Clicking sound on MBP with 7200rpm HD

hi. ive read online on forums that some MBPs have strange clicking noises and random freezeups after switching to 7200RPM drives. is that true? apple even released an update just yesterday to fix that. im intending to upgrade to a 7200RPM HD (hitachi most probably). does the problem occur on specific models of HD or ALL 7200RPM. if its the latter, im gonna think twice about upgrading.

The issue is with some Seagate drives that shipped with the June '09 MBP's.

Sometimes I have these strange clicking noises when I'm driving, but then they go away after I make a turn. Strange, I can't figure it out.

but some of those who installed the HD manually after getting their MBPs get the same issue though. so im wondering is it only seagate drives or does it lie with 7200rpm. if its the latter means it doesnt matter what brand it is, as long as its 7200 it'll click and freeze.

bobtomay said:

The issue is with some Seagate drives that shipped with the June '09 MBP's.

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nictan said:

but some of those who installed the HD manually after getting their MBPs get the same issue though. so im wondering is it only seagate drives or does it lie with 7200rpm. if its the latter means it doesnt matter what brand it is, as long as its 7200 it'll click and freeze.

Click to expand...

I doubt that it's directly related to the spindle speed. From what I understand, the problem revolves around the drive parking the heads when it detects a shock. Apparently there is a conflict between Seagate's firmware and the shock sensor built into the Mac. It's not supposed to be an issue unless there are sudden G-forces sensed. The update Apple issued is supposed to correct the problem. Since the release was so recent, I think the jury is still out as to whether this was a permanent fix for all drives.

This was released yesterday and posted on the forums:-

Hard Drive Firmware Update 2.0

so from what you are saying, the fault arises when its seagate HD in a mac? so i guess i am safe with a hitachi? heh heh

cwa107 said:

I doubt that it's directly related to the spindle speed. From what I understand, the problem revolves around the drive parking the heads when it detects a shock. Apparently there is a conflict between Seagate's firmware and the shock sensor built into the Mac. It's not supposed to be an issue unless there are sudden G-forces sensed. The update Apple issued is supposed to correct the problem. Since the release was so recent, I think the jury is still out as to whether this was a permanent fix for all drives.

Click to expand...

nictan said:

so from what you are saying, the fault arises when its seagate HD in a mac? so i guess i am safe with a hitachi? heh heh

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I wouldn't put any data I valued on a Hitachi drive. I'd sooner go with a Western Digital.

hmm im not too worried about that though, as ive everything on timemachine. but my company's com technician told me that hitachi was better than WD which is actually seagate, smth along that line. and that it wasnt as good. no idea though ahahah.

im more concerned about the clicking stuff

Your technician is confused. Western Digital and Seagate are two separate and distinct companies. It's more likely that he's thinking of Maxtor (which is now owned by Seagate).

Hitachi drives have some of the industry's highest failure rates, so much so that they are commonly referred to as "Deathstars" (their normal model lines are "Travelstar" and "Deskstar"). It's a shame as IBM used to make great hard drives until Hitachi took over that operation.

I'm not in the business, but still have a lot of friends that bring me their systems to work on. Which means I don't see nearly as many drives as cwa, but the failed drives I do see at less than 5 yrs old are typically Hitachi and Fujitsu and right at about 5 yrs old are Maxtor. Don't see many Seagate drives at all and the WD drives I see are typically about 7-8 yrs or older it seems like. I'm thinking there's not that many off-the-shelf systems in years past that used Seagate. And all my experience on the hardware side is really with desktops.

hmm. thanks for the feedback. i better check back with him to make sure. :S.

Seagate apparently had a bad batch of the 7200.4 Momentus drives. Apple uses these, and they are also in different sizes. The 500GB's were the most affected, but it affected some others as well. I had a 320GB model right out of the box that was glitchy and I ended up returning it for a replacement which I *think* is in better shape. The 500GB I got for my MBP seems OK but time will tell.

Under the area "About this Mac", the ATA states "NVidia" as the vendor, do they make hard drives? Perhaps I am looking in the wrong area to find out who makes my 7200 320 GB August purchased MBP.

DaSvenska said:

Under the area "About this Mac", the ATA states "NVidia" as the vendor, do they make hard drives? Perhaps I am looking in the wrong area to find out who makes my 7200 320 GB August purchased MBP.

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No, NVIDIA does not make hard drives. You are probably looking at the chipset/SATA controller, you may need to click the little triangle next to the name of the chipset to see the drive itself.

Go back into About This Mac => More Info. Click on "Serial ATA", you should see something like this:



If the model number starts off with an "ST", that stands for Seagate Technology.

Has this problem been fixed then with the firmware update?

Thanks cwa, it is indeed "ST".