Installed an Accelsior 240Gb SSD in my MacPro. At first all seemed well. Then I had problems with my system locking up in sleep mode even though I had installed the OWC driver to eliminate this problem. Had to unplug my external drives, which were purchased from OWC to stop the sleep issue. Then my system began refusing to shut down. A total waste of my time and money. Prior to installing the Accelsior I had zero problems with my MacPro.
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OWC Accelsior 240Gb Problems
- Thread starter wjmphoto
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Are the external drives eSATA plugged into the Accelsior?
Mine kept locking up on wake from sleep; it looks like the system is waiting for the drives to wake but they never do, and all I get is a spinning beachball.
Eventually I just went back to Firewire 800 for them.
Other than that the card works perfectly.
Mine kept locking up on wake from sleep; it looks like the system is waiting for the drives to wake but they never do, and all I get is a spinning beachball.
Eventually I just went back to Firewire 800 for them.
Other than that the card works perfectly.
Reliable?
I bought an Accelsior 480 from OWC last week. It has no external eSata connectors, therefore they sold me the old version. In the beginning everything seemed to work well. (driver is installed) But yesterday, upon restart I had a strange experience. The disk was trying to repair itself twice (I had to reboot and the MacPro hanged twice). I booted from another disk 10.8 and tried to repair with disk utility without success. Then I booted from a 10.6.8 disk and this time the Accelsior appeared to my desktop. I repaired it successfully with disk utility and I booted again. It seems that the problem is gone for now but I have lost my confidence.
I also had to re-install one application which seemed to be corrupted.
I will post an update next week. Fingers crossed.
I bought an Accelsior 480 from OWC last week. It has no external eSata connectors, therefore they sold me the old version. In the beginning everything seemed to work well. (driver is installed) But yesterday, upon restart I had a strange experience. The disk was trying to repair itself twice (I had to reboot and the MacPro hanged twice). I booted from another disk 10.8 and tried to repair with disk utility without success. Then I booted from a 10.6.8 disk and this time the Accelsior appeared to my desktop. I repaired it successfully with disk utility and I booted again. It seems that the problem is gone for now but I have lost my confidence.
I also had to re-install one application which seemed to be corrupted.
I will post an update next week. Fingers crossed.
The Accelsior uses SSDs with Sandforce 2281 controller which is notorious for reliability issues (Google it). My advice would be to return it if you can and get a Sonnet Card with a pair of Samsung or Crucial SSDs. It will perform the same (if not better with random I/O) and should be much more reliable and upgradable and probably cost you less.
Accelsoir Removed
Thank you. I really appreciate the suggestion. I removed the 240Gb Accelsoir today. Just could not get my system to function reliably with it.
Thank you. I really appreciate the suggestion. I removed the 240Gb Accelsoir today. Just could not get my system to function reliably with it.
My problem is that I live in Belgium. I had to pay 150 dollars (28%) taxes and import duties to the Belgian custom house when I bought the card and these are lost when I send my card back to OWC. If they ship a replacement I will have to pay the same taxes again! I call this theft! 
My problem is that I live in Belgium. I had to pay 150 dollars (28%) taxes and import duties to the Belgian custom house when I bought the card and these are lost when I send my card back to OWC. If they ship a replacement I will have to pay the same taxes again! I call this theft!
I agree!
Generalities aside - The LSI Sandforce processors are both of exceptional reliability and performance today and also offer consistently high real-world performance from the get go and over the long term. There have certainly been challenges in the past, but a good part of that can be attributed to how certain brands implemented their use. On the Mac platform - a major complication also existed throughout much of 2011 due to major issues with Apple's 6G implementation on their 2011 MacBook Pros. Apple would correct this for the main bay by end of year, and while we advise to not to use 6G drives of any type in specific model 2011-2012 optical bays -that remains a point of frustration as well due to the presence of a 6G link in that bay while the actual signal lines are only reliable for up to 3G. We have an ongoing blog on this particular subject matter.
In any event - we would not utilize this controller if we believed otherwise - nor would Intel or a host of others that utilize on LSI/Sandforce for their SSD products.
I apologize for any issue encountered and we are here to help. On the eSATA port use - we list the current limitations while hope for a future solution, that is up to Oxford. The ports do support many eSATA devices, including straight eSATA native drives - but Oxford 944/946 multi-interface chipsets in general have a hangup with standard SATA command set and thus the reason we currently list limitations for using such drives via the Accelsior eSATA ports.
With respect to customs/duties - our replacement support does properly document products to avoid double duties should such be necessary.
I invite you to email me owc@macsales.com - and happy to personally review and get things on the right track, etc. I apologize again for any inconvenience.
In any event - we would not utilize this controller if we believed otherwise - nor would Intel or a host of others that utilize on LSI/Sandforce for their SSD products.
I apologize for any issue encountered and we are here to help. On the eSATA port use - we list the current limitations while hope for a future solution, that is up to Oxford. The ports do support many eSATA devices, including straight eSATA native drives - but Oxford 944/946 multi-interface chipsets in general have a hangup with standard SATA command set and thus the reason we currently list limitations for using such drives via the Accelsior eSATA ports.
With respect to customs/duties - our replacement support does properly document products to avoid double duties should such be necessary.
I invite you to email me owc@macsales.com - and happy to personally review and get things on the right track, etc. I apologize again for any inconvenience.
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I checked the Accelsior with Techtool and no errors or bad blocks were found.
It's now 6 days since it booted twice in the safe mode and tried to repair the disk twice without result. Since then, no problems occured. Fingers crossed.
It's now 6 days since it booted twice in the safe mode and tried to repair the disk twice without result. Since then, no problems occured. Fingers crossed.
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Here an update. Since I bought the Accelsior I had one problem (Mac started out beachballing, booting into what looks like safe mode, with the progress bar) in the beginning of march but until now everything works fine. It's rock solid.
One more try
Thanks to OWC Larry I agreed to try one more time to install a 240Gb Accelsior. This time I elected an Accelsior without the eSata ports. OWC Ben helped me to do a clean install of OSX 10.8.5 Mountain Lion. I have not been able to do much testing. So far there have been no problems. I will hold final judgement until I can spend some more time running the system. I will update this thread in a couple of weeks.
Thanks to OWC Larry I agreed to try one more time to install a 240Gb Accelsior. This time I elected an Accelsior without the eSata ports. OWC Ben helped me to do a clean install of OSX 10.8.5 Mountain Lion. I have not been able to do much testing. So far there have been no problems. I will hold final judgement until I can spend some more time running the system. I will update this thread in a couple of weeks.