About 14 months after buying my iMac, the Smart status of its internal disk showed that it was failing. The machine was with Apple for over two weeks to replace the disk under the extended warranty because they had such a backlog of work.
Since its return, performance in places Has been a bit sluggish compared to the response I’m used to. Not in every task, but I can tell a difference here and there when dealing with large files. So, benchmarks… luckily I am anal to the point of still having benchmarks for every machine I’ve tested for work, and my own.
Here are the disk speed benchmarks for the original disk, a Western Digital WD5000AAKS:
Sequential uncached write: 82.03MB/sec
Sequential uncached read: 84.68MB/sec
Random uncached write: 64.85MB/sec
Random uncached read: 30.11MB/sec
The replacement disk is a Seagate model, ST3500630AS Q, that rates:
Sequential uncached write: 32.29MB/sec
Sequential uncached read: 74.73MB/sec
Random uncached write: 19.16MB/sec
Random uncached read: 28.65MB/sec
That confirms it is significantly slower at writing data, whether sequentially or randomly across the disk, which might explain why rendering frames on the fly in After Effects and Motion bothered me.
So, where would I stand on a repair not being up to the original spec? Would I have any grounds? I mean, they’ve replaced the disk, sure, but I’m not particularly happy about the reduction in performance. Not only that, it’s noticeably louder: audible even when copying a file from an external disk to the internal one or under prolonged disk activity.
Update:
By way of comparison, I also have an aluminium MacBook that’s pretty close in specification. It also has 4GB RAM, a slightly faster 1066MHz frontside bus, and a 2.4GHz CPU (the iMac’s is 3.06GHz). Also, being a MacBook, its drive should be 5400rpm – it’s a stock one that Apple supplied and hasn’t been upgraded since I purchased the notebook. Here are its disk benchmarks:
Sequential uncached write: 56.09MB/sec
Sequential uncached read: 58.14MB/sec
Random uncached write: 28.26MB/sec
Random uncached read: 20.49MB/sec
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