Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

WD Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 2.5" Internal SATA HD Spindown?

T

thefunkymunky

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 24, 2005
1,270
2
London
Hi,

I've recently bought a WD Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 2.5" SATA hard drive to put in my PS3. I decided instead to put this in my MacBook Pro and put the 320GB drive from my MBP in the PS3 - which I have done and works perfectly.

Now the problem is the WD HDD in the MBP. I can physically hear the HDD spin down and then almost immediately spin up again. Whilst in this state of "spin down" OSX is a little unresponsive. Does anyone know how to stop the drive from shutting down so often. It literally happens every few seconds. I haven't noticed the problem when booted in Windows 7 though I could be wrong. Any ideas? :confused:
 
System Prefs.>EnergySaver>uncheck "Put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible"

Other thought. If you new hard drive has sudden drop motion detection it could be having an issue with the built-in sudden motion protection on the laptop.

See this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934

You may have to turn of sudden motion on the make so there is no conflict with built-in sudden motion of your hard drive (if it has it)
 
jazz1 said:
System Prefs.>EnergySaver>uncheck "Put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible"
Other thought. If you new hard drive has sudden drop motion detection it could be having an issue with the built-in sudden motion protection on the laptop. See this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934
You may have to turn of sudden motion on the make so there is no conflict with built-in sudden motion of your hard drive (if it has it)
Click to expand...
There may be other factors involved, do a search in this forum for "hdapm" for a fix for the HD power management. I had the same issue with that drive, finally switched to a Seagate 7,200 rpm drive, no problems. Others have had luck reverting to the previous firmware ver. 1.6.
What MacBook Pro are you running, and what firmware?
Might want to do a search to find the long firmware thread on this forum, with a lot of related information. In the end there are many conflicting results, some people have luck with one drive, others the opposite results with the same drive, so it can get very confusing. If you try other brands, you will probably find one that works, and put the rest in external USB cases for backup, not the best solution of course.....:apple::(:apple:
 
eyespii said:
had the same problem with the WD6400bevt. applied the fix i found at the link below, and that has solved the start/stopping issue.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2250690&start=0&tstart=45
Click to expand...

Sounds about right. I was reading about the WD Scorpio blue drive specs, and even though they're 5400 RPM drives, they draw more power (idle and in operation) than a comparable Seagate 7200.4 drive. I can imagine this is why lots of people experience issues with these drives in the MBP. Nothing to do with the sudden motion sensor, after all.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. Apparently these WD drives are known to have issues with OSX/Unix-based systems. However, I've applied the mod listed here and the drive is no longer spinning down every few seconds. :D
 
thefunkymunky said:
Thanks for the replies guys. Apparently these WD drives are known to have issues with OSX/Unix-based systems. However, I've applied the mod listed here and the drive is no longer spinning down every few seconds. :D
Click to expand...

Really? I have the same hard drive and haven't had the problems you're describing. However, one issue I have been having, is that it's louder than the stock hard drive (which was a Toshiba I believe). But not really too much of an issue.
 
Patriks7 said:
Really? I have the same hard drive and haven't had the problems you're describing. However, one issue I have been having, is that it's louder than the stock hard drive (which was a Toshiba I believe). But not really too much of an issue.
Click to expand...

It's just what I've read online. The so called "Power Saving" feature is designed for Windows-based systems and doesn't play too nicely with Unix-based systems.
 
I had the same hard drive fitted and it's driving me crazy. I get intermittent lag when doing anything, such as just typing this.. it will be fine but then it will pause as iam typing then i get the spinning beach ball then it catches up with itself. It happens all the time, even clicking on items i get lag sometimes. It results on me double clicking on things all the time thinking it hasnt worked, then things pop up and disappear because i have done it twice!! Rah! I had to shut it down last night and walk away from frustration from trying to rearrange my iphoto events. Trying to drag and drop is a nightmare when the spinning ball is appearing all the time!!! I can hear the drive whirring up and whirring down all the time.

Are the fixes mentioned above safe to try out? Will they reduce lifespan of the macbook or HDD? I really should take it back to the shop but it's miles away and Iam a busy person!
 
davemartin01 said:
I had the same hard drive fitted and it's driving me crazy. I get intermittent lag when doing anything, such as just typing this.. it will be fine but then it will pause as iam typing then i get the spinning beach ball then it catches up with itself. It happens all the time, even clicking on items i get lag sometimes. It results on me double clicking on things all the time thinking it hasnt worked, then things pop up and disappear because i have done it twice!! Rah! I had to shut it down last night and walk away from frustration from trying to rearrange my iphoto events. Trying to drag and drop is a nightmare when the spinning ball is appearing all the time!!! I can hear the drive whirring up and whirring down all the time.

Are the fixes mentioned above safe to try out? Will they reduce lifespan of the macbook or HDD? I really should take it back to the shop but it's miles away and Iam a busy person!
Click to expand...
Just use HDAPM: in my case the problem was completely solved !
 
davemartin01 said:
I had the same hard drive fitted and it's driving me crazy. I get intermittent lag when doing anything, such as just typing this.. it will be fine but then it will pause as iam typing then i get the spinning beach ball then it catches up with itself. It happens all the time, even clicking on items i get lag sometimes. It results on me double clicking on things all the time thinking it hasnt worked, then things pop up and disappear because i have done it twice!! Rah! I had to shut it down last night and walk away from frustration from trying to rearrange my iphoto events. Trying to drag and drop is a nightmare when the spinning ball is appearing all the time!!! I can hear the drive whirring up and whirring down all the time.

Are the fixes mentioned above safe to try out? Will they reduce lifespan of the macbook or HDD? I really should take it back to the shop but it's miles away and Iam a busy person!
Click to expand...

The fix is fine. The actual constant spin down and spin up is more likely to reduce the lifespan of your drive.
 
Ok thanks I will try a HDAPM fix but being a newbie to Mac could someone possibly give me the best link for a step by step guide? I have a macbook pro 13" bought in Nov 2009 if that's any help.
 
davemartin01 said:
Ok thanks I will try a HDAPM fix but being a newbie to Mac could someone possibly give me the best link for a step by step guide? I have a macbook pro 13" bought in Nov 2009 if that's any help.
Click to expand...

See post #6 above, click on the link at the word "here":cool::eek::cool:
It was easy to miss :)
 
OK iam an idiot.. how do I authenticate? It says drag the HDAPM into the utilities and authenticate? I don't know what this means! This is why I bought a mac and not a pc because I didn't want to mess around with stuff! Just have a computer that works!
 
davemartin01 said:
OK iam an idiot.. how do I authenticate? It says drag the HDAPM into the utilities and authenticate? I don't know what this means! This is why I bought a mac and not a pc because I didn't want to mess around with stuff! Just have a computer that works!
Click to expand...
No one said, or implied you are an idiot! I did imply that you didn't look hard enough for that link. No big deal, but sorry if that offended you. However, if you wanted a computer that just works, why did you modify the standard installed disk? You did say "I had the same hard drive fitted ..." didn't you? Anytime you add/modify the standard hardware you run the risk of having compatibility issues. That is your own responsibility. Admittedly, this HD thing is rather hit and miss. Some people have no similar problems with this drive, some do, and there is no clear reason why. The same thing happened to me with my mid-2009 MBP 15", the WD Scorpio Blue was totally unusable, and just like you, not wanting to mess with the HDAPM software, I bought a Seagate 500GB Momentus drive, voila no problems (other people have had problems with the Seagate, it really is a trial and error thing). Many have hade good luck with the 500GB Hitachi 7,200 rpm drive too. Might be worth the money and trouble involved to try one, or the New Momentus X with 4GB of high speed cache. Buy a cheap USB external case and put the extra drive in it for backup use, so you don't wind up really wasting your money.
As for the "authenticate" issue, there is a dialog box that pops up at times asking for your admin password. That is what "authenticate" means in this case, a sort of owner approval.
 
Thanks. In the finder window I put HDAPM in my utilities and it is in there as an icon but no authenticate has shown up. I'll carry on with the process and see what happens.
I was tongue in cheek calling myself an idiot by the way just for being a complete biff when it comes to computers. Sorry if that came across in the wrong way. David your directions to the link were perfect and thankyou again. When I bought the computer the shop offered a free upgrade to a 500gb instead of the stock 160gb. I had to wait a few weeks for the drive to arrive in the shop so I got a few weeks to play with the 160gb so the difference was very apparent when I got the new drive.
If this link doesn't work the answer will be to put the 160 back in and use the 500gb as an external drive.
 
davemartin01 said:
Thanks. In the finder window I put HDAPM in my utilities and it is in there as an icon but no authenticate has shown up. I'll carry on with the process and see what happens.
I was tongue in cheek calling myself an idiot by the way just for being a complete biff when it comes to computers. Sorry if that came across in the wrong way. David your directions to the link were perfect and thankyou again. When I bought the computer the shop offered a free upgrade to a 500gb instead of the stock 160gb. I had to wait a few weeks for the drive to arrive in the shop so I got a few weeks to play with the 160gb so the difference was very apparent when I got the new drive.
If this link doesn't work the answer will be to put the 160 back in and use the 500gb as an external drive.
Click to expand...
As I suggested, buying another HD, online or local shop, when you have the extra finds is probably the best answer, 160GB fills up really quickly.
Few people have had issues with the Hitachi 7,200 rpm drive, might be the best candidate. It is also really easy to install the HD yourself. If you can get a Torx No. 6 screwdriver and a 00 philips head screwdriver, you will have all the tools required, just be careful, the screws holding the back of the laptop on are really small, you do not want one of those rolling around on the floor playing "Find me if you can"! And some go in at a slight angle. Be careful handling the disk while it is connected, the connector cable is not fragile, but it is certainly not heavy duty either! I was able to swap out the HD in 20 minutes working very slowly, following the guide in the user manual that came with the computer. Worth the effort I think, compared with trying to work with a 160GB drive.
In any case, good luck. HDAPM should make the WD usable, but some people have trouble with the loudness of that drive too, some don't YMMV.
:cool:
 
WD drives from some reason are very conservative, and always seem to spin down much top quickly, most likely to reduce the heat, noise and energy drain generated by the drive. A quick search of Wd Scorpio Blue drives will reveal a lot of forums. Hopefully, WD will release a firmware fix.

I recently brought the WD6400BEVT, a 640 Gb version of the same drive, and installed it into my i5 Macbook Pro. So far, there doesn't seem to be any problem.

I hope that you can get your drive "fixed" soon.
 
Hmm so far so good. No spinning beach ball all the time! Thanks guys. It seems strange how this affects some people and not others. Oh well, fingers crossed the problem is sorted. If by any chance it does comes back is it advisable to undo the HDAPM? If so this is it a case of going back into lingon and deleting that start up protocol? Hopefully all will stay well. Thanks again guys.
 
using HDAPM is not going to harm your hard drive in any way.
On the contrary, is going to spare a lot of "load/unload cycles", very stressful for the hard drive.

And I can assure you, the WD Scorpio Blue 500 Gb is absolutely silent with HDAPM on max performance, and the temperature will remain in the 34-38° C range.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back