HDD Fan Control software addresses iMac hard drive replacement issue

Hey Guys,


Here is a link to a site where you can buy an optical drive thermal sensor. Just swap out the old HDD sensor with this one that you simply stick to the outside of the HD and it will work like a dream. This is the methold I used to upgrade my mid 2010 core i7's HDD with an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD. Its been screaming along ever since. The HDD fan usually runs around 1200rpm

https://www.applecomponents.com/items/0000004398/cable-temp-sensor-optical/?pn=1

Hey Guys,


Here is a link to a site where you can buy an optical drive thermal sensor. Just swap out the old HDD sensor with this one that you simply stick to the outside of the HD and it will work like a dream. This is the methold I used to upgrade my mid 2010 core i7's HDD with an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD. Its been screaming along ever since. The HDD fan usually runs around 1200rpm

https://www.applecomponents.com/items/0000004398/cable-temp-sensor-optical/?pn=1

Hey Guys,


There is another solution that was mentioned in an engadget article last year which includes buying an a optical drive thermal sensor and just replacing the thermal sensor that uses the pins on the back of the hard drive for this one that you simply stick to the outside of the hard drive. I actually upgraded my mid 2010 core i7 imac on christmas day with this technique. I chose a 3.5" OCZ Vertex 2 as my new hard drive and i used the optical drive thermal sensor that I purchased for like $10 and it works flawlessly. My HD fan idles around 1200rpms. The great thing about using an SSD is that there arent any moving parts and it doesnt generate much heat. Ive been using my upgraded iMac for the last 6 months with out the slightest problem. The benefits of taking the old HD out of the iMac and swapping it with an SSD are that the iMac is whisper quiet and lightning fast. I cant begin to tell you guys what a difference it made in the overall speed of the computer. I took the old 1TB hard drive and put it in an external Firewire 800 caddy and use it as a time machine back up drive and also to store all of my video files. On top of that a life hacker article referenced how to enable TRIM on any mac running 10.6.7 and so i preformed that update as well. All and all the process was painless and resulted in the best computer that I could have asked for. Hope this helps some of you guys. I included the link to the engadget article below.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/27/the-joy-and-pain-of-upgrading-a-27-inch-imac-with-a-ssd-video/

Apple is simply adopting a new technology that is not yet an industry standard - something Apple does all the time. If it gets adopted industry-wide then you'll see 7-pin replacement drives on the market - otherwise software patches are in development to override the undesirable fan behavior when using an off-the-shelf 4-pin HDD. It's the same aftermarket industry whining we hear every time Apple innovates. We got the same whining, from the same people, when Apple put SDDs in the MacBookAir - OWC whined that they couldn't sell SDD upgrades. Cry me a river...

And you also want to make sure that you're not overpowering things. HDD Fan Control is NOT Apple recommended and in the past it's been the cause of some crash issues and is one thing that Apple will tell you to remove to solve them. When it's gone, the crashes go away. That's a BIG deal. I was dealing direct with Apple on this at a very high level and had some people review crash logs. Every time there was one, HDDFan Control was at the forefront of it. Now that it's gone...life is much better.

Personally I like iStatMenus and their fan control which works great, is stable and has not caused those same issues.

The HD issue is another one that I think Apple may be aware of, but we'll see.

We have run both SMC and HDD Fan Control software utilities and they are NOT preventing drive fan from ramping up to high speed. We'll have a new blog post on this shortly.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this software fix wouldn't address the "Fails Apple Hardware Test" problem.

@phlavor
I don't believe people are misunderstanding. The accounts of this problem say that it even happens if you replace the drive with the exact same model. The problem at issue here is with the recent 2011 iMacs, not the 2009 model (which had a similar issue, but not exactly the same).

People are misunderstanding the issue. Some drives are compatible with Apple's temperature monitoring scheme and some aren't. People putting in WD Caviar Blacks, for instance, aren't having any issues.