Guys
The good news is that the 1.7 update has nothing to do with the beachballs that all are encountering. I installed WD Scorpio Blue 500GB and wasa working smooth for 2 days, then the beachball of death took over. And I did not install the firmware update (cos I read all your posts!). Now at the 3rd day, my mac is at a halt and really unstable. Even the clock won't show and some letters in my application names would be missing letters. What's up with that.
Since it was severely beachballing, I decided to install the firmware update (in the small window the system was stable - I had to reset Finder and Dock) and after the update the experience was the same. No change. I figured then that the 1.7 update has nothing to do with the issues.
I still can't answer though if having a 3rd party hardware causes the issues, firmware updated or not. Lack of complaints from stock HDD owners might be telling that it was to do with 3rd party HDD - independent of firmware updates.
So for me, it's at square one to investigate what is causing this issue??
Note, I installed a heck of a lot of other standard updates (except the 1.7) BEFORE the issues started. So did the other updates cause it? I can't remember all the updates though, I might try dig up a list.
Bummer huh.