Hard Drive Noise and Slow Speeds

I have a Mac Pro 2 x 2 GHz, with a standard 250 GB drive. One thing I noticed from the beginning is how loud the drive was, and after a few months of usage it seemed to become louder as well as much slower - even for ordinary tasks such as web browsing.
Running +time dd if=/dev/urandom of=tst.lol bs=10240 count=100000+ I get a whopping 148.1 seconds, which puts my drive at 6913813 bytes/sec >> 6.9 MB/sec!!
Is it safe to assume the drive is toast, and I should back up my data, then get a replacement from Apple?
Message was edited by: ckamran

The OEM drives are good for an emergency boot system maybe.
Most people buy drives 3rd party, and add/replace as soon as they get Mac Pro.
It probably has errors and needs repair and a good thorough zero-all to the entire drive though.
The front drive will be audible. New drives like WD are very quiet. I would get a couple 500GB @ $109 ea for now.

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Why my Mac Pro hard drive noise and too slow?

Why my Mac Pro hard drive noise and too slow? Totally 8 gb speed system but now very slow . Please give some suggestions

Another thing you can do in Lion (and ML) is click on the "Info" button in Disk Utility to get the SMART status of the drive.It's more detailed now than it used to be and it might tell you if something is wrong.
A lot can go wrong with a hard drive which is why I tend to point people to the downloads section of the following web site:
http://scsc-online.com
They have a free hard drive troublleshooting download book there. I reccommend people download that before asking questionis because there are tons of problems that can act like hard drive problems when there's nothing wrong with the system at all. For example, how full is the drive? How many applications are running? What's the status of Spotlight indexing? How many apps are you running? How much memory do you have?
I could probably think up 20 or 30 more if needed.

Hard drive noise and system performance.

Just like normal, my hard-drive makes noises (normal clicking, etc). When I'm doing something though, like typing, the system slows down for just a split second once a noise it made, stops registering my letters and then types all the letters that weren't regestered. (Keep in mind, this is over a one second period).
For another example, when I launch dashboard, the widgets will start to appear on screen, stop for a (not even a) second, then the widgets will fall into place like they should. I have run disk utility multiple times, and each time it says that the HD is fine.
Is this behavior normal? I can live with it, it's just kind of annoying.

lol, I was going to add "as long as it's not doing that all the time" ...but was hoping for the quick fix. You might want to check your Activity Monitor and see which program or background process is causing the activity ...have you installed anything lately that coincided with this problem? You also might want to try booting into Safe Mode to see if things still persist.

Hard drive noise and freezing

I got my new MacBookPro yesterday - OK it's a refurb! Turned it on and went through the setup stuff, which I thought took a huge amount of time give the speed of the thing. Got on the net and went to download firefox. It started fine and then I heard a noise like a clock ticking and the download stopped. The noise probably went on for 20 seconds and then stopped and the download started again for about 20 second and the noise started again. This time I got the "beach ball of doom" and that was it, everything stopped and all I could do was power of and start again. Started up and got exactly the same thing, when ever I tried to down load anything. Everything seems to works fine and all the apps appear to run until I write anything to the hard drive and then I get the noise and then everything just freezes and I have to kill the power. The noise is comming from the front to the left of the trackpad and I'm assuming that the hard drive is in there - if I put my ear on the case it sound like a drive spinning up and then just stopping. Any suggestion or do I have a jiggered hard drive? Thanks

I have had the same problem with my refurb. It kept freezing on me and not booting. The problem only got worse over time and it finally went back to Apple for repair on 7-14-06, however, good luck getting a repair. They confirmed it was a bad hard drive, but have been waiting for parts ever since. Hmmm... bad batch of drives? I called today and they said they would call me back tomorrow with an update. Good luck!

Hard Drive Noise and Ethernet Problems

Hello, it's been a long time since I've had to post anything, but I guess that's good.
Anyway I have two problems, the first involves my Ethernet, I've been trying to use it to either access my Xbox Live or FTP items with another computer, however no matter what I seem to do, the light in System Preferences remains red. It does not seem to detect cables attached to it either.
The second problem may not be a problem, but I've installed World Of Warcraft on my computer, which runs fairly well, however I have been getting a weird noise I do not normally hear. The noise does not sound like a normal noise when the computer is accessing data off the hard drive. Is this normal or could there be a problem?
Thanks in advance,
Paul

Hello Paul:
You can check your HD health by opening disk utility and highlighting the HD itself (not your file). You will see something at the bottom called S.M.A.R.T. If that says anything other than "verified," you have a HD problem.
It is hard to diagnose the problem with your Ethernet device. You might run the hardware checker that came with your install DVD/CD. If you have other Ethernet devices, you could try them. Beyond that, the port itself may be bad.
Barry

Hard drive noise and now death?

I have a 600mH G3 dual boot iBook with 640 MB RAM. It has been running fine. About three weeks ago I bought and installed Tiger, and it continued to work fine. I hadn't booted into OS 9 since the upgrade except to test it until today. OS 9 boots were the only ones which networked well with my other Macs.
While booted in OS 9 and trying to connect the file sharing, the iBook hard drive started making an odd noise, sounding much like it was rapidly but laboriously trying to access the hard drive with large moves of the reading head. It would stop and the processing would continue, but the iBook kept freezing. I was trying to get it fully booted in OS 9 so that I could change the boot back to OS X, but I was never successful to do that. In the end, the hard drive apparently c rashed.
Now, ASP reports the drive as there but says it has no information about it and that it is not mounted.
DiskFirstAid doesn't see the drive at all.
Drive Setup sees the drive but now calls it "unsupported."
DiskWarrior 2.1 does not see the drive.
I'm assuming that this was just a sudden death of the drive., or is there something else I can try?
If it is dead, can I replace the drive somewhat easily myself? Can I put in a larger drive, say 40 or 60 GB. It came with a 20GB, which was about half full.

The Option key should give you the Startup Manager (which is maybe what you tried to access).
If you have OS X installed on the hard drive, you're going to need the upgraded DiskWarrior to rebuild the directory. There's no way around that. The new DiskWarrior is your best chance to salvage the drive, in my opinion.
You probably know by now that, indeed, the drive can be replaced with a larger one.
Hard drive upgrade services:
http://www.macservice.com/drives.cfm?gclid=CMybj5yrwoQCFShDSgod9xK6MQ
http://www.dttservice.com/harddriveandram/powerbooklaptopharddrive.html
http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&StoreCode=MTOS&CategoryCode=SVCIBWHT

Macbook Pro - Late 2008 - Hard-drive Noise and Freezing

I bought my Macbook Pro in the latter part of 2008 and I haven't had any problems with it until a week ago when I started hearing what I believe to be the hard drive (the lower right portion just to the right of the track pad). During this time, I could still move the cursor around but I could not click on anything and all applications opened froze. This would occur every couple of hours or so, after which I would have to restart my Macbook Pro. Does anyone know what could be the problem and how I can go about solving this? Thanks!!!

Lately there have been quite a few debates on the hard replacement issues with MBP's and from what I have seen they mostly are around the power consumption of the drives being not compatible..
So it's been many days now I'm recommending people this drive :
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-2-5-Inch-Internal-WD5000BEKT/dp/B003TOE4PQ
It's one of the least power hungry drives on the market and is one of the highest performers as well.
It's 7200 rpm and a whopping 500GB for 70-80 dollars is quite interesting .
if you buy the drive and hesitate to replace don't worry it's a 5 minute super easy task and you will find plenty of help if you report back here
I hope I could be of help

T420s hard drive noise / speed /battery life trade off and Screen Roll Cage Info

I know this is a brand new laptop but has anyone over at lenovo spent enough time with both the 7200 rpm and the 5400 rpm version of the 320GB hard drive in this laptop? I am trying to decide between ordering one and would like to get the 7200 rpm but I really dislike hard drive spinning noises in quiet environments. I am currently using the t400 with the 5400 RPM 320Gb drive (which I realize may be different from the drives in the new t420s) and do not find the noise objectionable but would like to get the 7200 in the t420s if there is no noise penalty and very little battery life penalty. Also, does the T420s have a "screen" roll cage like my current T400. I had heard that the T410 did away with the screen roll cages....
Thank You for any assistance.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

The T420s's rollcage is made of a hybrid carbon fibre reinforced plastic. It's not metal since that interferes with the wireless signal.
It's apparently a bit better than the one the T510 has right now (which is the same carbon-reinforced plastic)- and the T410, with a "weaker" roll cage, should pass a 1.6 metre drop anyways.
I can vouch for that plastic's use since you can step on another laptop who's lid (I'm pretty sure it's made from this) is made from that (an old 600E) and it will survive.
Also, the noise isn't all that different for 5400 RPM vs 7200 RPM. The fan will be louder if you are using it.
And if you really hate hard drive sound and want a bigger boost than just an RPM bump, consider an SSD. That'll blow any hard drive out of the water in terms of speed, but will do the same to your wallet if you need anything larger than 40-60 GB. And, if you choose to do this, be aware that the T420s only takes SSD's that are 7mm high- so you'll probably need to get an X25-M or Intel 320 to accommodate that.

I install new hard drive 500gb and i still have 400gb available but my macbook run very slow getting rainbow all the time on screen

i have install new hard drive 500gb and i still have 400gb available but my macbook run very slow getting rainbow all the time on screen.
need help

First boot into recovery and select Disk Utility>First Aid and repair the disk.
If there is no improvement, perform a Safe Boot:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1
If there is an improvement, then third party applications are probably the cause of the problem.
Ciao.

Envy 17t J000 - Maximum Hard Drive Size and speed

I going to place a 2nd hard drive in the open space in my Envy 17t-j000.
The Maintenance and Service Guide states;
Hard drives Supports 6.35-cm (2.5-in) hard drives in 9.5-mm (.37-in) and 7.0-mm (.28-in) thicknesses (all hard drives use the same bracket)
Customer-accessible
Serial ATA
Supports the following hard drives:
● 1-TB 5400-rpm, 9.5-mm
● 750-GB 5400-rpm 9.5-mm
● 500-GB 5400-rpm 9.5-mm and 7.0-mm
Dual hard-drive configurations:
● 2TB: (1-TB 5400-rpm x 2)
● 1500GB: (750-GB 5400-rpm x 2)
This seems to mean that I cannot use a single 2 TB 2nd drive and cannot use a 7200 RPM drive.
Is this correct? Doesthe bios not allow a larger than a 1 TB drive or the 7200 RPM?
CouldI simply partition the 2nd drive into 2 - 1TB?
Or does the manual simply mean that the standard HP unit is not supplied with larger than these sizes and I could actually use a 2 TB in the 2nd bay?
This question was solved.
View Solution.

It is the latter....the list just says what HP has to sell: it does not describe a system limitation. However, I do not believe the market yet offers a 2 TB drive that will fit in the space available. The 2 TB 2.5 inch SATA drives I have seen are too thick. 7200 rpm or hybrid or SSD; not a problem.
To add a second drive you will need a second hard drive caddy and cable.
http://www.newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_5&products_id=542
If this is "the Answer" please click "Accept as Solution" to help others find it.

My macbook 15 inch wont turn on, it makes the hard drive sound and then a few seconds later it sounds like its powering down with like a clicking noise

my macbook 15 inch wont turn on, it makes the hard drive sound and then a few seconds later it sounds like its powering down with like a clicking noise

Try Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
If that doesn't help, try Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
If neither helped, boot from your install disc, run Disk Utillity. The startup disk may need repairing.
Using Disk Utility to verify or repair disks
Check the S.M.A.R.T. status at the bottom of the Disk Utility window.
Make sure it says: Verified

Boot message: problem with hard drive detected. Slow loading of windows 7

Good Day
I am having a problem with my hard drive, everytime it boots these days it starts with a message: Warning: a problem with the hard drive has been detected, followed by an extremely slow loading of windows. then once in windows it gives me Anothet message
the messsage says hard drive failure imminent you should back up you data etc.
My specs are:
Intel core 2 duo e8400 3.0 ghz
4 gig ddr3 transcend
1 tb seagate 7200.12
giga byte nvidia 9800 gt 1 gig ddr3
Please help lots of data.

Another option:
Take your hard drive out and slave it into another KNOWN WORKING PC.
Back-up your data immediately. Slow boot usually indicates that the drive is going to die. (Check your warranty!)
Then, run "chkdsk /r" from the host PC to check the failing drive. (It is good to match OSes if you can.)
MCSE: 6771498

My Mid 2009 Macbook pro (Just purchased) will not turn on after hard drive change and ram upgrade

So i purchased a mid 2009 Macbook Pro from a guy with 4 gb of ram and 250gb hard drive. It worked perfectly fine when i booted it with his hard drive and ram installed.
I spilled beer in my old computer (late 2009 15" 500gb hard drive and 8gb ram) but took the hard drive to get tested and it worked fine. i later found out it was from a 2010.
Like an idiot i assumed the pro i just purchased would be able to handle the same upgrades that were in my old computer so i threw in the 500gb hard drive (2010) and the 8gb of ram.
The thing booted up fine, just a bit slow which i chalked up to my hard drive sitting unplugged for a long time.
After about 3 minutes it crashed on me. Confused i replaced the 4gb of original ram back into it. (the 8gb ram was pny i bought from ebay so i thought it could be that) It decided not to turn on or show any lights on the front except for the battery meter.
After this i replaced the original hard drive and still NO LUCK!! im really mad because i am in desperate need of the information on my original 500gb hard drive and im afraid i have destroyed 2 computers and about $1K worth of cash out the window.
HELP please enlighten me on what i have done and if the situation can be fixed.

UPDATE: Problem solved with the old hard drive in it, Now the less pressing issue:
Will the computer run my 500gb hard drive with all my information on it? I need to forward a resume and it is on that hard drive.

Hard drive death and invisibility

the other day, my hard drive seemed to die. i made a silly mistake - i had accidently gotten myself down to about 5gb free on my macbook pro's internal drive, and had then forgotten and started downloading more things. i guess i was downloading for a little while, then i shut down my computer, left the house, and got on a train. on the train, i plugged in my charger and started playing around on ableton live (resource-intensive program). everything was running fine for about 20 minutes (and nothing more was downloading at this point), but then my computer began to freeze. i thought it was just the program, as it can be a little buggy at times, but then then the whole os locked up and i had to do a force-shutdown.
then my woes began. i turned the laptop back on - and got the flashing folder with the question-mark. around this time i remember how full my hard drive was, and i get a bit concerned. i try a few things to get it to boot, but no joy. i resign myself to a train ride with no laptop. when i get home, i boot from the install dvd, open disc utility, and it shows only my dvd drive. hard drive invisible. as though has just vanished. so i assume it's a dead drive. i plug in an external through usb, and install the os onto this. computer boots fine, though a little slow (to be expected, usb). my internal drive still doesn't show. i try diskwarrior, and that it doesn't show there either. so by now i've resigned myself to an unsalvagable (within my price limits) drive. so today, i went and bought a replacement drive and a set of screwdrivers. i had to buy a slightly higher-end drive, as it was the only one they had in stock - a western digital 'scorpio black'. i get home and open the laptop's guts and install the replacement, then boot from the dvd. disc utility doesn't show it. i open the guts again and check that i installed it okay, and i'm pretty sure i did. i've opened it again about 4 times since, to check again and again. it always seems fine. when i do system profiler (from the boot disc or os on the external) i get the "there was an error while scanning for serial-ata devices".
then there's the problem that i'm really broke, after buying the replacement drive, so i can't buy an external enclosure to test that the drive(s) work, to see whether it's a drive issue or a laptop issue. could i plug them directly into the desktop (that i write this from), to test them? or would i need adaptors..? i know that my desktop (windows) case wouldn't support 2.5" drives, but if i secured it in place by other means, would the connectors work? as a troubleshooting thing.
any ideas? my guess at the moment, it must be either:
- the overloaded drive did something bad to my hardware (the bit that controls the hard drives?).
- a powersuge on the train did something nasty (maybe?)
- my first drive is dead, and the replacement drive isn't appearing for a different reason (it's a 3gb/s drive, i read that there was a firmware upgrade required to get these running - but i downloaded the update on the external os, and it said the update wasn't required).
- everything is toast. and i have to use windows.
it seems relevant that everything works fine when running the os through usb. it's just that internal drives don't appear or work. and it's also relevant that i can't send it away to get repaired, 'cause i have no money.
after all this, i got stressed and drank beer. so please excuse any silly errors and my extensive storytelling. and thank you so much in advance.

miinna,
Did you ever figure out the problem?
I am working on a friends mac and it has the same exact issue. For some reason my Lion hard drive boots as ab internal, but any blank or snow leopard drive won't even show up in the disk utilitiy. I can install/read from an external drive. I get the same "there was an error while scanning for serial-ata devices" error.
I'm wondering if it is the SATA cable or something worse.
Specs:
MacbookPro5,3
Intel Core 2 Duo
2.66
A1286

Disharging with USB, Freezing on Sync, Hard Drive noise on Line Out

I have been dealing with three issues with my 60GB iPod click wheel with color display (Photo).
The first is something that slowly creeped in, which is hard drive noise that is audible through the line out when the iPod is charging in a dock. I'd like to say it's like a ground loop issue, but it's in my car, on my iHome, and on my apple dock when plugged into power on a stereo system. It sounds like the spinning of the hard drive is correlated to the noise.
Second, over the past year or so, I've noticed that when I have the iPod plugged into any mac using USB, the iPod discharges. My friend has noticed the same problem on her 40GB 3rd generation iPod. We've tried them on several computers. Firewire connection, no problem, only USB when plugged into a computer, not the power adapter.
Just recently, the iPod froze up iTunes and the rest of my Mac (G4 MDD Dual 1gHz, OS X 10.4.10, iTunes 7.4.2) during sync. I made reformatted the iPod using Disk Utility, Restored to iPod, making sure to plug into power to finish the restore, then attempted to resync. Two attempts of this and I get the same result, a freeze.
The first two issues, I've adapted with, but this last one is just frustrating. I will attempt to sync using a firewire cable, but that should not be the solution. This iPod came with a USB cable, it should charge and sync with one. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Thank you!

ok I went here for instruction on how to take it apart since I wasn't having much luck on my own:
http://www.flexbeta.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=20&t=8269
his tip worked for me so far. hopefully this won't be just a temporary fix:
Good tip: if your iPod seems dead and the hard drive is throwing errors pull out the connection at the bottom of the ipod mainboard and plug it back in, this will hard reset your ipod and worked a few times for me

Hard Drive Noise and Slow Speeds

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