DJing Discussion

Forum
 DJing Discussion
Do I have a problem with my HDD?
This area is for discussion about DJing in general. Please remember the community rules when posting and try to be polite and inclusive.

Do I have a problem with my HDD?

DJ A Smooth 10:15 PM - 6 February, 2011
Hello all,

I just recently put a new Hard Drive in my MacBook Pro 5.1 2.66GHz laptop with 4 Gigs of RAM..

I put in a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 640GB HDD 5400 RPMs from a Seagate 500GB 7200RPM drive.. My laptop runs a lot cooler now, My battery life is better, but sometimes when I select tracks my drive will take a second to load and at first when I would record in SSL and have KueIt open I would get USB dropouts, however that hasn't happened since I've done the Repair Disk option in Disk Utility.

My Read/Write Speeds using the AJA Test System are:
Write: 79.7 MB
Read: 79.8 MB

Is this normal for my computer to take a second to load some tracks? I just want to make sure everything is normal, are there any procedures I should be doing to check if everything is perfect?

Should I look into getting a new Hard Drive? Maybe the Hitachi Travelstar 5K750, get an extra 110 Gigs and also have a more reliable drive?

Also, I should mention I just ordered 8GBs of Ram from MacSales, maybe this will help?

Thanks! Sorry for all the questions!
Proto J 3:49 AM - 7 February, 2011
probably just the speed difference seen going from 7200rpm to 5400rpm.

i specifically chose a 500gb at 7200rpm for my internal drive straight from apple, and i plan to add a 750gb at 7200rpm in place of my superdrive.

not really sweating the heat cuz i use a laptop cooling pad when i DJ, and not sweating the battery life cuz i leave the power adapter plugged in most of the time...

only thing i'm reconsidering is getting that seagate 500gb SSD hybrid drive instead of the WD 750 i've been thinking about. apparently that 4gb of SSD will make stuff launch faster, but overall i'm not 100% convinced that slight speed boost is worth losing the extra 250gb i'd have in the WD drive.
djchrischip 6:05 AM - 7 February, 2011
this is my biggest fear wen i am goin to replace my internal drive
DJMark 8:52 AM - 7 February, 2011
DJ A Smooth:

Your measured read/write speeds seem about right to me.

First and simplest thing to check: in System Preferences/Energy Saver, make sure the item "put the hard disks to sleep when possible" is NOT checked.

Secondly and a bit more complicated, you may find that using an hdapm "hack" that I've discussed in the past will help. This simply sets your hard drive's Advanced Power Management parameters to "max" to prevent its own internal power-management from unloading/reloading:

mymacfixes.blogspot.com

You can verify that the hdapm fix works by monitoring the drive's Load Cycle Count in a tool like SMART Utility. I've used that same exact Western Digital drive in the past, and used the hdapm fix. (still use it for the 1TB WD drive I have installed for music/videos now).
DJ A Smooth 4:30 PM - 7 February, 2011
wow! DJMark I owe you big bro!! 45 mins of recording, with KueIt, Google Chrome, and iTunes open, not one hiccup!!
DJMark 12:17 AM - 8 February, 2011
Very cool to hear.

Which thing ended up fixing it? The System Preference setting, hdapm or both?
DJ A Smooth 3:57 AM - 8 February, 2011
both!
djchrischip 6:28 AM - 8 February, 2011
as marks unofficial agent
we accept dennaro, euros, yen and good old fashioned american dollars