Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with osx and harddrive

I'll wipe my ass with a roll of Intel X-25 SSD drives!

melorama — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:48:04 -0800

I need semi-definitive opinions regarding the real-world lifespan of an Intel X-25M Solid State Drive running in a Macbook Pro. I just couldn't pass up a $214 Black Friday deal on an 80GB Intel X25-M (2nd generation) SSD, and am excited to install it into my "early-2008" Macbook Pro (pre-unibody) w/4GB of RAM. My plan is to replace the current system drive (a 500GB 7200RPM Seagate Momentus) with the SSD, and physically relocate the Seagate drive to the Superdrive bay, using the MCE OptiBay kit.

The original plan was to install just the base OS (Mac OS X 10.6.2) to the SSD, then relocate my home folder to the larger Seagate drive. But then I got to thinking I might actually want to have everything in my ~/Library and ~/Library/Application Support/ folders to live on the SSD instead. Because I am a neurotic multitasker (I generally have over 50+ tabs open in Firefox at any given moment, just as a general reference point), my logic tells me that I would see a performance benefit from having the ~/Library folder on the SSD, since all my running applications are constantly reading and writing to this folder. So my new plan is to just leave my homefolder on the SSD, and relocate my iTunes Library, videos, pictures, etc on the Seagate drive.

But as astute followers of SSD technology know, MLC-based SSDs will burn out faster the more often you write to them. I've done a lot of searching, and have found conflicting opinions on whether or not it's a good idea to leave oft-written to system files such as the OS page/swapfile on the SSD drive, because of the accelerated wear this would cause. Because of this, many Windows users simply disable the pagefile (despite recommendations from Microsoft to keep it enabled on an SSD), but this is not a viable option under OS X. Another concern with OS X and SSDs is Spotlight indexing, the disabling of which is simply not something I'm willing to do, given how useful Spotlight is.

So the question is, just how quickly will an SSD (specifically the X25) "burn out" if I keep my Mac's swapfiles, ~/Library/* files, Mail.app mailboxes on it, with Spotlight enabled? I also run Crashplan online backup, which does realtime block-level, encrypted incremental backups of my drives up to the cloud.

Additionally, will the lack of TRIM support in OS X cause a significant slowdown in overall performance (i.e. near spinning-platter speeds) if I run my SSD in this manner?

I don't really expect this 80GB X25 SSD to be a long-term thing. I fully expect the sizes of SSDs to significantly increase in the next 12-18 months, at inversely lower prices, at which point I will almost certainly feel no remorse in buying a new SSD, regardless of the level of wear on my current X25. But if my X25 burns out in 6-10 months, that won't be worth it, either.

What say you, Mac SSD-heads?

Seagate Hard drive Mac

yegga — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:10:15 -0800

How to get a Seagate FreeAgent Desk external hard drive to work with my Mac? I have this model: Link.

The drive came without any installation disks. Apparently compatible only with Windows.

How do I get this working with Mac OSX? Help!

How do I rescue files from an internal drive when OS X won't boot?

wheat — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:26:26 -0800

OS X won't boot. Time Machine stopped working at noon. How can I nab some files before I reinstall Leopard? Due, I think, to my son playing with the power strip one too many times, my iMac will not boot. I can boot from the Leopard system disc, and I've run Disk Utility. It repaired problems, but it still won't boot.

I run Time Machine, so I'm willing to restore from that and/or reinstall Leopard. But I got a lot done today and would like to copy some PDFs I crated today. The last Time Machine backup was at noon. But I worked until five. I don't know why Time Machine stopped backing up.

When I use the "burn" option in Disk Utility, I can see the files I created, including the ones that are not in the most recent Time Machine backup. Is there a way to get them? This is my only Mac, so target disk mode isn't an option. What should I try?

Quiet Please!

nam3d — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:32:33 -0800

MacFilter: Help me choose a quiet internal hard drive? I have an iMac (24-inch Early 2008) and would like to upgrade the internal hard drive to something a little quieter.

I currently have a 500GB hard drive of which I have only used 50GB of space so really I only need a hard drive with capacity of 100GB's or more.

Can someone please reccomend which hard drive I should purchase I'd rather not spend over £100 but all suggestions are welcome.

Disk Utility error: false alarm, or bad omen?

so_necessary — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:26:36 -0800

In OS X on my iMac, Disk Utility asserts that my main, internal hard drive is "about to fail" and has been asserting this for several months. But my computer is running just fine... should I worry? The S.M.A.R.T status is failed, and the various helpful sounding options, like First Aid or Verify, are all unclickably greyed out. Using Boot Camp and HD Tune under windows, I can see the "bad" attribute is:

ID (01) Raw Read Error Rate
Current: 11
Worst: 1
Threshold: 51
Data: 59669
Status: Failed

A different utility just names the fields slightly differently...

1, Raw Read Error Rate
Raw value: 59699
Status: FAIL
Value: 11
Worst: 1
Threshold: 51

All the ther attributes (things like "seek error rate" and "spin up time" and stuff) are normal.

But my computer is running just fine. I can't work out if this is just some freaky one-time error that happened to the hard drive once which it won't forget about, reflects an existing (if seemingly benign) state of affairs, or is a sign of impending doom. This error has been present for several months now, perhaps even from The Beginning - the iMac is only 6 - 8 months old. The Man From Apple suggested I format my entire drive but that sounds pretty tedious if I don't really need to do anything / insufficient if my hard drive is actually about to die from mechanical failure.

Obviously I'd love for you all to tell me how I can safely ignore this, and even how I might be able to disabuse Disk Utility of the notion that things are messed up. On the other hand, if you think there might be trouble ahead, then do snap me out of my complacency and I'll promise not to shoot the messenger.

Choosing a filesystem for an external hdd

contraption — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:10:54 -0800

What filesystem should I use on my new USB 2.0 external hard drive? It'll mostly stay attached to an Ubuntu box and be used to store large video files for streaming to playback devices on my network, but I'd also like to be able to take it to a friend's house and plug it into whatever computer they happen to have. The files will be large and replaceable, so I'm not even going to attempt to keep backups. I'm guessing it should be a Microsoft filesystem, since afaik Windows isn't happy with anything else and every other major OS has some way of dealing with them. Should it be NTFS? Some version of FAT? What tool should I use to do the formatting? I also have Windows and OS X machines available for setup.

Pick a Harddrive for my mac

alan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:07:50 -0800

Can anyone help me pick a new hard drive for my first generation MacBook? I have a first generation Intel MacBook, the 1.83 GhZ white model. It has an 80GB hard drive. These are not enough gigabytes, I'd like more (250GB/500GB/1TB)

I'm comfortable cloning my existing drive and popping a new drive into my machine. What I'm not comfortable with is picking the replacement drive. My hardware knowledge is weak at best; there's a reason I buy Macs.

I currently have one of these in there. So

1. What drive do I want

2. More importantly, how do I do this myself? What specs are important to match and how can I make sure the drive is going to work with my Macbook.

Thanks in advance, oh wise IT metafilterites.

Mac OSX: Where has my hard drive space gone?

kdern — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 07:02:13 -0800

Mac OSX: Where has my hard drive space gone? I have a 250 GB hard drive, with a capacity of 232 GB. 207 GB is used, 25 GB is available.

The problem is, my folders only add up to 137 GB. Where is the other 70 GB?

I've already used Disk Inventory X and it shows the same data... what's going on?

Here's what I see when I view my hard drive contents:

Applications: 6 GB
Developer: 8 KB
Library: 10.69 GB
System: 3.59 GB
Users: 116.12 GB

How many hard drives does it take, before WinXP can see them?

jadepearl — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:42:29 -0800

External hard showing "weird". Better known as, sharing an external/portable hard drive between osx and winxp. I have tried out no less than 3 of these Lacie external hard drives.

They are formatted FAT32 and register perfect on my macs at home. However on 2 WinXP machines they register as a regular drive, are listed as "full" and nothing can be loaded or read from them. This all started because they initially could not be found on the winxp though device manager "saw" them just fine and disk managment found it "healthy". I got it enabled and allocated a drive. Now it does not show in disk management. This is what I have done so far:

1) Reformatted one on a mac for pc -- still not "mounted" though seen by device manager. Forced allocation using disk management. Unable to format on the PC to NTFS after it mounted. Unable to read or write because "full" or not recognized;

2) Plugged in a "virgin" FAT32 drive after forced allocation and it can be seen but now only registering as a drive with no further info and again, "full" cannot read nor write nor found by disk management;

3) MacDrive 7 unable to find or read the drives initially until I forced allocation and again, no read nor write nor formatting. App keeps asking where the mac drive is;

WinXP service pack 2 on my machine; hard drives connected via USB 2.0; Novell Zenworks and network drives are a part of my environment.

The drives are new and Lacie is generally a reputable firm. FAT32 should be able to be read by a WinXP machine. This is a consistent problem after trying 3 drives. Any advice would be nice.

Could the fact that iTunes skipping be a sign that I need a new hard drive?

phr4gmonk3y — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:22:50 -0800

I just got my Macbook back from the Apple Store today after they replaced the logic board on the unit. I've noticed that every song I play in iTunes seems to skip. Finding this odd, I opened up the Activity Monitor and looked at disk usage. It seems like whenever a read to the disk is made, iTunes seems to begin skipping. Furthermore, I have the same problem after trying to play mp3's via mpg123. I'm worried that the skipping could be a sign my hard drive might be failing. I recently installed a brand new 250 GB hard drive from Newegg about a month and a half ago, so I'm somewhat skeptical. Is it a reasonable concern?

Save my data before the disk asplode

djgh — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:21:04 -0800

My external hard-drive's on the fritz. What can I do to make sure I get all my data off it before it goes? I've got a 250GB hard drive which I put in an enclosure (cheap CompUSA one). It's got a red light and a green light. Recently, the red light will come on after a little bit and stay on (so not the blinking "transferring data" signal).

After the light comes on, the USB connection freaks out - if it's connected, it freezes, if it's not connected and I plug it in, it refuses to connect. (Disk Utility will show the drive, but not the partition. The partition refuses to mount, and the icon doesn't show up on the desktop).

What steps should I take to make sure I don't lose everything (it's my main music'n'movies drive...)?

I'm assuming that at some point it will be beneficial to pop the drive out and test in another enclosure, but assuming that doesn't work (worst case scenario and all), what should I do? i.e., the disk itself is suffering issues (plus, it's probably very good to have a backup anyway...).

I'm on OSX Tiger, if it helps, and have access to another 40GB or so (another external drive). The drive is currently sat disconnected on my shelf, not even powered.

Making space on a Mac drive

felix betachat — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:04:05 -0800

Will I screw up my Mac if I empty out the /Library/Printers folder? I'm trying to free up some space on my laptop's hard drive, since it seems constantly to be full these days. Rooting around with Disk Inventory X, it looks like I have a block of plugin files in the /Library/Printers directory that's taking up 1.4 gig of space. Do these plugins actually do anything? They're categorized in subfolders by printer manufacturer, but none of them are for printers that I actually use.

If I dump this folder, will I screw up other programs like Word or Acrobat? I have a 12" PowerBook G4 with OS X 10.4.10.

Bonus points if you know of other inessential pre-loaded crap that's lurking on my drive and taking up space.

How do I get my PC to recognize my Apple-formatted external hard drive?

kdern — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:09:46 -0800

How do I get my PC to recognize my Apple-formatted external hard drive? I use Super Duper on my Macbook to backup my files, and I have it set up to make the backup bootable. Now I want to copy 60 GB of MP3 files from the external hard drive to my PC laptop (as another backup and to use at work).

When I plug the drive (USB portable) into my PC, it recognizes it but it doesn't appear as a drive letter in My Computer.

Any tips?

Aren't the Mac Geniuses usually right?

tristeza — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 10:30:16 -0800

Am I courting disaster by doubting the Mac Genius? My PowerBook G4 has been acting like an ass lately - awful spinning beachball problems, programs crashing, won't restart by the Apple menu but only by hand, totally freezing, can't force quit when it hangs, can't open System Preferences or Help menus...just generally awful and bordering on useless.

Oh, yeah, I'm also pretty computer illiterate. I own one and it's shiny and I like it, that's about all. But, I did a ton of searching and ran just about every test known to man on this thing, to no avail. No hardware problems found, all permissions verified, tried Applejack, etc, etc, etc. Still working like crap.

I took it to the Genius Bar and they guy had a pretty good go at it, and concluded that it "sounds like the harddrive" is dying. He offers to send it to Apple for a replacement for $350 (of course, 3 months out of warranty).

Before I do that, I decided to do some last ditch stuff - I ran the "Hardware test" off the install disc (the Genius did NOT run this specific test), and it still says no hardware problem found. Lastly, I do an "archive and install" of the OS.

My machine (knock wood) has been acting fine ever since. No hanging, no freezing, can open Preferences in a blink, restarts fine, yadda yadda.

Am I completely courting disaster if I don't get the harddrive replaced right away if things keep working this well? I guess my question really boils down to: replacing a hard drive is very major, would he really have suggested that if in fact only a reinstall of the OS did the trick?

What could be the problem with sharing an external drive?

plaidrabbit — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:48:08 -0800

OSXFileSharingFilter: I have a friend who's trying to make himself a great file server off an old iBook - and has hit a snag involving a MyBook external hard drive. The problem makes no sense to me, and my Google-fu as failed me once again. My friend's iBook (G3 800MHZ, 10.3 w/ every available update) is sharing two other external hard drives with no issue. However, when trying to remotely mount the MyBook (Formatted FAT32, Firewire connection) from his MacBook, no joy. The volume mounts to the desktop no problem, and is accessible from the host iBook - just no network support.

This is his largest drive, so its actually the most important to get working. While I like to think that my networking skillz are awesome, this one has got me baffled. So, what might be causing my friend this problem?

(If you have questions that need to be answered before you can give a diagnosis, ask and I'll get him to tell me.)

Purchasing an external drive. Questions...

dobbs — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:05:38 -0800

Need more hard drive space... am about to buy a 500 or 600 gb external (LaCie) drive and mentioned it to a friend and she said not to go higher than a 320 due to overheating problems. Experienced MeFites, what do you say? Also, being a Firewire person, I have a dumb USB 2.0 question: can they be chained together? Any other drive anecdotes that might be useful in my purchase are appreciated. I'm on a Mac. She also says the 500s are just two 250s in an enclosure. This seems impossible to me as they look physically to be the same size. True?

It just works, right?

mds35 — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:30:48 -0800

Data recovery in target disk mode: what are the pitfalls? A friend of mine has a G4 iBook that is dead. He has been told by a computer repair person (non-Apple) that his logic board is hosed. He'd like to save his old iTunes and iPhoto libraries to his new MacBook Pro. I told him about Target Disk Mode and offered to perform the transfer for him, but he's wary and is afraid of losing some of his photos forever. Is target disk mode fairly safe, assuming there is no damage to the HD on his old iBook? Also, is target mode even possible if the logic board is hosed? What if the power supply on the iBook is dead? Is there any thing I should beware of?

Odd iBook hard drive problem

letitrain — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 16:35:09 -0800

I've got an intermittent iBook hard drive problem that has me stumped. The computer works fine for a short period of time, then completely freezes. The "good" period of time has gotten shorter and shorter. At first I just assumed it was a big software crash that locked up the entire system, - everything worked fine after a hard restart. Then the freezing started getting more and more common. The problem seemed to occur more after waking from sleep. Then it would work for shorter periods, maybe ten minutes rather than an hour. It's now working for around 1-2 minutes, and occasionally not at all.

I ran Disk Utility "Verify Disk" on the hard drive and sometimes it would show no problems and other times it would be "not able to unmount the drive" (that's not the exact phrase, but something similar). Once or twice a long list of "I/O errors" would interrupt the startup routine. About half the time now the drive will not even show up in the list of drives in Disk Utility, or will show up for only a short period of time.

So basically, it looks like the hard drive is available for few minutes, then just sort of goes away. A few more details: after the crashes, things I had done in iPhoto (rotations, etc.) were not saved. It was dropped about 9 inches a couple of weeks before the problems started. The drive is a replacement Seagate 100GB that I installed a little over a year ago.

I have a complete backup, so there is no problem with lost data. The drive is still under warranty. I just want to know if there is something else I should test or try before replacing the drive (a near-complete disassembly on this model).

Help me upgrade my Macbook's hard drive

drkrdglo — Tue, 30 May 2006 20:14:20 -0800

I'm looking to buy a new Macbook as a secondary computer, however, I want it to be the sole host to my 60gb iPod. I currently have a Toshiba laptop, which has an 80BG hard drive. After two years of use, I've realized I need at least a 120 GB hard drive in any new laptop I get. I don't want to shell out the cash for Apple to throw an upgraded drive in ($250!!!!), but instead I want to buy a new hard drive off ebay or something and replace the 80GB one inside the fresh Macbook. Since I'm only accustomed to the Windows OS -- How do I go about doing this for an Apple computer? Also, does anyone know where I can get a good deal on a laptop drive? :) Other than cloning a drive on OS X, as I understand it I will need a 2.5" SATA drive for the Macbook. Are all laptop drives SATA?

Your help is greatly appreciated!

How to partition an external hard drive for use with OS X and Windows, and booting OS X too?

evariste — Fri, 12 May 2006 00:10:35 -0800

I need help using my external USB hard drive with Mac OS X, and there's more inside. You see, I have this 200GB USB hard drive, currently formatted as a single FAT32 partition. I'd been using it with my Windows XP desktop. Now I have a MacBook Pro and I need help figuring this out. The MacBook is named Olivia and the Windows machine is named Snowball. The FAT32 volume is named Torquemada.

Is there some partitioning scheme that will let me have Torquemada in "GUID partition table" mode* so I can have a bootable OS X image on 80 GB of it, and at the same time have the other 120 GB be FAT32, and therefore useful for moving files between Olivia and Snowball? Or does the one preclude coexistence with the other?

If I have my OS X install DVDs, and I have a Torquemada formatted to boot OS X, how do I actually get a bootable OS X on there? Once that's in place, say I wanted to boot Olivia off Torquemada instead of her internal drive, what key do I hold down to tell her so?

*whatever that means.

SATA external drive won't mount to iBook

cg1 — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 11:15:03 -0800

I just got a new 250GB SATA hard drive and a SATA to USB 2.0 enclosure to put it in. When I plug everything in & hook it to my iBook, I get the following error: "You have inserted a disk containing no volumes that Mac OS X can read. To continue with the disk inserted, click Ignore" (3 options: "Initialize...", "Ignore" or "Eject"). How do I get it to work? The box claims that the thing is compatible with Mac OS 8.6 or above.

- Link to the enclosure: http://www.directron.com/ecsstu35.html
- Link to the HD: http://tinyurl.com/pvows

Booting from an OSX internal raid

squirrel — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 11:06:34 -0800

I want to boot my Mac G5 from an internal striped software raid. Possible? • Dual-core 2GHz G5 running OSX 10.4.4;
• Total of two internal SATA 300 drive bays, one of which currently holds the internal WD SATA 160 that came stock.

I want to install two 500 GB drives and set them up to boot as a striped 1 TB drive. I plan to back it up with three 320 GB USB2 Fantoms.

In both setups, I want to use OSX's software raid functionality, but I don't know if I can. I have successfully stripe-raided two and three external drive combinations, and the speed increase is significant. I want to exploit the speed advantage of the internal SATA 300 architecture by raiding internal drives, but I don't know if OSX will boot from its own raid, let alone an internal raid.

If it is possible, what steps should I take to set it up? Move my boot drive to an external case and boot from that when I set up the two 500s? Can G5s boot from external drives?

New Lacie hard drive not recognized - OSX

jeff-o-matic — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 07:55:42 -0800

Lacie hard drive problem - Mac OS Panther. For the past couple days, I was ripping CDs as MP3s via iTunes and writing them to my Lacie 160 Gig Firewire hard drive (the Porsche one). This morning, the drive "is unreadable by Mac OSX..." What gives? I've searched for this here and on Lacie's website, but have not seen this exact issue as specifically related to Mac OSX.

Here's the full story. Mac Titanium Powerbook, 1Ghz 1 Gig RAM. Lacie Firewire 160 Gig hard drive (Porsche design). Last night after ripping about 20 CDs to MP3 and writing them (successfully) to the external hard drive, I set one last one to rip and went to bed, forgetting to power down before going to sleep.

This morning, everything looked fine. I ejected the CD from last night and inserted a new one. I got an error message I've never seen before. Something like "Mac OSX cannot read or write to the CD you inserted". I ejected it. Then I ejected the hard drive icon on the desktop, unplugged the firewire, and restarted the computer.

Now my machine is recognizing, ripping and playing CDs just fine. But when I plug in the restarted hard drive I get a message like "Mac OSX cannot read the device you inserted, what do you want to do? To continue press ignore. " (or maybe it said it was unreadable) There is also an option to eject, and an option to initialize. I've tried ignore, and nothing happens. I've tried restarting the Powerbook and the drive a few times and am getting the same message.

Any idea what I should do? Do I have to initialize the drive, and erase all the stuff I've put on it? Is there any workaround? If I do need to initialize it, is this the best/only way to do it? Is this a chronic problem with Lacie drives? I've read a few complaints about them here and there online, but this is only like the fourth day I've played around with it.

Any help, advice or advice about external hard drives in general is appreciated.

I deleted all my music. Help.

logovisual — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:32:00 -0800

I just managed to delete my entire iTunes library. But I have it on my iPod. Problem is, the iPod is set to auto-update, and if I plug it into a computer with no music on it, it'll all vanish. Help. I store all my music on an external drive, since there's not enough HD on my Powerbook. I just bought a new iMac, and in the process of trying to copy my music onto the new computer (via said external hard drive), I realized that the XML files with all my listening statistics weren't on the external hard drive, they were still on the laptop. So I connected the drive back up to my laptop, grabbed the iTunes XML file and the "iTunes Library" data file, and dragged them onto the external hard drive. Problem there is, all of my MP3s -- 10,000 of them -- were inside a folder called "iTunes Library." And the iTunes Library data file replaced that. The music files are not in the Trash, there were too many of them. They're just gone.

But! I have everything stored on my 60GB iPod. How can I connect said iPod to the new Mac (which currently doesn't have any music on it) without having the new Mac wipe it clean upon first contact? I *know* there's got to be a way to do this... (And yes, this was a f***ing ridiculous newbie mistake. I'll tolerate the first five responses being of the "Ha ha!" Nelson variety as long as the sixth response tells me what to do...)