Upgrading HDD + EFI Firmware 1.7 Questions

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Upgrading HDD + EFI Firmware 1.7 Questions

I am deciding to upgrade my old 120GB Fujitsu HDD (stock) in my 2007 MBP with a WD Scorpio Blue 500GB 5400RPM drive. However, I have been reading all these issues concerning the EFI Firmware 1.7 and its issues with not only stock HDD's, but mainly with third party ones. Unfortunately, my SATA speed is limited to only 1.5GBps and I do not know how this affect the new speeds of a newly installed HDD. Should I still proceed to install the firmware update or stick with the older one to ensure no issues? What do you guys recommend?

Thanks for all your help!

MacBook Pro 15'' | iMac 20'', Mac OS X (10.5.6), 2.2GHz ~ 120GB 5400RPM HD ~ 8600M GT | 2.66GHz ~ 500GB 7200RPM HD ~ HD 2600 PRO

Posted on Jul 19, 2009 6:33 AM

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Answer 1

R C-R

Level 6

17,810 points

Jul 19, 2009 7:09 AM in response to knp59

Note that MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 says in part:

+While this update allows drives to use transfer rates greater than 1.5Gbps, Apple has not qualified or offered these drives for Mac notebooks _and their use is unsupported_.+

If it were me, I would not apply the update & see what happens. If the drive works OK at the 1.5 Gbps rate, I would probably leave well enough alone rather than going for the higher transfer rate, at least until Apple either supports it or provides a simple, supported way to downgrade the firmware if the upgrade causes problems.

Note also that some 3Gbps drives provide a jumper or their own firmware setting to force 1.5Gbps operation (although AFAIK the firmware setting can only be applied under Windows), so this may be an option if the drive doesn't work without the Apple firmware update applied.

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Answer 2

knp59 Author

Level 1

15 points

Jul 19, 2009 8:22 AM in response to R C-R

Yes, I definitely recall reading that and was quite surprised at that comment.

I am considering the WD 500GB 5400RPM. Does 3Gbps show any noticeable improvement over the 1.5Gbps in real world performance?

You also mentioned that 3Gbps drive provides jumpers/firmware to force 1.5Gbps. Do you know if the WD5000BEVT (500GB 5400RPM) HDD has such mechanisms?

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Answer 3

R C-R

Level 6

17,810 points

Jul 19, 2009 9:25 AM in response to knp59

I cannot answer either of your questions because I have no direct experience with 3Gbps drives used with Macs in general or with the WD drive in particular.

However, I can say that 3Gbps transfer rates are much more than any currently available drive I know of can sustain, so the performance differences are not likely to be great. Like with the evolution of parallel ATA interface standards, the newer SATA one is mostly intended to prevent the interface from being a bottleneck as drive performance continues to improve.

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Answer 4

knp59 Author

Level 1

15 points

Jul 19, 2009 1:54 PM in response to R C-R

Someone told me that my 2007 MBP (1.5Gbps) does not have an available update for the EFI Firmware 1.7 as it is available to only the 2009 models. Is this true? I always thought it was fine as long as you had 10.5.7 installed.

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