Seagate Momentus, annoying spin down click!

Just upgraded my macbook to a 160gb Seagate Momentus 5400.3 ST9160821AS.
Its working fine but it has an annoying click, I have read this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=168425

Just wondering if there is any software for the mac, so I can up the performance and remove that annoying click?

Thanks in advance

 

Software will not change the performance of your hard drive. Your drive should not be clicking.

But... you could check under the energy saver preferences. Try unchecking "put hard drive to sleep when possible"

 

Doesn't the software here change the HD performance or does it change the os settings?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=168425

Its a spin down click, not a failing click (I think). If I run a DVD or iTunes (something that keeps the HD active) it doesn't click/spin down. As soon as everything stops reading/writing to the drive it makes a click noise/spin down.

And yes I have uncheck that option in the energy saver.

 

Software should not change the performance of the hard drive. I'm not an expert in hardware controllers, but the idea of a driver really effecting the performance of the HDD sounds... well, not good.

It's possible that there are some calls that are open to the operating system to effect the HDD, but I can't claim I'm that knowledgeable in that area.

To be honest, I've never heard of HDD clicking unless they are failing until reading that thread. Even when going to sleep, I've never had a single hard drive out of the 8 or 9 I've personally owned ever click on me. As far as that thread, it sounds like there is a conflict between the drive and either the controller or software.

 

hard drive clicking is actually a fairly normal phenomena. there have been a few "fixes" that have worked for some people, but may not work for you. try searching for hd click noise.

 

Ahhh this is interesting. What you're describing is known as a load cycle. Basically, the hard drive is parking its heads too often. For some reason OS X does this FAR too much, and it's not that easy to fix it. I noticed it with my stock 160GB Fujitsu drive in my MacBook Pro, and in the 200GB Hitachi replacement 7200rpm drive I installed in there.

I ALSO noticed this on the new 17" Penryn system I upgraded to a 200GB 7200rpm drive.

There is, however, a way to fix it in OS X. You need a program called HDAPM, which basically sets the hard drive not to park its heads.

http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

I'm running it, and my hard drive is as silent as can be now. I had made a thread about it months ago just after getting my MacBook Pro. The clunking was driving me nuts....

Hopefully that tool will help you.

I remember checking how many load cycles my drive had done, and it was ridiculously huge compared to the number of load cycles before drive FAILURE. At the rate I was going at, my drive was going to be dead in under a year (I think it was 8 months).

 

Thanks for the info, tried http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/ but its still doing it. I probably haven't set it up correctly.
I placed hdapm in the Library folder and double clicked, it said disk0, how to I know my disk is disk0. Should it be Macintosh HD?

 

Discs are identified by disk0, disk1, or hda1, hdb3, etc under Unix. The "name" of the HDD is an alias.

 

OK. Yeah you've definitely not set it up correctly. I had to get some help from the Apple forums to do this, but here's what I personally did on three systems:

1. Mount the image

2. Open and paste to Terminal (CAUTION: Use with your own responsibility! But I think it should work.):

sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin && sudo cp /Volumes/hdapm/hdapm /usr/local/bin/ && sudo cp /Volumes/hdapm/hdapm.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/ && sudo /Volumes/hdapm/hdapm disk0 max;

You should know what you are doing before running that.


Good luck with that! I originally had trouble with that command because of some permissions to copy files to the /usr/local/bin folder, but since I use Path Finder now instead of the (quite inferior) Finder app, this command just asked for my password and then worked. It gave me a "success" message in Terminal and my HD is now silent. This command makes sure your system runs this command at boot-up so you don't need to set up the tool each boot.

 

And see, here are the threads I used to get help a while ago..

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5873817#5873817

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1226956&tstart=15

 

Thanks for your help, I manage several CentOS servers so I knew the basics of that command. Ran it, rebooted and no more annoying clicking!!
Cant thank you enough for that, I was seriously about to throw the thing through the window!

 

Glad to hear it! It drove me mad, too.

 

I'm interested to hear whether anyone has tried the hdapm fix but not managed to get rid of the clicks. I'm thinking of buying a Macbook, but am concerned about this problem as have had similar issues with PC notebooks and it drove me crazy.

Also, is there any software for macs that allows you to monitor the HDD temperature to make sure it's not overheating with the power management switched off?

 

Yes it works, and it's STILL necessary on new MacBook Pros with Penryns etc...

I had to do it on a friend's new 17" MBP to stop the parking heads every 10 seconds, which WILL kill a hard drive in pretty short order.

I reinstalled my OS this past weekend, and the APM fix was one of the first things I installed again.

 

Great, thanks for that.

Do you monitor the hard drive temperature at all?

 

Yes, sure. It's always in the mid 30s with my Hitachi 200GB 7200rpm.

 

Thanks for this. I just added a 200GB Momentus 7200.2 into my MacBook Pro (Core Duo). This fixed the clicking noise and seemed to stabilize the spin speed. The link for hdapm has very simple instructions for installation of the program at this point.

It did increase my HD SMART temp from 43 to 49-50degC though, with room temp being 30degC (hot apartment). The drive specs give an operating temp up to 60degC. I will keep an eye on that but I'm more comfortable with higher temp than the frequent clicks.

Patrick

 

Okay, I hate to resurrect an old thread, but I didn't want to create a whole new thread for a quick question.

What is the purpose of head parking?
What are the effects of head parking (other than the no click sounds)? Less battery life?

 

Head parking is so that if you by mistake drop the laptop, there's no damage to the disk caused by the head that moves back and forth. The effect is an annoying noise every so often from the disk, and... theoretically, reduced hard drive life since a drive can only park its heads a set number of times.... Again, theoretically.

 

I have a question for the hdapm software. What can you do to make it run at every boot?

My problem is that i have to manually activate it with terminal everytime i boot up my macbook I have to write this every time: hdapm disk0 max.

Which of course is quite annoying, if i could make it start automatically at every boot, i would be very happy

 

You can do that. I know I posted the command to paste into Terminal to do that. Mine is set for every boot hdamp disk0 max. Do a search on the boards for "hdapm" and I'm SURE you'll find the thread where I posted it... otherwise I'll check back later...

 

If it is this command you are talking about: sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin && sudo cp /Volumes/hdapm/hdapm /usr/local/bin/ && sudo cp /Volumes/hdapm/hdapm.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/ && sudo /Volumes/hdapm/hdapm disk0 max;

I have tried it, and that did not work out for me

 

You need to get the HDAPM utitlity downlaoded and mounted first, just running that command won't actually do anything without it.

 

Of course i have done that before i ran the command The utility do work, it is just that i have to manually start it every time, and the files are at the exact places where it should be.

 

It works fine, the command.

What you might need to do is this:

Lose this first part of the command:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin &&

And create the folders "usr" and inside that put "local" and inside that put "bin"

THEN go to Terminal and run the rest of the command:

sudo cp /Volumes/hdapm/hdapm /usr/local/bin/ && sudo cp /Volumes/hdapm/hdapm.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/ && sudo /Volumes/hdapm/hdapm disk0 max;


I know it works because I've been using it like this for ages.

Good luck.

 

I do not think it is possible to create those folders just like that, because they are unix folders, and all the unix software you install resides in those folders. I have Tex 2008, svn and all the unix utilities installed in those folders. I guess i am just unlucky with this I do have a bit knowledge about unix and how to use the terminal. I think the problem lies in the hdapm.plist for me or the LaunchDemons not working as intended.

 

I use Pathfinder as my Finder, and it let me create the folders (had to enter my admin password to let me). So I had no problem there...

Again, I know the command works, but those files NEED to be in the right place.

 

its most probably the sound of the HDD read/write head parking... in the ramp... the performance lag from parked to engaged is very very minimal, i almost (if at all) dont notice it.

i dont think it is necessary to disable this. the HDD also more protected from damage when the head is parked.

the head contact start/stop cycle is rated at minimum of 600 000. so no need to worry too much about it.

 

The thing is my Western Digital 3200BEVT hard drive uses 70 load cycles per hour which is over double of the standard 30 load cycles per hour. So in already a year i am reaching 598087 load cycles! Which is quite insane, so i really need this utility, else my hard drive will have a very fast death

 

Having the same clicking with my 500gb Western Digital in MBP. One question, when I try to enter that command there is no /usr/local/bin on my drive. Am I missing something?

 

The click is actually a power saver feature with seagates. I don't mind it much because I put mine to sleep after an hour of no activity and if thats the case then I most likely won't hear it

P.S. All my seagates are external drives.

 

ok.. first off.. don't reply to a thread that is over a year old.. just make a new thread and ask your question...

having /usr/local depends on what OS your running, and what programs you have installed... the directions here is telling you to make the directory if it doesn't exist yet).. which is what "mkdir" does... so if you don't have it, make it...

 

I've used hdapm for a long time on my wd 7200 to resolve the problem.
Occasionally it comes back, but I just reapply the settings and it fixes it again.

 

I've since switched to an SSD. You can't appreciate how quiet your computer can run until you've had an SSD. A hard drive is a lot louder than you might think, even without the heads parking all the time!

 

Agreed. Also, how slow it can be. I had to use my wife's macbook for a day, and was surprised at how sluggish it felt compared to my machine with the SSD.

 

Yes, it really is painful. I'm never going back to spinning disks for personal use. I still use them, of course, for data storage etc, but for my main OS, it's SSD from here on out. I LOVE it.