hard drive vibration normal?

Depends upon where the vibration eminates. If it's in the area where the hard drive is located it could simply be the drive. On the other hand it could be the cooling fans.

Have you left a CD or a DVD inserted ? This can/will cause periodic vibrations especially if it's not well balanced.

I noticed this on one of the MB's at the apple store in Yorkdale.... the staff felt it too, and said they were going to look into it. The vibration was toward the front right of the computer ie under where your right hand would rest (more or less) while on home row... I think it may be an issue with some but not all MBs... the MB at fault was not under intensive use at the time, but likely was accessing the drive.

I've run across a couple of laptop drives that indeed vibrates more compared to others, specially when we slave them on another system using a USB external exclosure but they work perfectly fine.

My personal opinion is that if my brand new laptop hard drive does this I will not put up with it and get it replaced.

Just my .02!

-Imola

I have noticed this as well. I have a Black MacBook with an 80 GB Toshiba. It is a little annoying but so far I am living with it. I get a continous right hand massage.

I haven't decided what to do yet, my additional memory is coming this weekend and the vibration should reduce with fewer pageouts to the hard drive.

Eventually I will probably get a larger drive as well.

Some hard drives vibrate more than others. The level of vibration you experience will depend upon which drive Apple installs in your computer. It's a crap shot as to which drive you will receive. From what I've experienced Fujitsu and Seagate hard drives seem to run quieter and have less vibration than Hitachi drives. But that is my experience with a few different drives. I do know that the current drive I have in my MB (Hitachi 7K100) does seem to vibrate more than other hard drives I've owned (I've owned other 7200 RPM drives). The vibration is not that noticeable in the MB. The same drive in a Sony SZ150 vibrated quite a bit more since the drive was hard mounted in notebook (the MB hard drives are rubber isolated).

The quietest and most unobtrusive notebook drive I have owned was an IBM Travelstar (now Hitachi) when the fluidic bearings first came out. It failed after 3 years but boy it was nice in my Tibook.

I have a spare 2.5" Seagate drive in a firewire case that I could try but unfortunately it isn't S-ATA. I will watch reviews and figure out a cool and quiet drive when they get a little cheaper.

System Profile will tell you all about the hardware in your Mac.

System Profile is an app and it can be accessed through Application folder or under the Apple, About this Mac, More Info.

On the MacBook the hard drive is under S-ATA. On iBooks it would be ATA.

I have the vibration also. Have the 60g FUJITSU MHV2060BHPL. I never noticed this on my 12inch ibook. It's very slight....but somewhat annoying. Is there any way to spin the harddrive down? Mine spins even if I'm not using the computer.

Hi,

I got a macbook, it is 3 days old, and it vibrates every time I use it. I have to place a business card under it to dampen the vibration so that I can work comfortably.
I called the Apple Support and the specialist said he had never heard about this kind of problem and that I would have to pay around 10-15% of the computer value if I wanted to return it and get a new one! I really like Apple and their products. I buy a lot from the Apple Store. I was a bit sad about that. The computer is only 3 days old... I guess I will have to keep using it with the business card under it...
What surprised me the most was the fact that he said he had never heard of such a problem. I asked him to take a look at the discussion forum and he would see many similar examples.
Well...

I took my macbook to an Apple Authorized Specialist. Then I contacted Apple Support and they were very helpful! I will get a new machine since this macbook I had was only a few days old.
I would like to thank Apple for helping me with this situation! I would especially like to thank a great technician I talked with using the Apple Support number! THank you!!!