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Is my HDD failing?

K

Khryz

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 7, 2007
940
1
I have never had a problem with my mid-2010 15" MBP since a couple days ago when I noticed that I will get the spinning beach ball once every few minutes, lasting about 5 seconds each time. It was happening often enough that I started getting worried that something was going on. This happens when opening new applications or switching between applications.

I have 4 GB of RAM, and at first I thought it was an issue with that, so I bought 8 GB which is currently being shipped to me to see if that helps. However, when I quit a lot of applications/restart and my Activity Monitor shows plenty of free and inactive RAM, it still happens, though not as often.


Here are some screenshots:

This is last night, when it was happening a lot to me in the span of a few hours, and eventually the Page Outs piled up a lot more:
DU1fvM9l.png


When I switched to the Disk Activity tab I noticed that each one of the spikes is when I get the spinning beach ball (or is it AFTER each spike and thus when it's at 0 indicating nothing is happening i.e. freezing?):
ikAzbKKl.png

RUcwWfKl.png


And here is a copy of my Console as of a little bit ago, notice all the errors:
TzUn1sal.png



Can anyone give me some advice on what to do next? Clean install Mountain Lion? I made a Time Machine back-up this morning too, just in case.
 
Last edited:
Khryz said:
I have never had a problem with my mid-2010 15" MBP since a couple days ago when I noticed that I will get the spinning beach ball once every few minutes, lasting about 5 seconds each time. It was happening often enough that I started getting worried that something was going on. This happens when opening new applications or switching between applications.

I have 4 GB of RAM, and at first I thought it was an issue with that, so I bought 8 GB which is currently being shipped to me to see if that helps. However, when I quit a lot of applications/restart and my Activity Monitor shows plenty of free and inactive RAM, it still happens, though not as often.


Here are some screenshots:

This is last night, when it was happening a lot to me in the span of a few hours, and eventually the Page Outs piled up a lot more:
Image

When I switched to the Disk Activity tab I noticed that each one of the spikes is when I get the spinning beach ball (or is it AFTER each spike and thus when it's at 0 indicating nothing is happening i.e. freezing?):
Image
Image

And here is a copy of my Console as of a little bit ago, notice all the errors:
Image


Can anyone give me some advice on what to do next? Clean install Mountain Lion? I made a Time Machine back-up this morning too, just in case.
Click to expand...


I'm having the same issue on my 2009 15" MBP. But probably much worse. It's driving me nuts. Already did the clean install. Helped for a little while but it's so bad right now. Helps a bit when I restart it. Have to do that at least once a day or it's useless. I'm assuming my HDD is dying. I'm buying the rMBP as soon as the next generation comes out, but I'm not sure if this one will survive that long. I think next week I'll buy a new hard drive. Any suggestions on which make? I would appreciate suggestions for both HDD and SSD
 
SSD:

Crucial m4, since you can do firmware updates in OSX.

If you have bootcamp:
Samsung 840 Pro line.

Do an SSD if you can afford, because they are the future. But if you cannot afford, anything made by WD (for reliability) or Samsung (for speed).
 
I am having similar problems with my mid2010 MBP , spinning beach balls , taking nearly 2 mins to boot up,

after visiting the Genius Bar and thir dignostics showed no problems, was advised to do clean install and restore applications and personal files from time machine .

After clean install it boots in 1 min 25secs , time will tell if he spinning beach balls come back as its only just finished restoring apps and documents
 
B... said:
SSD:

Crucial m4, since you can do firmware updates in OSX.

If you have bootcamp:
Samsung 840 Pro line.

Do an SSD if you can afford, because they are the future. But if you cannot afford, anything made by WD (for reliability) or Samsung (for speed).
Click to expand...

You can also do firmware updates on the Samsung models in OS X as well. Here is the URL to get the ISO's for the Mac. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/samsungssd/downloads.html
 
1 - use disk utility to run the check on the drive, as well as the volume - this could easily be a software problem (corrupt file system)
2 - you could use something like TechTool to do a surface scan and SMART check
 
I think using disk utility alone will be more than enough to determine the problem / possibly repair the hard drive.
 
Hey all, thank you for your replies, much appreciated!

I decided to just pull the trigger and get a Samsung 840 (non-pro, couldn't justify the extra $150), 500 GB (same capacity as I have now) plus the 8 GB of RAM, and both are in transit to me now.

I'm very excited and can't wait to get rid of my slow HDD. I did a Disk Utility check and it all seemed fine.
 
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