HuntsMan75

Q: Hard Drive

I have a 2007 MacBook Pro. I never had prooblems with it until recently. While running i'd get delays and Spinning beach balls. Never having had to deal with this or for that matter Apple support, I just took it in to Apple. For a price they diagnosed it as a bad drive.

 

Repairing it through them will cost almost as much as some of these units are selling for used. I want to do this myself. I'd also like to be able to test this thing in the future myself so I don't get stuck with this problem.

 

I'm looking for advice on a) drives for this system, b)repair instructions or online guides, c) test/evaluation software.

 

Thanks.

Posted on Oct 5, 2013 12:16 PM

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Q: Hard Drive

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  • by R.K.Orion,

    R.K.Orion R.K.Orion Apr 1, 2016 11:11 PM in response to PlotinusVeritas
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Apr 1, 2016 11:11 PM in response to PlotinusVeritas

    PlotinusVeritas wrote:

     

     

    R.K.Orion wrote:

     

    1 As far as archival optical media goes, how much are we talking about in terms of dollars and cents? I seem to remember being able to get DVDs for about $10 for 10 or 20. I really don't remember because it's been so long.

     

    2. How about the DVD recorders themselves? Once again, how much? Are they different? Is there a special type you have to get for recording archive worthy optical media? One of the local stores is selling DVD burners raw, meaning unhoused, for about $20.

     

    3. When you get down to cost/gigabyte, it would seem that I might be better off going out and bying  a good external HD, like one of those 1TB Hitachi's, copying it to that and then only using it only when I needed to do a critical monthly back up. In fact, consideroing the cost, I suppose I could use one as a dialy backup and the other as a periodic golden backup.

     

    4. Why not USB Flash? I thought I read somewhere that it was supposed to store what it had on it for up to 100 years? I'm not talking about an SSD, I'm talking about the type that's slow.

     

    5. I thought the lasers on DVD recorders tended to have a short life, like about 5000 hours. Do they need to be replaced periodically?

     

    This thread is interesting because in a lot of ways, I never paid much attention to backups before.

     

     

    1. $40 per 100disk  Taiyo Yuden DVD+R  (buy on ebay in bulk to save $$)

     

     

    2. Superdrive is made by Panasonic, general DVD burners NOW are nearly identical in quality.

    (Bluray however is another matter).

     

     

    3.   Cost per GB/ TB is irrelevant,  professional archival DVD are 100 year disks (some are),   HD at best are both magnetically corruptible and you wont see 6-8+ years out of them.

     

     

    4. Why not USB Flash?.........not a chance.  no way.

     

     

     

    5. I thought the lasers on DVD recorders tended to have a short life

     

    Doesnt matter one bit......, good DVD burners are $30,  cheap thrills.

     

     

     

    People look at computers etc. upside down, they worry about their computers......

     

    All computers, any computer is TRASH, are JUNK, are "worthless"  ,..... the data created/ saved / etc. is PRICELESS

     

    Worry / concern over a computer is like worrying about a tool belt that built a house and not insuring the priceless house it built.

     

    My 20+ years of data is priceless,  my $1000+ Macbook is absolutely "worthless" by comparison.

     

     

     

    Though I have tons of hard drives, not a one of them is to be "trusted"

     

    Hard drive failure and handling

     

    The air cushion of air between the platter surface and the head is microscopic, as small as 3 nanometers, meaning bumps, jarring while in operation can cause head crash, scraping off magnetic particles causing internal havoc to the write surface and throwing particles thru the hard drive.

     

    Hard drives are fragile in general, regardless, ... in specific while running hard drives are extremely fragile.

     

    PDF: Bare hard drive handling generic instructions


    hard drive moving parts

    harddrive.jpg

     

    Some of the common reasons for hard drives to fail:

    Infant mortality (due to mfg. defect / build tolerances)

    Bad parking   (head impact)

    Sudden impact   (hard drive jarred during operation, heads can bounce)

    Electrical surge   (fries the controller board, possibly also causing heads to write the wrong data)

    Bearing / Motor failure   (spindle bearings or motors wear during any and all use, eventually leading to HD failure)

    Board failure   (controller board failure on bottom of HD)

    Bad Sectors   (magnetic areas of the platter may become faulty)


    General hard drive failure

    screenshot_565.jpg

    screenshot_566.jpg

    I know this is a really old thread, so let me tell you what happened.

     

    For years I've had some DVDs of old comedy shows I like to watch. These were made about 10 years ago, with some on Philips DVD-R's and the others on Memorex DVD-R's. Recently the Philips have all started failing. I remembered this thread and the fact that you identified the Taiyo-Yuden archive quality DVDs, but I needed to come back here to get the name.

     

    Unfortunately, in December 2015 the Taiyo-Yuden factory shut down. There are still a lot of them available on the market, but not for long. I'm not sure why the Memorex DVDs are outlasting the Philips as both were generic quality, to the best of my knowledge.

     

    There is a new "1000 year" DVD called "M-disc" which is apparently superior. Here's a link to the test results on one of them and some other info for those interested:

     

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/torture-testing-the-1000-year-dvd/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC

     

    On visiting their site they sell both the DVD burner along with the media.

     

    I just thought I'd share this for anyone interested, and thanks PlotinusVeritas for the original info, which will still be good for at least a while.

  • by benwiggy,

    benwiggy benwiggy Apr 2, 2016 3:20 AM in response to R.K.Orion
    Level 4 (1,430 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 2, 2016 3:20 AM in response to R.K.Orion

    The real problem with archiving is not the relative life-span of different media types.

     

    In 10 years time, you'll be lucky to find a DVD player. If you do find one, you'll have to find a computer with those old-fashioned USB-A sockets, or or some adaptor that will convert it. You'll also need a computer that has drivers for 10-year old peripherals.

     

    I started archiving stuff to 44Mb SyQuest cartridges. I don't have any data on those now.

    Then I used zip disks. I don't have any data on those now.

    Then I used CDs and DVDs. I don't have any data on those now.

     

    Data needs to be continually migrated to new storage devices as technology progresses. As soon as you throw an archive in a cupboard and leave it there, it starts ticking....

  • by R.K.Orion,

    R.K.Orion R.K.Orion Apr 2, 2016 12:15 PM in response to benwiggy
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Apr 2, 2016 12:15 PM in response to benwiggy

    That's true, but like one of the articles pointed out, LP records were made more or less obsolete back in the '80's, and yet you can still buy a record player. I think the new M-disc option is sort of a specialty item. Although I might consider it, there are probably people out there that actually need to keep data for very long periods of time, and if someone could truly make something that could last that long and take abuse as well, they may be on to something.

     

    FYI, I had a SyQuest too. I had bought their latest and greatest unit, which had some fairly serious shortcomings, and then they announced bankruptcy and told me the RMA couldn't be honored.

  • by ZV137,

    ZV137 ZV137 Jun 1, 2016 11:44 AM in response to PlotinusVeritas
    Level 1 (54 points)
    Jun 1, 2016 11:44 AM in response to PlotinusVeritas

    PlotinusVeritas wrote:

     

    Yes, there are many flavors and types of packing.

     

     

    These are the ones you want:

     

     

    DVD+R47ZZSB8

     

    JVC Product Code:   JDPR-ZZ-SB


    $39 per 100

     

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-Pak-8X-SPEED-TAIYO-YUDEN-DVD-R-Media-Archival-/22028 3831638?pt=US_CD_DVD_Blu_ray_Discs&hash=item3349f08556

     

    Clear, non-logo, shiny-silver surface

     

    (or same product on amazon.com  etc.)

     

     

    DONT get any DVD-R, only +R

     

    Use DVD+R for your archives, not DVD-R


     

    I know this thread is old but Taiyo Yuden no longer makes optical media.

     

    You may wish to try out M-Disc:

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/torture-testing-the-1000-year-dvd/

    A bit costly, but it sounds promising for optical media and long term storage.

     

    UPDATE: Sorry about that, I didn't see the post above from RKOrion. I just heard about the Taiyo Yuden shutdown and remembered this thread, found the initial post and responded to it.

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