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

I just received a Western Digital 640 gb (WD6400BEVT) Scorpio Blue Drive for my MacBookPro. I've noticed that the drives "Throttles" a lot, i.e. seems to accelerate/spin and slow down/stop in a way I've never seen in any other drive, and I've been through lots. It wouldn't be a problem if the computer didn't seem to be sluggish in response, much more sluggish than with the 200G Hitachi drive I had before. I will sometimes start typing something and the computer will be slow to react; I also see the spinning ball much more often.
I contacted WD and was told that "It is quite possible that the computer cannot manage the capacity and energy demand of this drive. If the previous drive was under 250 GB, a 640 GB drive will encounter these issues."
I'd never hear of this problem, and I'm really confused since the new drive has a lower rated energy requirement (it's a 5400 rpm vs 7200) than the previous drive. Has anyone else had these problems? Can someone tell me whether this is reality or obfuscation on the part of Western Digital?

Message was edited by: jdcineaste

MacBookPro Core 2 duo 2.33 MHz (late 2006), Mac OS X (10.6.2), Western Digital scorpio blue drive 640 GB

Posted on Nov 30, 2009 6:19 PM

Reply
211 replies

Dec 5, 2010 9:15 AM in response to tjk

tjk wrote:
Hi n,

n_ermosh wrote:
The problem is that the 1.7 EFI firmware update messes up 3GB/s drives, such as the WD 640GB Scorpio Blue.


Thanks for the info.

Are you saying this in relation to the power draw or the load/unload cycle count?

Has someone confirmed that this is true for literally all SATA II (3Gbps) HDs (the vast majority of HDs produced today)?





Does anyone else have insight about this? Even the Hitachi drives a couple posters have lauded are 3GB/s drives, so I'm confused as to whether this really is the underlying issue. If it is, what decent drive options remain?

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

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