Not only is my machine faster, it's also terribly quiet. Maybe HPFS benefits from defragmentation after all. Maybe seek times were the rate limiting step after all. I didn't expect that, though it is true that the 7,200 rpm ST31000528ASQ was an infamous dog in 2009. Aperture in particular is significantly faster. My machine is faster with the external drive than the old internal Seagate. I figured I'd put it in a firewire enclosure and run off it for a few weeks before paying for the install. I then sat back and began to wait for the SSD. Dropbox resynchronized, but I deleted by Google Drive files and downloaded a fresh set. The clone worked well, except both Google Drive and Dropbox complained about the change. The original drive still showed, so I excluded it from Spotlight and Time Capsule then I used Disk Utility to unmount the internal drive. In the meantime I used Carbon Copy Cloner to turn one of my many offsite backup drives into a boot drive and put it in my Firewire 800 Voyager cradle. I looked at other options, like just buying a new Mac, but I decided to go with the SSD for the reliability and extended machine usability. The latter is very important to me because I hate this sh*t. With the SSD I'd probably extend the machines useable lifespan another 2 years, and I'd get far higher reliability. I could pay another $200+ to Apple, assuming they'd still service my 4 yo iMac (Apple only keeps parts for the past five years of machines.) Or I could bit the bullet, pay $650 for a 1TB Samsung 840 EVO SATA III SSD, and then pay $240 for FirstTech to work on the disgustingly unserviceable iMac (and fix the thermal sensor problem ,).
I was later reimbursed when Apple extended its recall range. I had prior experience to draw from. When the first of these wretched Seagates failed at 1.3 y, slowly and painfully, I did an out-of-warrantee Apple store swap for a new version of the same drive (that's how they do repairs).Īpple charged me $200+ ($40 service, which is a bargain, and $160+ for the drive which was excessive) to put this one in. This is what I found using Tech Tools Pro: (Many failing drives pass SMART tests, which are pretty damned dumb.) Of course Mountain Lion should put this kind of thing up in the ^%$$# Notification Center - but it doesn't. Sure enough, Disk Utility showed a SMART failure. I've heard them before, they never turn out well. The story begins when my 2009 27" (flickering one) iMac's second 1TB Seagate (ST31000528ASQ) made an odd sound two days ago. I posted about it on posted about it via Apple Discussions but I'll share a revised post here.