Hard drive constantly chattering away on new i7 iMac

I just bought a new iMac i7 Quad Core with 8GB RAM and 1TB HD.

But I hear my hard drive constantly grinding away when I'm barely doing anything. I notice in Activity Viewer, my hard drive is constantly hundreds of little 100K reads and writes. CPU usage is in the single digits. There's nothing obvious that needs all that disk I/O. I don't think virtual memory is getting hit.

My system just feels sluggish and I can't believe I'm getting rainbow pinwheel of doom with only Safari open.

It feels about as slow as my 2 year old Mac Book Pro. Is the drive in the iMac 7200 RPM? What's going on?

iMac 27" i7 (Mid 2010) / 8GB, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Jan 12, 2011 12:02 PM

23 replies

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Jan 21, 2011 11:14 AM in response to jacks2000

I have a Seagate ST31000528ASQ in mine and notice no incessant chattering and have never heard the fans since I turned it on in April. You just got a lemon and when you replace it Monday, you might want to turn it on in the store to ensure you didn't get another—just don't go through the setup process.

Feb 22, 2011 6:41 PM in response to jacks2000

Hi Thanks for that post about the store understanding what was going on - I have the same problem, can you tell me what the problem you described in order to get them to exchange the machine immediately ? In anticipation thanks for you help !

EdLind

Level 1

0 points

Feb 27, 2011 7:35 AM in response to Plastictop

The disk drive in my iMac is constantly seeking. About every 2-3 seconds I can hear it seek. Even with all the application closed. I have shut down all the background tasks I am aware of. I have watched the Activity Monitor but I have not found a correlation with processes and disk seeks. What I have found is that if I open the system preferences the seeking stops. I'm using spaces and so I keep the system preferences application open in one space and go about by business. It still bothers me though that after rebooting I have to open this. Any new thoughts?

Model Identifier: iMac9,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 3.06 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: IM91.008D.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.45f0

Message was edited by: EdLind

Apr 7, 2011 6:17 PM in response to jacks2000

I have the same thing on my 27" imac i5. Has chattered since day one. I've been trying to end it today. Disc utilities, Activity monitor.... can't find an issue.
One thing to note is that I did move whole identity and files to this machine from my MBP. I'm wondering if you others with the chattering imacs did the same.
I'm talking about really low volume chattering. Not the kind of ticking that would worry me about the drive, but the kind of read/writing sound that makes me think I have a virus.

Aug 20, 2012 5:31 PM in response to Chris Chambless

My MBP 2011 is also always active, today i learned about a command in sudo mode

sudo fs_usage

it gives you real time activity of your disks!

verry interesting! perhaps you can look there if you're still having the problem?

LHinson

Level 1

8 points

Sep 30, 2012 6:40 AM in response to Chris Chambless

I also just bought a 27" iMac and the gurgle is driving me crazy! I also cannot find the issue and have been reading all the posts.

Sep 1, 2013 4:53 AM in response to Navarro Parker -

I have this problem too: Only Safari does it. Once Safari is opened, the drive is constantly grinding away. Quit Safari, and the grinding stops. This is with a 2012 Mac Pro running 10.7.5.

The solution is simple: Quit using Safari. Just instal Firefox, import all your Safari bookmarks, and you're done.

Not sure what the problem is, but it is definitely a Safari problem, not an HD failing or anything like that.

Sep 19, 2013 9:52 AM in response to Navarro Parker -

Go to your Applications folder, bring up Disk Uthilty and run Repair Disk Permissions. This settled things right down for me.

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Hard drive constantly chattering away on new i7 iMac