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Hard Drives and Apple
One of the great things about blogging is that it gives you and outlet to vent when you get crappy customer service—heck, I think that drives blogging more than anything. Dave Winer got ripped off in an Apple store yesterday and told the tale on his blog.
I’ve owned, if you count the machines I buy for my students in my research lab, dozens of Apple machines in the last five years. Overall, I find them to be moderately reliable—but I have to admit most of the problems I’ve had have been on new-release machines.
I’ve never taken my machine in to get a hard drive replaced and I’ve done that more times than I’d care to count. Dave didn’t do it himself—not because he can’t, but because he already had it at the store and they’d diagnosed the problem—I’d probably do the same thing.
Apple doesn’t make machines particularly easy to work on. My recent experience taking an iMac apart is a case in point. Over the normal life of any laptop, chances are you’ll want to replace the harddrive. That’s especially true with the number of large media files that I find myself accumulating. External drives just don’t cut it.
Frankly, it would be nice if Apple would make drives as easy to replace as RAM. I’ll gladly trade some case esthetic for easier upgrades.
If you do upgrade the harddrive in your Mac, the best resource I’ve found is iFixIt. They have instructions for cracking the case on just about every Mac model around. Very handy.
Back to Dave, he clearly go ripped off. If this had been a warranty repair, then the Apple would have claim on the drive unless he paid a “own the drive” fee like Dell offers. But this wasn’t. He paid to get the machine repaired and the drive should belong to him.
Dave’s concerns over the data on his drive are valid. I’d have them too. When I replace a drive on my machine, I always do a security erase on it before giving it to someone else. With a broken drive, I’d like to destroy them, but so far just accumulate them on a shelf. You can buy a service. Anyone have any experience destroying old drives?
Posted by windley on December 24, 2007 4:59 PM
I disagree with you on the point that a hard drive upgrade is likely during the life of a laptop. In many cases the problem is that people skimp on the hard drive when assembling their mac. Yes, you'll pay a small premium to get that 250gb drive in your spiffy new MacBook Pro, but that's peanuts compared to the total you're spending.
Besides, with devices like the drobo and other NAS storage being so popular these days, isn't the idea of carrying around *all* of your data all the time hopelessly outdated?
I heard about one of these the other day:
http://www.cdrominc.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.garden_flypage&product_id=474&category_id=277&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=53
I wonder how many people really fork out that much money for what is really just a big magnet? I hope there's something about it that justifies such a price tag!
I've read Dave's account as well, it must suck to not be able to get a drive with all your personal information from apple.
Actually replacing your hard drive in a Macbook is as easy as replacing the RAM. Apple even gives you the instructions on how to do it: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY.pdf
Your mileage does vary with other apple laptops, however. The Macbook Pro takes a lot more work but I wouldn't trust the apple "geniuses" to do it. Especially given they keep the drive (?!?). It turns out that in some cases that you can recover your data off your bad hard drive by putting it in the freezer overnight. I have done this a couple of times with success. After I have recovered my data I can "securely" smash the drive into bits.
Like my BMW, I only take my Macs back to the "dealer" for repairs covered under the warranty. Everything else I either do myself or take it a good 3rd party repair shop. In my experience the 3rd party shops actually do better work for both cars and computers.
Last time I replaced a hard drive, I beat it to death: It had failed, but had some personal information on it. I beat the thing until the platters were bent. Much less fancy then a magnetic eraser, but I figure it would discourage all but the most determined and skilled.
One of the great things about blogging is that it gives you and outlet to vent when you get crappy customer service—heck, I think that drives blogging more than anything.
Thanks for the Christmas laugh. Thanks also for setting me straight; up till now, I thought there was a different prime mover. For example: http://bjkeefe.blogspot.com/2007/12/waiting-for-santa.html
P.S. Administrivia: After clicking the "Preview" button, I got a warning about my browser being unable to verify the validity of your site's certificate, or words to that effect.
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