

New iMacs run fans at full on all drives other than Apple supplied...  - zdw
http://blog.macsales.com/10146-apple-further-restricts-upgrade-options-on-new-imacs

======
ryannielsen
You can assume the worst – Apple's looking for a way to nickel and dime
customers, and to lock them out of their computers! – or you can assume the
pragmatic – the thermal envelope of the new iMacs is so tight, thanks to the
Sandy Bridge chipset, a beefier GPU and an aggressively designed enclosure,
that more careful and accurate monitoring of the HDD's internal temperature
was necessary for reliability.

Why would Apple decide source more expensive and non-standard HDDs just to
"lock customers in" or "force a higher BTO price"? The new iMacs' chipset and
GPU are probably already more expensive than the previous generation's and
Apple's almost always unwilling to bump the total cost of the machine or the
cost of any BTO parts because they're _guaranteed_ to get more backlash over
those moves. Using more expensive and uncommon HDDs does nothing more than eat
into their margins and complicate supply chain logistics, two things I'm sure
Apple loathes.

Moving to a non-standard HDD was probably entirely motivated by engineering,
not business, reasons, and most likely done to preserve the machine's thermal
envelope or reduce failure rates seen on pre-production or previous generation
iMacs.

~~~
montagg
Agreed. I don't think Apple really loses that much money to people who want to
do DIY upgrades. This change really only inconveniences the uber-geeks among
us.

However, on that note, the iMac has always been the hardest computer to
upgrade. I believe it's harder to upgrade than the older Macbook Pros; I once
opened up my 2006 Macbook Pro to switch out the hard drive, and I will never,
ever do that again. I think it's fair to say that if you buy an iMac, you
should be comfortable with buying a hermetically sealed black box that you're
never going to mess with.

~~~
brudgers
> _"I don't think Apple really loses that much money to people who want to do
> DIY upgrades. This change really only inconveniences the uber-geeks among
> us."_

It's not just DIY'ers. It's the secondary service and repair market. Now they
have to buy Apple disks.

I'll suggest that it is a fundamental business strategy for Apple to seek to
extract a transaction cost from any exchange involving their products. iTunes
was the pivot point for their revenue model. The iPhone transferred it to
hardware and scaled it for content, e.g. batteries and the AppStore. The past
year has seen it rolled out widely for the Mac platform. One gets the sense
that they look at the profit which companies like Macsales.com earn from
upgrades as money that has been left on the table - certainly it is consistent
with their recent policies regarding sales from within apps.

~~~
ryannielsen
Considering that

1) Apple's likely concerned only with Apple Authorized Service Providers and
those ASPs already had to source parts from Apple (and possibly pay for
training and/or license fees, but I'm less certain on that)

2) The secondary service and repair market is a _vanishingly_ small market
compared to other potential revenue streams

I doubt further monetizing the repair market ever entered the conversation
when deciding whether to use non-standard HDDs in the new iMacs.

------
brudgers
By introducing the hardware test failure for any non-Apple drive, Apple owns
more of the life-cycle of the consumer's computer.

Now independent repair shops have to order Apple drives rather than something
off of NewEgg, and this reduces their potential margins and makes Genius Bar
service more profitable and cost competitive - particularly given that upgrade
and replacement drives from the Genius Bar are only marked up once and that
getting consumers to visit the Apple store has significant value in and of
itself..

[Aside] IANL - but it is my understanding that in the US a manufacturer cannot
void a warranty for using non-manufacturer produced parts for repairs or
upgrades. The introduction of a hardware error appears to be a legal strategy
to get around this.

~~~
montagg
That's a very interesting legal angle. I'd love to know if a lawyer could
confirm if that's a valid way to look at it.

~~~
gcb
Seems to work for printer manufacturers.

~~~
atourgates
Yes - and remember - the law in question, the Magnuson-Moss Act - simply
governs that a warranty can't be contingent on only using OEM equipment. E.g.
- Apple can't say, "Your warranty is void unless you use Genuine apple drives,
purchased from an authorized Apple outlet."

There is - however - no provision on making it an absolute pain in the ass to
manufacture or implement 3rd party aftermarket equipment.

More info from the FTC here:
[http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus01-businesspersons-
guid...](http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus01-businesspersons-guide-
federal-warranty-law#Magnuson-Moss)

The relevant section is under "Tie-In Sales".

------
ddlatham
Apple's trying to build the best integrated product, and they're willing to
give up some standard parts and interfaces to get there. If you want to be
able to swap out components, an iMac may not be the best choice for you.

~~~
fiblye
I can understand wanting to build a reliable system, but hard drives are the
most unreliable part of any modern PC. A user should have the right to replace
them in the event of failure or if it's simply not enough storage at a later
point. Apple traditionally taught users how to service computers themselves:
<http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/imacG5_20inch_harddrive.pdf>

The hard drives and RAM are by far the most overpriced components in Macs, and
I see this as nothing more than Apple trying to squeeze out some extra money.

~~~
jsz0
The older G5 iMac was easy to take apart. The new thinner, more tightly
integrated, iMacs are not. I can definitely understand why Apple doesn't
recommend users do it themselves. If you buy something like a Mac Pro Apple
will give you step by step instructions on how to replace a hard drive. It's
designed to be highly user serviceable. Personally I would not buy another
iMac until they are redesigned to be more user serviceable.

~~~
wiredfool
They're not _that_ bad, really. The glass pops off with a suction cup, and to
get at the drives, you just have to take out a bunch of torx screws. It's a
good bit easier than the original mac mini. You're not going to cut your
fingers on anything like a cheap tower, there's just a bunch of screws.

~~~
mikhuang
"glass pops off with a suction cup"

Doesn't sound like it was meant to be touched by non-nerds.

~~~
wiredfool
As opposed to the innards of... I'm drawing a blank here. What computer is
significantly more friendly to non-nerds to replace the hard drive? You will
still need to know about cables, and what to touch, and how to mount rails on
it. Apart from the USB drives, which non-nerds know about and can use easily.
Maybe one in a tray where it's just sliding. But then they're still handling a
bare drive, and good luck getting one of those in an imac form factor.

The glass front is held on by magnets, and comes off with a little help. It's
an elegant solution to attaching a glass panel flush to the front of a
computer. It's easily removed and easily replaced.

~~~
whatusername
My laptop is a single screw (Thinkpad). 2 Screws to Add RAM (well for one slot
anyway).

Or there's a HD Caddy that I can swap out for my CD Drive by flcking a little
switch.

------
woodrow
> is the freedom promised in 1984 being revoked?

This is incredibly ironic, given how expandable the original Macintosh was, as
well as Steve Jobs' aversion to hardware expansion in the early days of the
Mac:
[http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...](http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Diagnostic_Port.txt)

~~~
akdubya
Yep. To upgrade the memory on the compact macs one needed a hex driver, a
soldering iron and a spare resistor. I'm still shocked my Dad let me tinker
with expensive university property like that.

~~~
wiredfool
That was just the Plus. By the time the SE and Classic rolled around, all you
needed was the long handled torx, but it helped if you had a case splitter.

I can't believe I soldered a resistor on one of those with a 50w monster
soldering iron.

------
jesseendahl
Looks like getting hold of a second optical drive sensor and using that on
your third party hard drive/SSD is the best solution. No shorting of the
existing sensor necessary.

"I purchased... [an] Optical Drive Temp Sensor, and it works.. tape it to the
HDD just to the upper right of the sata plug on the back of the drive.. on the
black aluminum; middle of the drive.(according to seagate, thats the optimal
place for a temp sensor) and voila.. the answer..

How I came to this conclusion was, I originally took the optical drive thermal
sensor from my ODD and put it on the HDD thinking this should work.. well the
HDD temp and fans work perfectly.. and the ODD fan is at full blast.. so I
tried to contact APPLE for the replacement ODD temp sensor.. Mistake.. and
then I found the Link above.. and used it as a replacement.. TADA!!!"

Source:
[http://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/14068/SSD+compatibility+%...](http://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/14068/SSD+compatibility+%28Thermal+Sensor+Connector%29#answer26249)

------
xpaulbettsx
Marco Arment once again swings this as a positive thing, and that those who
would want to replace a failed hard drive are just "uber-geeks":

[http://www.marco.org/2011/05/12/owc-imac-hard-drive-
complain...](http://www.marco.org/2011/05/12/owc-imac-hard-drive-complaint)

I'm fairly certain that if iMacs had a bug where it randomly murdered kittens,
Marco would try to swing it into an argument against animal overpopulation or
something.

~~~
guywithabike
I'm fairly certain that if someone wrote something you didn't agree with, you
would try to swing it into a bizarre straw man that you could blow away with a
light breeze.

------
daimyoyo
"Hard drives fail. It is not a matter of “if” but rather a matter of “when”
your hard drive is going to fail."

Really? I have had computers in one form or another for nearly 20 years and
I've never had a hard drive fail. Ever. Not once. From a 386 with 16MHz of
processor speed and an EGA monitor, to my last Dell Latitude that's now 6
years old. Never had a problem. Do Apple hard drives fail at a
disproportionately higher rate than PC's? I recently bought a MacBook Pro and
I'm starting to get nervous about it.

~~~
calloc
No, Apple drives don't fail at a disproportionately higher rate. They have the
exact same failure rates as the rest of the industry since they use the same
parts (with minor modifications apparently).

I've had many hard drives fail. Just recently a Western Digital hard drive in
my server that was the second drive in a mirror started having issues with the
ball bearings making a high pitched whining noise, going over into no longer
spinning up. This is by no means the first drive to do so to me. Hard drive
failures happen, the more of them you have, the more likely they are to fail
at one point or another.

I've had my MacBook Pro for almost 4 years now and I haven't had the hard
drive fail in it at all. I wouldn't be worried, unless you abuse your laptop
while it is running most likely nothing will happen. Just make sure that you
have backups, TimeMachine is excellent for that.

~~~
Niten
To play devil's advocate, this isn't out of the question.

1) Macs do tend to run hotter than PCs, and this could decrease HDD lifespan.

2) We've seen in the past that OS-specific power management settings can be
detrimental to hard drives, as with this famous Linux bug:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/104535> Although I doubt it's actually
the case, it's possible in principle for drives to wear differently under OS X
than under Windows.

~~~
gwern
> 1) Macs do tend to run hotter than PCs, and this could decrease HDD
> lifespan.

Google found that temperature didn't much matter according to their published
research: <http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf>

> In the lower and middle temperature ranges, higher temperatures are not
> associated with higher failure rates. This is a fairly surprising result,
> which could indicate that data center or server designers have more freedom
> than previously thought when setting operating temperatures for equipment
> that contains disk drives.

Non-PDF summary/discussion: [http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-
failure-exper...](http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-failure-
experience/)

------
martin_k
I just had a similar experience with my Macbook Pro (Mid-2009): The SATA
controller supports SATA II. But if you use any SATA II drive with that model,
you get occasional freezes in the best case, and the machine doesn't boot in
the worst. The problem is apparently an improperly shielded SATA cable, but
Apple doesn't care because: They never supplied any SATA II drives for that
device.

~~~
bonzoesc
What should they do? The computer works as shipped, they didn't have to go out
and find a SATA controller that doesn't support the newer standard, and they
didn't have to ship the extra weight and added cost of extra shielding needed
for a standard they weren't using.

------
adolph
Getting temp info from the drive itself seems like a simpler approach than
some taped-on thermal sensor. It will be interesting to see what kind of work-
around/enhancement Other World will develop.

------
bestes
A few points: I just replaced a HD in an iMac and saw that sensor cable. What
do you think the chance is that I put it back in the right spot (on the new,
different drive)?

The failure mode for a temp controlled fan should always be full on.

Macs from #1, Plus, SE all the way to the current models have been unique and
required some special tools. Anyone who takes apart Mac has a full set of
Torqx bits. I don't see much difference between a case splitter and a suction
cup.

My guess as to the new sensor is that it is better than the ones inside the
drive. Or measures what matters, like external drive temp (just guessing).
Apple has had their own firmware on drives forever. This has only precluded
upgrades, etc. In a few cases and usually for good reason.

So, I think this is like any advance. I hope I'm right.

------
petercooper
I put an SSD in mine and, yep, that happened. So I put a bit of wire across
the sockets in the sensor cable and now it monitors at a constant 30C with no
fan activity. No fuss, no hassle, and SSDs don't need serious cooling anyway.
Seems a bit of a mountain out of a molehill story from my POV.

~~~
joshfinnie
I think having to short out a sensor on your computer because you changed the
hard drive warrants such a story.

Luckily for you, you used a SSD and don't have to worry about cooling... What
about the people wanting to add a 1TB drive or simply needing to replace their
dead one?

~~~
petercooper
It seems this idea might not work with the _latest_ edition but on the
previous generation you could do the the same and then run smcfancontrol. A
handy free tool that lets you set the minimum RPM of any fan in the system -
works a treat. The article seems to suggest this might not work in the newer
ones, alas, but I haven't got one to try it on.

------
eugenejen
Well, Apple probably wants to push Thunderbolt to external hub manufacturers
and storage companies as the new I/O channels. In that case, Macsales.com's
custom mod external e-SATA port will be an inferior solution. (10 Gbps vs 3
Gbps).

Probably in mid 2012 we will see all new Thunderbolt based external drives and
hubs for storage expansion of iMacs and MacBook Pros.

But I agree, it is still a pain in ass for DIYers to replace hard drives when
the disk is broken. And Apple will sell more Apple Care for iMacs and Macbook
Pros.

EDIT -

It seems Macsales.com's custom iMac e-SATA is not in product page anymore. I
remember they had the service before that you can send your iMac and they will
drill a hole on case and put a SATA port to the unused SATA port on the
motherboard.

------
mirkules
Can these fans be controlled by SMC Fan Control?
([http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/software/software.htm...](http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/software/software.html))
I realize this is an intermediary solution, and a dangerous one at that.

The other thing is, I don't fully understand why fan noise is such a problem?
I have a PC under my desk that sounds like an F15 with afterburners engaged
(and an iMac on the desk)...

~~~
fiblye
I once had a dysfunctional iMac that sounded like a vacuum and it was
unbearable. Maybe for some people it doesn't matter, but I can't say I like
having the sound of a vacuum blasting just a foot away.

I returned it to Apple the next day and got an upgraded model at no cost.

------
Someone
I am not saying this claim is bogus, but I do not believe it at face value,
either.

Reading the Wikipedia page on SATA
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Cables.2C_connectors...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Cables.2C_connectors.2C_and_ports)),
I loose track as to the number of different SATA power connectors in
existence.

So, it could well be that that new connector is SATA standard, but rarely seen
in the wild.

Similarly, on-board temperature sensors could be in some SATA
standard/extension/optional API. [http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-monitor-
hard-drive-tempe...](http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-monitor-hard-drive-
temperature.html seems) to point in that direction. It states "hddtemp utility
will give you the temperature of your hard drive by reading data from
S.M.A.R.T. on drives that support this feature. Only modern hard drives have a
temperature sensor."

~~~
pudquick
If you read the article a little more carefully, you'll understand that it's
still the same SATA 15-pin connector (I mean if it wasn't, you would have seen
articles about how you couldn't swap hard drives _at all_ ).

But what OWC is claiming is that now, instead of using pins 4,5,6 and 12 for
ground - that the new iMacs and harddrives inside them are using some of those
pins for _communication_ , specifically temperature sensor.

This is outside of the SMART specification, which passes information about the
harddrive over the data cable (not the power cable).

So you can swap in any harddrive you like - but if your harddrive doesn't have
the functionality / firmware in it to communicate temperature information over
the _power_ cable, then the fans kick in.

At this point, I'm offhandedly wondering if this is related more to the Intel
Z68 chipset / Smart Response technology somehow.

In addition, OWC is claiming that there's "Mac specific" firmware because they
swapped out an identical model harddrive and ran into an issue - but (playing
devil's advocate), if these are new temperature sensors involved, a firmware
upgrade wouldn't cut it - the harddrive would still be missing said sensors.

I would believe OWC more if they swapped the boards on the harddrives while
leaving the platter casing intact.

~~~
Someone
I reread it, and that indeed seems what they are claiming. I still think this
extraordinary claim needs more evidence to be accepted as true. I think SATA
has two connectors because one runs to the power supply, and the other to the
main board. If that power connectors carries data, how does that data get to
the main board? Is the cable split? If so, why would they do that if there
already is a data connection to the cable? Or is this a way for a CPU in the
PSU to power off of the drive if things go really wrong?

------
pahanitos
Does anyone have any confirmation of the veracity of the articles?

Some conflicts...
[http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&h...](http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=nl&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgathering.tweakers.net%2Fforum%2Flist_message%2F36015618%2336015618)

<https://discussions.apple.com/message/15181058>

------
blinkingled
No matter the motive I would not buy a computer with a rotational disk drive
that isn't easily replaceable. Firstly it is the most unreliable component,
next I might need to use the 16TB drive that became available after 2 years of
me owning my computer.

It was a piece of cake to replace my MBP's optical drive with OWC kit - I have
256Gb SSD for the OS and 500Gb for data - I totally see using most of that
space and it makes a huge difference speed wise.

------
monochromatic
Site is slow/down, so here's a mirror.

[http://blog.macsales.com.nyud.net/10146-apple-further-
restri...](http://blog.macsales.com.nyud.net/10146-apple-further-restricts-
upgrade-options-on-new-imacs)

