Terrible Performance After Installing New HD!

[highmarcs]

I installed a WD Scorpio Blue Hard Drive in my 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo machine running 8 GB of memory and am really regretting it.

Ever since the HD upgrade, my computer has been a big pain. The drive seems like it's constantly putting itself to sleep and then having a hard time waking up, or it feels like it's running at full steam all the time. I get several seconds of beach balls for practically every command in any program. I have to constantly hard reboot to stop some of the beach balls and other wacky behavior. It's slow, sluggish, and calling up any file causes my HD to start whirring up and then after up to two-three minutes of beach ball, my file might open. It might very well crash upon opening too.

I've heard that Snow Leopard doesn't know how to deal with new, low power HD's.

I don't want to dump a bunch of stuff and put back my old factory HD back in, but I'm getting to the end of my rope with this. My mac is performing like a ten year old Windows machine.

Is there any way to fix this? Is there any update to SL or firmware for new HD's available to remedy this problem?

 

[davidlv]

I installed a WD Scorpio Blue Hard Drive in my 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo machine running 8 GB of memory and am really regretting it. Ever since the HD upgrade, my computer has been a big pain. The drive seems like it's constantly putting itself to sleep and then having a hard time waking up, or it feels like it's running at full steam all the time. I get several seconds of beach balls for practically every command in any program. I have to constantly hard reboot to stop some of the beach balls and other wacky behavior. It's slow, sluggish, and calling up any file causes my HD to start whirring up and then after up to two-three minutes of beach ball, my file might open. It might very well crash upon opening too.
I've heard that Snow Leopard doesn't know how to deal with new, low power HD's.
I don't want to dump a bunch of stuff and put back my old factory HD back in, but I'm getting to the end of my rope with this. My mac is performing like a ten year old Windows machine.
Is there any way to fix this? Is there any update to SL or firmware for new HD's available to remedy this problem?

I had the same experience with that drive, removed it, put it in an external USB case and it works just fine. There is a definite non-compatible element with the firmware settings and the MacBook Pro. You can try using HDAPM to improve things, but IMHO it's not worth the effort. Buy a Hitachi 500GB or Seagate (non XT) Momentus 500GB and get on with your life. The WD drives are also noisy - my experience, some people say the WD Black model works for them - and I for one do not like them. Seagate has a 750 GB drive out at 7,200 rpm if you need more space.

 

[sugarboylovemac]

I am just installed the new hitachi 7K500 in the optical bay. Works perfect and very very quiet.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Could be the anti-shock of the drive is conflicting with that of the MBP. Wouldn't be the first time.

 

[NickZac]

The Blue is supposedly rather slow...get a Black as it is much more reliable and one of the fastest 7xxx drives that are reasonably priced. The WD Blue has pretty poor reviews.

 

[Icy1007]

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The blue is a slow drive. Get a WD black for much faster performance.

 

[highmarcs]

I had the same experience with that drive, removed it, put it in an external USB case and it works just fine. There is a definite non-compatible element with the firmware settings and the MacBook Pro. You can try using HDAPM to improve things, but IMHO it's not worth the effort. Buy a Hitachi 500GB or Seagate (non XT) Momentus 500GB and get on with your life. The WD drives are also noisy - my experience, some people say the WD Black model works for them - and I for one do not like them. Seagate has a 750 GB drive out at 7,200 rpm if you need more space.

Would you mind telling me what model Hitachi you put in? I'm seeing that some of the new Ultrastar drives are boasting "low power consumption" on New Egg and on the HDAPM site, they claim that Linux based systems aren't prepared to properly deal with new, low power HD's.

 

[highmarcs]

The Blue is supposedly rather slow...get a Black as it is much more reliable and one of the fastest 7xxx drives that are reasonably priced. The WD Blue has pretty poor reviews.

Believe me. It's not just slow, it downright behaves defectively! A 2-3 minute beach ball for every command? Sometimes they just never stop! This HD has me about to throw my whole MBP out the window! It is so...disgusting to use my machine!

 

[frankieboy]

Isn't it time to make a warranty claim or invoke WD tech support?

 

[davidlv]

Would you mind telling me what model Hitachi you put in? I'm seeing that some of the new Ultrastar drives are boasting "low power consumption" on New Egg and on the HDAPM site, they claim that Linux based systems aren't prepared to properly deal with new, low power HD's.

http://eshop.macsales.com/
Look in the internal storage section, find the Hitachi 500GB 2.5" drive.
Don't worry about the low power stuff, the Hitachi will work fine.
The WD Black has a lot of conflicting reports ranging from excellent to absolutely the same thing you are experiencing with the blue, seems like a model/drive compatibility issue, i am not sure what to think about the WD Black.
I have tried the Seagate Momentus and the Hitachi, both are good in my 2009 MBP.

 

[got2go]

WD Scorpio Black are great drives. I would never buy another hitachi drive after 2 of them went south in my iMac. The Scorpio black now comes in 750GB too if you need the space.

 

[Queen of Spades]

The Blue is supposedly rather slow...get a Black as it is much more reliable and one of the fastest 7xxx drives that are reasonably priced. The WD Blue has pretty poor reviews.

According to who? User reviews rate this drive very highly, so I'm inclined to disagree with your assessment. I also use the drive myself, and the difference between it and my previous Hitachi 7k500 is minimal in terms of speed, and the Blue doesn't affect my battery life.

Believe me. It's not just slow, it downright behaves defectively! A 2-3 minute beach ball for every command? Sometimes they just never stop! This HD has me about to throw my whole MBP out the window! It is so...disgusting to use my machine!

That is fairly obviously not normal behavior.

Isn't it time to make a warranty claim or invoke WD tech support?

Right. OP, your problem is a bad drive. I've used WD Scorpio Blues (500GB) at least 5 different times on different MBPs, and never had anything but excellent experiences with speed, responsiveness, and battery life. If you check newegg and amazon, you'll find hundreds of glowing reviews, so I don't know what you guys are talking about.

Beachballing for 2-3 minutes is not normal behavior. You got a bad drive, and you should be initiating an RMA.

 

[NickZac]

According to who? User reviews rate this drive very highly, so I'm inclined to disagree with your assessment. I also use the drive myself, and the difference between it and my previous Hitachi 7k500 is minimal in terms of speed, and the Blue doesn't affect my battery life.

The 1TB drives have had issues. The 320GB Blue is a solid performer indeed, but recent 1tb ones have not been great
http://www.google.com/products/cata...t=firefox-a&cid=289225709827207535&os=reviews

 

[Queen of Spades]

The Blue is supposedly rather slow...get a Black as it is much more reliable and one of the fastest 7xxx drives that are reasonably priced. The WD Blue has pretty poor reviews.

Believe me. It's not just slow, it downright behaves defectively! A 2-3 minute beach ball for every command? Sometimes they just never stop! This HD has me about to throw my whole MBP out the window! It is so...disgusting to use my machine!

The 1TB drives have had issues. The 320GB Blue is a solid performer indeed, but recent 1tb ones have not been great
http://www.google.com/products/cata...t=firefox-a&cid=289225709827207535&os=reviews

The OP doesn't even mention which drive he has - and yes, the 1TB has not been up to par. But people in this thread were saying the Blue is a slow drive as if that applies to the line as a whole, which is not really the case.

 

[nufanec]

You could try setting turning off disk sleep in terminal. Try:

sudo pmset disksleep 0

Might help if it is a disk sleep problem.

 

[Val-kyrie]

According to who? User reviews rate this drive very highly, so I'm inclined to disagree with your assessment. I also use the drive myself, and the difference between it and my previous Hitachi 7k500 is minimal in terms of speed, and the Blue doesn't affect my battery life.



That is fairly obviously not normal behavior.



Right. OP, your problem is a bad drive. I've used WD Scorpio Blues (500GB) at least 5 different times on different MBPs, and never had anything but excellent experiences with speed, responsiveness, and battery life. If you check newegg and amazon, you'll find hundreds of glowing reviews, so I don't know what you guys are talking about.

Beachballing for 2-3 minutes is not normal behavior. You got a bad drive, and you should be initiating an RMA.

Out of curiosity, how much battery life did you lose with the Hitachi 7k500?

 

[davidlv]

Out of curiosity, how much battery life did you lose with the Hitachi 7k500?

In my case, about 10-20 minutes, compared to the long-gone stock Toshiba 5,000 rpm HD.
Still get well over 6 hours, with a 2 year old battery: Bluetooth mouse enabled, ethernet connected, WiFi off, moderate use of apps, Word, browser, mail etc.
Not enough decrease to even think about it. The Hitachi makes less noise/vibration than any other drive I have tried, WD Blue, Toshiba stock HD, and a Seagate Momentous 500GB, 7,200 rpm (still very good and close to the Hitachi).
Can't go wrong with the Hitachi IMO.

 

[aurea14]

Hi everybody:

I am so relieved that someone else is having the same problems I am having with the same hardware specifications. First I purchased the WD Scorpio Black, 500 GB and the performance was terrible. Now I purchased the WD Scorpio Blue and it is also terrible. It takes 3 minutes to start up and every time I click on something the pinwheel appear for at least 30 seconds. I have started from scratch 5 times using CCC, Time Machine, and Migration assistant and the same result. I have done PRAM, zeroed the hard drive, repaired disk and permissions and nothing has worked. It is the first time that I regret buying the MacBook (just kidding, I love it). I am currently erasing the Scorpio Blue to return it and purchase the Hitachi or Seagate. I really appreciate the time that you have spent sharing your solutions. One thing I can say is that I have learned a lot about troubleshooting MACs after this hard drive ordeal, it is stressing me out. Thanks again to all. If you have any advice on the most effective way to migrate my data, let me know.

 

[Looty]

Same problem

I find myself to be having the same problem after installing new WD 750 Gig 5400 HD. Beach balling, etc. I read on here it could be snow leopard related. Will I still get this problem after installing Lion? If so, what do you all suggest I do to enable the HD to perform as it should? Or, must I return and exchange? Thanks!