10 hour" on the battery meter.
Of course, it's only after I left the MBP idle for a while. But the battery still showed 7:38 with a 87% charge. Wow, not bad. So what should I do? I guess I will keep it for a while, and see how it's going to behave. Now I have two spare HDD in my drawer. I can keep one for backup and find a new home for the stock HDD (the Hitachi 5K500.B 320G).