need to get another hard drive. not sure what to get?

[donreynolds]

I have a 2006 MacPro. My hard drive is a 500 Gb. It is still working but is having problems. I do have it backed up though.

Several weeks now it has been very slow loading DP. The other day, I got grey screen with start up. Just grey screen, no apple, no spinning wheel. I restarted many times and finally it cam up with the OS screen. Hit or miss. I loaded the installer disk and ran first aid and it said that the disk needed to be repaired. I did and it said it was repaired. I then repaired permissions on it.

Still had same problem with start up. I finally got it up and was able to boot from the disc again. First aid said that the disc needed repairs again. I did and it said it was good.

I tried to boot several times from my cloned HD boot drive. Many times it would not boot. I had to sap the PRAM and reset the SMC switch in the mother board because when I had to shut the computer down, it kept trying to reboot from the cloned drive and it would go to grey screen.
I restarted , slowly, but it came up. I used IDefrag to defrag the boot drive and repaired permissions on it just incase it was having problems too.

I then was able to boot from the cloned HD. It came up also but slowly again. Once it was up, I used Idefrag to defrag my main HD. It would go about halfway and then say there was a back block section. I did it several times and got the same message.

After that I gave up and took the computer to the Apple store. they said it was too old and they could not supply me with a hard drive.

So my question to you guys is:
1. Is there any way to repair a bad section block on my hard drive?
2. If not, what kind of HD do I need to get and where do you suggest I get it?
3. Once I install it and format it, do I just boot from my other drive and clone it to the new HD?
4. Would bad ram be a culprit also?

Kind of lost here. Need some guidance so I dont make mistakes. Hope I was clear in my description of the steps I took and the problem

Thanks,
Don

[mikehalloran]

You have an old hard drive. It's failing. Yes, really. Replace it. They're cheap. Do it now before you can't get the data off.

Get a WD Caviar Blue or Black 7200 rpm. At least 1T - 2T is not That much more. The Black has a 5 year warranty; Blue is 2 year. OWC doesn't always have the best prices but they're competitive. I've had the occasional WD drive go bad but their replacement policy is no questions asked while under warranty. I take care of over 30 Macs and a couple of PCs. WD has proven the most cost effective over the long run.

Hitachi are also good. Deskstar is an IBM trademark and that's still what they use.

http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search ... rn+Digital

When transferring, use Migration Assistant after loading the OS from scratch or restore from Time Machine. Do not clone a drive with known problems.

Because you tried to defrag a drive with bad blocks, you may have issues getting all your data off so best to restore from your Time Machine backup - you do have one, right? If you have a TM backup, you do not have to load the OS onto the new drive first, all you need to do is foot from your restore DVD, use Disk Utility to initialize your drive for a Mac, then select restore from Time Machine and it will. You will need to re-authorize DP from the CD unless you have DP 8.

Are you using Time Machine? If not, get a 2T - 4T Green drive for TM while you are at it.

Recycle the old drive.

Avoid Seagate. I don't even send mine in for warranty replacement anymore. Every one I have is garbage and, though they're still covered, the replacements that I get go bad after a few months. I'm tired of the down time and spending the money on shipping them to Texas. Too bad - they used to be the best.

[mikehalloran]

To answer your questions. You can't repair bad blocks. You can write around them by doing a low level format but when an old drive develops bad blocks, it's failing and needs to be replaced.

Bad memory has its own problems but does not cause this one.

Hard drives get slow for many reasons. Fragmentation is usually not one of them except in extreme cases - even then, it's not noticeable with most tasks.

OTOH, a disk that is too full gets very slow. Maximum capacity is recommended no more than 85%. Bad sectors can slow a disk nearly to a halt as it tries to read or write to these bad blocks. Corrupt data can do the same.

Duplicate fonts can slow many applications as well. Font Book is in your Applications folder and is used to resolve duplicates.

[Shooshie]

Hard drives have gotten extremely capacious but the quality level has dropped. I've had more drive failures in the past two years than in the previous 20 years combined, and it's not like I don't know how to use them.

The number of hard drive manufacturers has continued to shrink. There are only 3 left making hard drives that I know of: WD, Seagate, and Toshiba. Just a couple of years ago, you could add Samsung and Hitachi to that list. Now we're down to three.

They all make good drives, but their drives are all more prone to failure than they were 5 years ago. Don't try to repair them. As soon as a drive starts giving you trouble, your best bet is to replace it.

I've taken to a multi-faceted approach for storing data. Here is the basic outline:

1) Active drives — these are the SATA internal drives that are doing my work every day. There are 5 internal SATA drives in my Mac Pro, including the Time Machine drive. These drives all range from 1TB to 4TB. The makers include Hitachi and Western Digital.

2) Time Machine Drive — this is a WD 4TB drive that is making regular backups every day, also internal SATA.

3) First-Tier Archives — These are Firewire 800 drives that are online all the time. Most of them are at least 1TB, and some are 2TB in capacity. They can be semi-active drives for regular work, but they are generally assigned to particular types of storage such as photos, movies (not iTunes), Digital Performer archives, general catch-all, and other categories. They store a lot of information, but it's information I'm likely to be using at least every month, if not more often. At least, I'm searching through that stored data regularly, even if I only pull a file or two on any given day. I have Western Digital and Seagate external Firewire drives for this. I do not use USB drives.

4) 2nd Tier Archives — these are cheap, medium capacity firewire 800 drives that I can store in drawers or shelves. I basically write redundant backups or archives to them, then unplug them and store them. I find the ideal drive for this is the Western Digital "My Passport" drives, 1TB or 2TB, which are bus powered and require no AC adapter. They are slow, but they don't need speed. They need ease of use and convenience, and it doesn't get easier or better than a little drive not much larger than an original iPod with Firewire 800. You can store a dozen of them in a very small space.

5) 3rd tier archives — In addition, I have a number of old drives that are offline, but can be fired up on moment's notice if I need something from them. Generally, they just act as redundant backups, though some of them do hold information that is too old to archive in Time Machine or any current backups. I'm talking about stuff from the Classic Mac days, all the way back to the original 128K Mac.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
To keep catalogs of these drives, so that I am not constantly having to plug in old drives and review what's in them, I use a utility called DiskTracker. It's not as fancy as the competition, but it digs through a drive and makes a catalog in seconds. Some of the fancy competitors take forever to make a catalog of a large drive.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Because of the poor reliability of drives these days, I'm looking into some of the new Thunderbolt options (for when I get a new Mac Pro) that network half a dozen drives or more, allowing for hot-swappable replacement of failing drives, redundant storage, and so forth. The biggest problem these days is my growing collection of music, movies, and TV shows. My iTunes library now exceeds 3TB, made possible only because of a fantastic utility called TuneSpan, which enables you to split your iTunes library across multiple drives.

Storage is a growing problem, with more stuff to store, fewer options from fewer manufacturers, and a general worsening of quality control. I haven't made much use of the "Cloud" yet, though I use it for keeping files in sync across multiple devices, and I use it to make files accessible to a number of people. Given the situation with hard disks, I may have to give Cloud storage serious consideration in the near future.

With only 3 manufacturers left, any of which could be on the brink of bankruptcy at any time, the hard drive supply line is reaching a critical level that seems poised on the brink of the catastrophic. One hopes that someone out there is really trying to rectify this situation. Solid State storage is far from being able to take on the role of 4TB SATA drives or hot-swappable Firewire 800 "My Passport" drives. If these drives disappear, the computing world is going to be in a heap of trouble. Surely someone is keeping a watchful eye on this, ready to step in if necessary. But it sure is quiet out there…

Shooshie

[mikehalloran]

Hard drives have gotten extremely capacious but the quality level has dropped. I've had more drive failures in the past two years than in the previous 20 years combined, and it's not like I don't know how to use them.

Make that the last five years and I agree.

I didn't realize that Toshiba took over Hitachi's operation. With WD's warranty support, they're still my first choice.

Frankly, I am not as anal as Shooshie about backups - and I am pretty bad. Since OS 10.8, you can now have multiple Time Machine backups. I have three. One via Ethernet to a 3T Time Capsule that functions as the main server for my network, one via eSATA and another via wireless to a non-networked Time Capsule in a hidden location.

[Phil O]

...Get a WD Caviar Blue or Black 7200 rpm. At least 1T - 2T is not That much more. The Black has a 5 year warranty; Blue is 2 year. OWC doesn't always have the best prices but they're competitive. I've had the occasional WD drive go bad but their replacement policy is no questions asked while under warranty. I take care of over 30 Macs and a couple of PCs. WD has proven the most cost effective over the long run...
...Avoid Seagate. I don't even send mine in for warranty replacement anymore. Every one I have is garbage and, though they're still covered, the replacements that I get go bad after a few months. I'm tired of the down time and spending the money on shipping them to Texas. Too bad - they used to be the best.

+1

I've been using Black WD's exclusively now for a few years and luckily haven't yet had to use the warranty.

I've had similarly bad experiences with Seagate. I just stay away from them now.

Phil

[donreynolds]

Thanks for the information and the link. I ordered the Caviar Black 2T and the green drive for my Time machine.

I have not been using TIme machine but I do have a back up WD mybook 2 T drive that I was backing up to nightly. It is still OK. I will probably do a redundant back up of it also.

I have my Raptor drives backed up redundantly also. Too much work to lose due to a few hundred dollars.

I have had pretty good luck with the WD line of HD, specifically the MyBook series.

I'm still hesistant about using the cloud. Relies on internet to get my files I guess. I like it to be at home, but if I fire were to happen... Maybe I will do something with it.

Thanks again.

[HCMarkus]

Why not spring for an SSD for your boot drive while you're at it Don? You've got a Mac Pro... lots of room for drives, so get current, get spacious, and get redundant NOW, before you are crying over lost data and the price of data restoration services.

[donreynolds]

whats the difference in the SSD drives? Who makes a good one?

[HCMarkus]

whats the difference in the SSD drives? Who makes a good one?

There a re lots of good ones, but the Samsung line seems to be a favorite these days. I'm running slightly older Intel 330s that are based on an Intel custom-firmware Sandforce controller. Mine have been solid -zero issues- for about a year now, but some don't like Sandforce-based SSDs.

[bayswater]

...Get a WD Caviar Blue or Black 7200 rpm. At least 1T - 2T is not That much more. The Black has a 5 year warranty; Blue is 2 year. OWC doesn't always have the best prices but they're competitive. I've had the occasional WD drive go bad but their replacement policy is no questions asked while under warranty. I take care of over 30 Macs and a couple of PCs. WD has proven the most cost effective over the long run...
...Avoid Seagate. I don't even send mine in for warranty replacement anymore. Every one I have is garbage and, though they're still covered, the replacements that I get go bad after a few months. I'm tired of the down time and spending the money on shipping them to Texas. Too bad - they used to be the best.

+1

I've been using Black WD's exclusively now for a few years and luckily haven't yet had to use the warranty.

I've had similarly bad experiences with Seagate. I just stay away from them now.

Phil

Interesting how consistent this is. I've had a few Seagates in the last five years, none of which worked properly, and like Mike I just got tired of sending them back. I had them because they had been excellent up to that point. My iMac had a Seagate and was recalled by Apple. Unfortunately, they put another Seagate in. I also switched to WD and had very few problems. I had a 2G WD consumer drive from Costco failed recently, after running as a media server 7/24 for a very long time. Otherwise they're just fine.

[donreynolds]

whats the difference in the SSD drives? Who makes a good one?

There a re lots of good ones, but the Samsung line seems to be a favorite these days. I'm running slightly older Intel 330s that are based on an Intel custom-firmware Sandforce controller. Mine have been solid -zero issues- for about a year now, but some don't like Sandforce-based SSDs.

Are they external drives or internal?

[mikehalloran]

Are they external drives or internal?

You have space for 4 internal drives (5 if you count the spare optical but that's PATA in yours - too slow). No reason for you to be considering an external as long as you have a drive bay open.

If you have spare PCIe slots, you can stick up to 1T SSDs in each of those slots that are faster than SATA SSDs in that machine - not cheap but quite doable.

The important thing is to do something - and do it quickly - or you will lose data.

And, whatever you do, dedicate one of those bays to Time Machine unless you have a networked drive running it somewhere.

[Phil O]

You have space for 4 internal drives (5 if you count the spare optical but that's PATA in yours - too slow). No reason for you to be considering an external as long as you have a drive bay open.

I'm thinking of adding an SSD myself. They seem smaller than a 3.5" SATA HD. Are any adapters required for install in a MacPro or am I just looking at the wrong units? The ones at Newegg I've looked at are marked 2.5 inch. What's the deal?

Phil

[HCMarkus]

If you have a 4,1 or 5,1 Mac Pro, just put the SSD in the optical bay and connect it via the second SATA and Power ports available there. In my 4,1, I moved my optical drive to the lower bay, where it makes a nice shelf to hold SSDs. I've got a bunch of SSDs sitting there, with room for more. If you don't need the optical drive or use an external, you can connect two SSDs to the optical bay ports.

With a 3,1 Mac Pro, you can use the "secret" SATA ports on the motherboard to connect up to two SSDs. I think you will need an adaptor to get power to the SSD(s) for the second optical bay power connector. A little Google work will reveal what you need to know.

For 1,1 or 2,1, I'm not sure, but you could probably just run a SATA and power cables from an unused drive bay to the optical bay for your SSD. Again, Google is your friend.

There are SSD drive sled adaptors available if you have a spare drive bay available and don't want to use the optical bay. Just make sure you get one that is compatible with your specific Mac.