Macbook Pro (may 2009) constantly freezes for >10 secs

What disk drive do you have installed in it?

How full is the hard drive?

I was having this problem with my late 2008 MBP - it had a 500Gb Seagate 5400RPM drive in it. Essentially it would randomly pause.

Tried fresh installs, no help. I ended up swapping out to a 500Gb 7200RPM unit, and putting the 5400rpm unit in my Mini.

Now I cloned from the 500Gb/5400 to the Seagate 500Gb/7200RPM - problem has completely gone.

As a side note I don't get the issue on the Mini either from what I can tell. To be fair that's mainly a media centre though so doesn't get used anything like as much actively.

Some stuff on my blog about it here: http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2009/6/13Macbook_Pro_Hard_DiskUpgrade.html

Couldn't agree with you more mate. Especially if the drive is part of the stock delivered by Apple.

If you have an external firewire drive try cloning to that and booting from it. It may rule out/in the internal hard drive actually having an issue. You'll get slower performance from the f/w drive of course, but it should at least be consistent and without the pauses.

I mean if it is consistent, and you don't get the pauses, and you cloned, you'll know it's likely an issue with the hard disk itself.

Do you know what unit the 500Gb is? The one I was having issue with was a ST9500325AS.

Well all I can say is that I get random pauses too and I have a 500GB 7200RPM Drive which also makes some very odd noises which kind of makes me think it is not your drive at all but may indeed be software related. Have you run a hardware test at all? Is your drive S.M.A.R.T. verified? Just a couple of things to check 🙂 I understand your frustration completely. I am totally naffed off that I specd a 7200 drive and it gives pauses. In my case I know it is the drive and mine is going back because I have only had it for a few days.

Take it back to the shop - it simply shouldn't be doing it.

The clone onto an external drive will 'prove' whether it's s/w or h/w. I.e. if you get the same issue running from f/w it's likely a s/w issue. If you don't, probably the hard disk.

To those who posted--Remember that the Late 2008 and all 2009 MBPs now have a separate forum area due to significant hardware changes. It's here:

http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=251

People with machines of your generation hang out there and more help may be available by moving your posts.

Did you by any chance apply EFI Update 1.7 firmware recently?

If you did the update read this thread and proceed to contact Apple Care about it as they need to know you have this problem with stock drives and you need your machine fixed. Take it back end of story!!!

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2054387

Yet another "me too" I'm afraid. I have exactly the same symptoms on my new 2.66GHz 15' MacBook Pro with the stock 320GB HD. I was fine for the first two weeks, then the unexplained spinning beachball usually in Safari or Finder, but I have seen it in other programs. I thought it was because I had installed Greasekit on my system so I temporarily removed it, but the problem persisted. I went ahead and reinstalled it. Interestingly, I haven't experienced the problem in about a week, but my computer has been on a stand connected to my 30in Cinema Display that whole time. I don't hear the drive head parking while its on the desk, but when I use it on my lap I have noticed that my new MacBook Pro is much more sensitive to the sudden motion sensor than my previous early 2008 Penryn model. The slightest motion will cause the drive to click. It would be nice to get this fixed for good.