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Mac Upgrades/Mods | Storage | Video | Audio/Home Theater | macOS Updates/Tips/WiFi
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Seagate SSHD (Hybrid) in a MacBook 2,1 (w/Seagate SATA1 Jumper Tip)
(A "MacBook 2,1" can be a Late 2006 or Mid 2007 Model. A Late 2007 MacBook is MacBook 3,1. Not all Drives require jumpering like this but some include the option in case it's needed/if the drive isn't recognized or reliable without the jumper. YMMV, as even some other/later models negotiated link speeds with some drives lower than their onboard SATA rating. OS/drivers/firmware may also be a factor in some cases.)

"Upgrading a (Mid-2007) MacBook (Macbook2,1) with (SATA3) Seagate SSHD
I've been trying for a couple of weeks to speed up the Hard Drive on this Black MacBook Core 2 Duo 2GHz to a faster drive. The problem has been that even though all sales claim that the new SATA III drives are downward compatible to SATA I, it's not quite true. The drive's 6Gbs SATA interface will go down to 3Gb/s (auto sense) but not 1.5 Gbs mode without being told (forced) to via a jumper. (Same for some other SATA3 drives, like this WD force SATA1 jumper tip.)
   This discovery came from a wonderful Customer Support Rep from Seagate. In order to make use of the new Hybird Drives offered by Seagate in any machine that has SATA I you need to place a jumper on the drive limiting the output to 1.5 Gbs. See the link directly from Seagate for more info:

From Seagate Kbase/FAQ on Jumper settings for Seagate SATA hard drives
(Page no longer online but here's an image clip showing the drive jumper positions)
SATA mode jumpers

Because of the size of the drive you also need a smaller jumper than the standard size we usually have laying around. You might have to hunt in your spare parts box for a micro jumper so that it does not extend beyond the back of the drive to get it to fit into the MacBook Case properly.

Overall, I'm very impressed with the SSHD upgrade to the MacBook. It does boot faster, however you need to be patient with the first few boots until the software inside the drive learns what is the most important files to load in the Flash part of the drive.

After using Apples Migration Assistant to move my files from the old drive to the new SSHD drive, some programs like Antivirus had to be reloaded individually and gave some errors but that will go away. At least it did after about 10 reboots and a few software updates for me anyway. (Not sure which AV you're using but many feel that (non-open source at least) Mac AV software may cause more issues than it prevents.)

This laptop is now over 7 years old, and I hope to get 5 to 7 more years use out of it. All for the cost of a new Hard Drive and Battery.
-CW Camp"

Hope you get another 5 years from it and thanks for the Seagate settings info. The SATA/Storage page has a similar tip on Jumper Settings for WD 6Gb/sec HDs in G5 Macs which also have onboard SATA 1.5Gbps and required forcing SATA 1 mode on those drives. (Also recently posted a reminder on some SATA2 Mac models that run SATA3 Drives at SATA1 speed.)
  

Mid 2011 MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 2.9 pulled
Noticed the download page in Monday's archive (and revised Apple doc below) now 404's (page pulled), due to problems reported by users (noted here Tuesday). Hopefully a revised updater will be released soon. Tuesday's MacBook Air forum thread on problems was growing.
A later post there had comments from a conversation with Apple Level 2 support that they've confirmed/identified a problem and are working on a corrected release. (Wrong EFI in pkg?)
  
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