Grrr... small gripe.

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f1m
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Grrr... small gripe.

Post by f1m »

So last week I had drive failures in both my iMacs - including my main one. While I was rebuilding its backup drive its internal drive (the one being backed up) dropped dead. The other iMac was backed up and it was a simple swap, but I'm still trying to re-assemble all the files on my main one. I don't think I've lost anything its just taking a while.

My gripe is that I would not be able to do this on a current iMac as they are a royal pain to open up and there is not a current Mac, other than the $5000 Mac Pro, where its really possible to swap out a dead drive. Also, anything above a 3TB internal drive is really expensive...

What I really need is a Mac Pro, Jr.

Meh.

(Please don't say 'Get a Windows PC' - that'll never happen. I could not do my job, at Penn State, IPMS, or F1M.com if I had to use Windows.)

DrE
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Re: Grrr... small gripe.

Post by sky1911 »

I have a Mac as well, it's going on 13 years now. First gen Intel based, bought in San Fran in '07... Anyway, since it's PC based hardware, you don't need to buy the
individual components from Apple. Even back then, when prices for Macs were not beyond reality, I chose to get add-on RAM or different drives from regular PC
market sources. I would never buy their memory or disk space upgrade as they a way beyond unreasonably expensive, especially over here with 19% VAT. So if
you are looking at upgrading / replacing I would try and find out, what brand & type is currently in your device and buy it elsewhere. Since you cannot swap out
CPUs and GPUs (soldered since the early days) you have to get what you want. But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

That aside I feel you. In my entire PC "career" (going strong since the 80s ;) as a kid, I have had 2 drives fail - funny note, in a similar situation as you were.
One drive went up in smoke and I wanted to save data from it to another drive ... and that one died as well (in actual smokey fashion). I proceeded to buy
another such drive, removed the circuit board from it and replaced that on one of the defective drives, mounted them, copied the data and repeated the
procedure with the other "dead" drive. I've never bought anything from that manufacturer again.

Good luck with your backups.
Cheers,
Roman
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Re: Grrr... small gripe.

Post by Tyrone »

Sorry to hear about the drive failures!

You could always 'hackintosh' yourself a standard desktop PC and install MacOS on it.

https://youtu.be/ATnpEOo3GJA

Then you have the benefit of whatever hardware you need, including multiple hard drives if required, and a fraction of the cost.

However you do have to go through with the process of making the Hackintosh to start with. Would be a fun experiment though.
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Re: Grrr... small gripe.

Post by ubik801 »

Good evening Eric.

I can feel your pain. I invested in an expensive Mac Pro aka the trash can. Upgraded the ssd to 2TB from OWC and 64 gig of OWC ram. Works well, other than not being able to upgrade the OS since High Sierra cause it no longer has the original SSD. The same goes for my 17" Mac Book Pro. Both are now expensive home computers. New versions of video editors don't play well with either one. And the proprietary software from my main client just laughs at me. The new Mac Pro is upgradable but you have to take out a home loan. You might give Apple Business a call. They might be able to work with you.

don
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Re: Grrr... small gripe.

Post by Gooch »

I am still Rockin a 2009 Mac Book Pro Thinking of getting something new if I can find a nice two-year-old one new ones are too expensive. Pulse if I bought a new one that would cut into buying kits.
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Re: Grrr... small gripe.

Post by Tiffoc »

You must feel the pain Grasshopper, before you can administer the cure... :mrgreen:

It was the first thing that sprang to mind Eric.
I've always believed that you should never, ever give up and you should always keep fighting, even when there's only a slightest chance.
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Re: Grrr... small gripe.

Post by BMW »

I hear you Eric, but in fairness it is rarer and rarer that internal components fail. I have only had one drive fail on me in the last 15 years, and that was an external WD drive.
But I agree, it is annoying that it is not easy to open an iMac without performing major surgery. MacBook Pros are easier to open and replace parts in!
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Re: Grrr... small gripe.

Post by f1m »

Folks have suggested this but it really defeats the stability of MacOS, imho...

E
Tyrone wrote:Sorry to hear about the drive failures!

You could always 'hackintosh' yourself a standard desktop PC and install MacOS on it.

https://youtu.be/ATnpEOo3GJA

Then you have the benefit of whatever hardware you need, including multiple hard drives if required, and a fraction of the cost.

However you do have to go through with the process of making the Hackintosh to start with. Would be a fun experiment though.
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f1m
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Re: Grrr... small gripe.

Post by f1m »

I have a stack of dead hard drives about 6-8 deep at the moment...

And from what I've heard SSDs also have a limited life, but when they go the do so suddenly... although I may need to check the current info on this..

E
BMW wrote:I hear you Eric, but in fairness it is rarer and rarer that internal components fail. I have only had one drive fail on me in the last 15 years, and that was an external WD drive.
But I agree, it is annoying that it is not easy to open an iMac without performing major surgery. MacBook Pros are easier to open and replace parts in!
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Re: Grrr... small gripe.

Post by sky1911 »

As an aside to my macbook pro (the 2007 one). it has been running for 5 consecutive years, only turned off when I was travelling, otherwise always on. The battery is dead after only 36 cycles ;)
but I can live with that. The graphics card died - but that was covered by Nvidia / Apple and it got replaced 5 years after the initial purchase in another country with no questions asked and no
money exchanging hands. So I have to give them that.
On hard drives / ssds. The drives failing only happened after extended periods without power after long periods of being powered up. Actual issues are more likely when devices have been
running for years, are "suddenly" shut down / off and are taken back on. In server environments that is a big nono and you avoid it if possible.

On the SSD longevity. I am not sure if there are tools like this for Macs as well, for PC there are tools like CrystalDiskInfo that will show you the S.M.A.R.T. data of the disk (HDDs and SSDs)
including temperature, errors, non-fixable errors, ect. Keeping an eye on those is a good way of knowing when the time is up. SSDs tend to go slower over time as the "cells" wear out. So
there should be some sort of warning in the performance. But mostly that is due to heavy writing and reading activity, which under normal circumstances should not be an issue. I've had
to SSDs run as a raid0 for a couple of years - no issues until I replaced them with something faster (M2 SSD).
Cheers,
Roman
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