500GB Seagate SATA for $270 with code

[jimbrady]

Thanks to TechBargains. 500GB HDD approaching a sensible cost per GB... just wondering if there's been any conventional wisdom developed yet re: heat, reliability, whatever... Code is this:

seagate500

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6822148108

[BigGuynRusty]

Does it work in the G5 Towers?
It seems like Apple didn't fully develop either the controller, or the firmware for the big drives. The Western Digital 400GB HD's are a boatload of problems.

BGnR

[rexrzer]

It's a 7200.9 Seagate SATA HDrive, which may, or may not, have SSC (Spread Spectrum Clocking) enabled. You'll never know until you hook it up to a Mac and see if it'll work or not. Alternatively, as OWC Larry will tell you, the HDrive can be put in a PC and have Seagate's SSC Utility used on it.

There is no Mac version of the utility, unfortunately.

If a 7200.9's birthday is in the past month or so, SSC is now disabled OEM, in the retail channel, according to infomation I've read on Seagate's web site. So if one were to purchase one of these drives from Newegg.com, it's a total crap-shoot as to whether SSC is enabled, or not. Unfortunately. Just depends on when the HDrive was made, on a drive-by-drive basis.

________________

[BigGuynRusty]

Has nothing to do with SSC, WD already proved that, it is a BIG problem with either Apple's controller chip, or firmware. The problem is still there with SSC disabled on the HD.

BGnR
From WD.:
The Apple G5 tower does not support certain standard Serial ATA interface protocols used by the WD4000YR, WD4000KD, WD1500AHFD, and WD1500ADFD hard drives resulting in an interface lock-up. This causes the computer system to hang.

Search the HD database at http://xlr8yourmac.com for more info.