Why don't mac's have HD activity lights?

When freezes occur or if I'm wondering if someone is taking files off me on the network I check the HD activity light. Why do mac's not have one?

 

because no one can steal your files from your network if you have a mac?

 

I could probably come up with several reasons why. Most likely it's due to asthetics. On the other hand most people don't care or wish to see the little flashing HD light. If you come from a Windows world it is a bit unsettling to not have a light, but you'll find that it really isn't necessary. Once upon a time there was an app that showed HD activity...dunno if that is still available.

You must not be running Vista. If you were you would know that HD activity is off the scale in comparison to XP. On machines with extra RAM Vista will cache 100's of MB's or more of data. It's not bad on a desktop, but on a portable it's murder..especially after a fresh boot. If you use your HD light to let you know if someone is grabbing data off your computer you're going to have nightmares with Vista. ;P

 

Some programs on Windows are completely background, like some video coding. I don't like to mess with my PC while it's doing it's job for the fear of errors. So I depend on my HD light sometimes to tell me if it's still running or not.

I never knew Mac had no HD light. No biggie for me tho.

 

well for MACs i think if the machine is unresponsive you just have hold down the power button to solve problems.

 

it is honestly is not very useful in my opinion, you basically always know whether or not the HDD is in use or not, and honestly, thinking about that sort of thing is a little backwards in terms of productivity or projects, it is very easy to learn in Pro Apps if the HDD is being accessed or not.

definitely not a major thing at all, within a week or so you will forget it was ever there.

 

You'll know when your Mac has frozen up. In most cases, when an app freezes, you can manually shut it down Kinda like the Windows TaskManager, except it actually shuts the program down on the spot. I don't think that they include the hard drive activity light because it's not really necessary. When my PC freezes the light keeps going...but it doesn't always mean that the damned thing is still working things out.

 

Well those hard drive lights are always on, and I can hear the hard drive most of the time, so an indicator light really isn't necessary.

 

One reason why Apple might not have installed indicator lights is that they can be distracting especially in a dark room.