Yet another possible glitch affecting the MacBook Pro, this time having to do with “strange clicking and beeping noises.” It seems that several people with the 7200 RPM hard drive (the Seagate Momentus 7200.4) have reported those “clicking” issues, as well as general performance issues. Can’t have that.
Apple hasn’t addressed the issue, and trips to the Apple Store to fix the problem haven’t quite worked out. Other World Computing—they sell Mac stuff—says the problem could be caused by the Seagate hard drive’s “G Fore” technology, which could be conflicting with the MacBook Pro’s built-in anti-shock protection. As a result, the hard drive may well be spinning up and down frequently, thus reducing performance and quite possibly shortening the life of the drive itself.
Solutions? 1) Deal with it. 2) Get a different hard drive, one without G Force. 3) Spend even more money and get a solid state drive.
4) Don’t buy a mac!
Sorry, I had to fill my trolling quota for today. :P
I’m surprised that Seagate’s taken a lot of flak lately. I remember when they used to have higher quality drives. I recently switched back to buying WD drives from all I’ve read about Seagate’s performance issues.
I’ve had too many problems to ever switch back to WD, but do hear good things about them lately. Personally, I usually buy Seagate and have good experiences. Samsung is another drive I’ve purchased a few times and had good experience, but I never hear anyone mention them.
I think so long as you stay away from 7200.11 (that’s the one, right?), you’ll be OK. And even those are supposedly OK now. This sounds like its more a problem with some tech built into the drive which is conflicting with tech built into the Macbook. It doesn’t sound like something Seagate – or Apple – did wrong…just a conflict that is arising, from what I see here anyways. These things happen.
***Stop spreading lies about Apple products. This is all in your head. You will forget this article and go back to blogging at your coffee shop.***
The issue is quite real. Within 24hrs of unboxing my new MBP 15″ I noticed a very high pitched chirp. This happened during a spin up cycle (also rather loud for a laptop). The issue was not confined to a particular application usage. It was not alterable using the hard drive cycle settings in the power manager. To ensure it was the HDD I silenced the speakers. In a room with normal ambient noise this was noticeable. In a quiet room it was painful to hear.
I called Apple (now 48hrs after delivery) and explained to them the issue with details of what I’d done. They quickly escalated this to a higher level tech. After he reviewed case notes we spoke. He asked me how I’d like to see it resolved. I asked for a hotswap on the drive. He seemed very agreeable to this and checked to see if it was possible. It was not. He told me that he’d list the machine as DOA and would initiate a replacement.
Since the MBP was technically a custom build (edu employee discount) the new one took 9 days to arrive – the same amount of time it took for the original purchase.
The new one seems to be flawless. All during the process a woman named Shang from the Asia offices was in touch with me for tracking the replacement. I have to say, while the other techs provided good service, her communication and service was really exceptional. I did find the turn around on the swap a bit long, but she was exceptional.
I do think that buying a first run of any macs has always been problematic. This is the first and last time I’ll do so. I’ll wait for few months next time.
I tried upgrading the hard drive in my 2008 Mac Book Pro to the 500GB Seagate Momentus (the model without GForce protection) and within minutes my new drive was clicking and slurring away. I promptly got a replacement from a different supplier (hoping to get one from another ‘batch’) but I had the same problem with that one too!! I gave up on Seagates Momentus drives in the end and settled for a 320GB Western Digital.
I have a 13″ MacBook Pro and I fitted a 500GB Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B 2.5″ drive. Had it going for a week now. Sweet as…. No noise to speak of and lots of room
get hitachi drives if you want an upgrade.