Need advice on hard drive/optical drive testing software

Any chance you could correlate the failures to a specific drive model and/or manufacturer? Probably a long shot to expect you to remember that but just curious if you noticed anything like that.

🙂

I just got back from a trip to Florida. I took a 2009 Macbook with me because I wanted to be able to watch DVDs while in the motel room.

The system I brought has had it's optical drive used a whopping 5 or 10 times in its entire life. I put in a DVD to watch and what do I get? One error after another! These are commercial DVDs, not home made "hacks" and they work fine in DVD players at home. Never a single problem.

Optical drives on these systems just aren't worth anything. I wonder if the same quality problems exist for full size optical media units.

ZV137, greetings: Did you clean the DVD drive lens?

Ciao.

I would get myself a big, fat, external HD and transfer all the shows to them. Even when clean and working properly optical drives, at least the R/W types, seem to be finicky and very short lived. Oddly, the ROM models seem to last forever...they really are reliiable in my experience, but few later model Macs have them.

An HD would be faster and have more storaged. I've seen some that are pushing terrabyte limits for < $60. You could probably put yourself together an HGST 1TB or 2B unit with a self purchased enclosure for something in the $55 - $95 range, depending mostly on drive and storage. A drive like that that was only used once in a while to view video could last a looooong time. How much is that optical media costing you?

All you would need then is some application to legally extract the DVD content and put it the HD. I assume such a program exists.....somewhere.

I know this is sort of an old or older thread, but I'm curious what type of hard drives (brands) he found in the units. Did you see any Western Digital's in any of them that were OEM?

Thanks.

OGELTHORPE:

Sorry for getting back so late. No, I didn't clean the lens. FYI I've had this similar sort of problem on my Mac's with optical drives for years. On many of them I tried cleaning, blowing with a shot of compressed air, and even went so far as to dissassemble one and clean the lens (that acutally worked....for about 3 weeks). IMHO the only optical drives that seem reliable are the ROM types and some of the CD R/W drives. I have yet to have an optical drive with a DVD R/W designation be reliable.

Western Digitail HDs have been used in Mac's by Apple before. Other World Computing sells drives they call "exact replacements" and WD is among them. Apperently this is a big deal on 2009 and 2010 IMac units, maybe even newer models as well.

Recent iMac drives must include an internal temperature sensor. Replace an iMac drive with Brand-X, and the fans run on high all the time.

I think that answer is probably not completely correct. An iMac model from late 2009 through 2010 had these problems. I don't think it's a problem on the newer units. Attemping to proprietarize a fairly standard replacement part from a third party manufacturer that may or may not drop the product on a whim is a really, really bad idea. I would hope Apple learned their lesson through customer complaints on a repair routine that's not abnormal.

....I would hope, anyway!

Apple was not and is not attempting to proprietize Hard Drive selection. Your conspiracy theory is without merit.

The drives are installed in a cooling-constrained space, and internal temperature reporting (not a specific brand) is what is required. If you know what drives to select and how to connect the temperature sensor properly, you are free to use any Brand. If you do not pay attention to these details, your fans will run on high to avoid damage from heat.

There is no conspiracy theory here. Apple may have unwittingly proprietized the drives they select by virtue of the design. The folloiwng link tells me only certain WD drives will work in these systems:

http://blog.macsales.com/19617-diagnosing-2009-2010-imac-fan-speed-issues-after- upgrading-the-main-hard-drive

To the best of my knowledge, that's a "WD thing" and not done with other hard drives.

So what happens when WD stops making or distributing that drive? You can use some fan control progrrams on those units, but this shouldn't have to happen. I also see no evidence that this type of "design" extends beyond 2010.

Most people deal with that problem with a fan control program that can be downloaded for free.

Anyone know if this type of setup was limited to just a series of iMac's, or does it occur in other systems as well. I only remember reading about it for a certain yeard.