Western Digital Scorpio Blue 640 Drive draws too much power in a MacBookPro

Hi Tim,

Thank-you so much for taking the time to document the instructions so thoroughly. It will no doubt save me (and others) many frustrating hours of trying to work this out.

You can definitely count this as your good deed for the day.

I am glad you had success. I hope this will work on my Scorpio Blue 500GB. I will update this thread once I have had a chance to try it.

Hi Tim,

I am a happy man. I just followed your instructions and now the problem is completely fixed. No more whooshing sounds, no more beach balls and no more cycle count increases.

I have looked into the HDAPM solution before, but always found that it was over my head. So thanks for making this clearer.

I no-longer have to spend money on a new drive.

I just wish I had done this sooner, as my cycle count is up to approximately 199,000 (after 415 hours of use).

Thanks again.

Really pleased to be of help 🙂 After getting so much help from forums like this over the years (where would we be without them!) it's good to put a little back 🙂 One things for sure, I must remember all this when I upgrade to Snow Leopard one day... just in case it all goes away again!

email I just received today

Engineering has provided the following information:


This behavior is not the result of OS level disk spindown commands. There is an EFI change for SATA bus speed; and the suggested workaround is to run hdapm to set a new power management level on the disk itself.


This isn't an OS power management behavior, it's a tricky interaction between device firmware and EFI's configuration of the SATA interface. We commission drives from our vendors with different behaviors than the drives available generally on the market, and that is why the generic replacement does not support the features as you expect.


We are now closing this bug since our engineers are aware of the issue and will continue to track it offline. A different resolution to this issue may be considered in the future.

BriChi wrote:
email I just received today

Engineering has provided the following information:


This behavior is not the result of OS level disk spindown commands. There is an EFI change for SATA bus speed; and the suggested workaround is to run hdapm to set a new power management level on the disk itself.


This isn't an OS power management behavior, it's a tricky interaction between device firmware and EFI's configuration of the SATA interface. We commission drives from our vendors with different behaviors than the drives available generally on the market, and that is why the generic replacement does not support the features as you expect.


We are now closing this bug since our engineers are aware of the issue and will continue to track it offline. A different resolution to this issue may be considered in the future.

Hi B,

It sounds like the email came from Apple, but just want to make sure. Is that correct?

We are now closing this bug since our engineers are aware of the issue and will continue to track it offline.

Any thoughts as to exactly what this means? They're closing this case file because they know it's a bug? They're fixing the bug?

Thanks

Message was edited by: tjk

yes, that was from Apple bug report engineers, didn't make much sense to me either but I figured I would share, so in other words, they know it's a bug but we should do a workaround all the time. Great answer Apple, next thing you'll tell us to hold the Macbooks differently so the drives dont spin down 🙂

Hi. I too have a 500gb WD Scorpio Blue I got a few weeks ago from Amazon. I was going to put inside a Mac Mini, but then read about the spindown clicking problems here and elsewhere. So now I am thinking about putting it in an external USB box. Does anyone here know whether the spindown problem also obtains for a Scorpio 500GB in an external USB connected to a Macbook or Mini?

Yet another alternative is to use the drive for Time Machine while connected via USB as an Airdisk to an Airport Extreme wifi router. Has anyone tried that?

thanks in advance JHH

I used a Scorpio Blue 500gb in an external USB-cabinett and I am prety sure I didn't experience any serious spindown problems. When I put it inside my Mac Mini the spindown problems started. I tried the solution posted by Timiambeing and it worked!

I think you should try the solution Jeffrey.


Johan

Hi -- I'm hoping that someone can give me an answer about the following:

Situation: 2006 MBP 2.33Ghz, EFI is 1.14, and a full Hitachi 160gb drive (the original HDD) ... Mac OS is 10.5.8 (Leopard)

I recently bought (wait for it ... ) *a 640GB WD 5400rpm drive*, with the hopes that I could do a swap and gain a lot more storage.

From all the posts I'm reading, this seems like this plan is going to cause me no end of frustration and angst.

Can anyone tell me whether or not the issues of EFI / power mgmt / head parking are going to be present, especially if #1 I'm using such an old EFI and #2 Leopard and NOT Snow Leopard.

Anyone? Many thanks in advance.

Correction: I misread the specs on my "About This Mac" ... I'm using EFI 1.5.1

I would really like to upgrade my drive, but I'm having hesitation due to the power management issues I'm reading about online with current non-OEM 2.5" drives.

If anyone has any experience about this specific configuration:

o Late 2006 MBP 17" core2duo, EFI 1.5.1
o swap original Hitachi 160gb drive with new WD 640GB blue scorpio 5400rpm

...I would appreciate any comments/help. Thanks!

I have a 2006 MBP 1.1 (1st gen) 15" and recently reconfigured it:

* Replaced the factory 100GB Seagate Momentus 7200 HDD with a Western Digital 128GB SSD (WDC SSC-D0128SC-2100)
* Replaced the optical drive with an Optibay containing a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 640GB HDD (WDC WD6400BEVT-22A0RT0).

The goal was to use the SSD as the system disk and the HDD as storage (I moved my "home" directory on to it) in an effort to improve performance. Well, that didn't quite work out as the WD640 exhibits the same issues mentioned by others in this thread (i.e. frequent head parking causing "clicks" and lag/beach balls).

I tried the hdapm trick, but it failed with, "APM not supported". My best guess is that it's not "supported" because the WD640 is actually located in the ATA optical bay ("Disk1") rather than the SATA main HDD location. I arranged the drives this way because I've heard that OS X won't boot off an HDD/SSD in the optical bay. So, now, I'm left with three questions:

1. Will my MBP boot if I move the SSD to the optical bay?
2. If so, will having the SSD/boot drive in the optical bay affect it's performance?
3. Is hdapm likely to work with the WD640 in the SATA main HDD location?

bleak wrote:
1. Will my MBP boot if I move the SSD to the optical bay?

If you hold down the option key while booting, I strongly suspect it will behave as if booting from a CD/DVD while holding down the option key, allowing you to select the boot disk.

FWIW, I swapped out the original Hitachi 160gb in my 1st-gen 2006 MBP 17" last night.

Observations:

#1. The swap was not nearly as complicated as I thought it would be. The job was definitely not for a beginner, but it was not very difficult, either. It required careful removal and storage of all the particular screws, and things to be done carefully and in order. But no big deal. I was done in 30 minutes, start to finish.

#2. This goes without saying, but each particular flava of MBP seems to have unique install issues. Compared to web resources I had seen (including "hightechdad", who has a complete YouTube walk-through), my MBP was not 100% the same, even though his MBP is the same vintage. My computer was relatively easy, I would say, especially from what I've read online.

#3. Blessed be the tech gods, but my 640GB WD blue scorpio does NOT seem to exhibit any of the strange click / whirring / head parking issues that others are complaining about. This could either be due to (a) my relatively antique EFI (1.5) or (b) I just lucked out and have a good copy that meshes well with my machine. The only mod I made to my OS was to disable the head parking command in Console with "sudo" ... but I did not need to use HDAPM or Lingon.

Summary: In early MBP's, the WD 640GB seems to work with no issues.

Bobby,

How did you "disable the head parking command"? Or are you referring to the Sudden Motion Sensor (pmset -a sms 0)?

Sorry -- yes, that's what I mean. The SMS sensor command through Terminal.

I think I really lucked out. Amazing. For once, the computer gods smiled upon me. I've read so many forums where people are agonizing over their recent HD upgrade on their MBP. Clicking, slow file transfers, beachball of death, head parking, power management issues -- I can feel their frustration.

So far, my 640GB WD is functioning flawlessly. In fact, it blows away the 160GB Hitachi that it replaced. A quick scan showed that it has about 3x sustained R/W transfer rate compared to the old drive, plus it seems to use less power.

Again, I think there's a few things working in my favor here: #1. my computer is an old, Oct. 2006 MBP, with old EFI in the firmware. I'm also running Leopard, not Snow. Later MBP's seem to have a lot more issues. #2 I seem to have lucked out and gotten a good copy of the WD drive.

If anyone needs any help or explanation I'm happy to offer the paltry info I have. Good luck to anyone out there thinking about doing this swap. Hopefully you'll have MY luck.