Resolved SSD troubles MBP 2011

[andrewho83]

So I emailed tim cook, and an executive support relayed the information onto its corporate communications officer and contact me. I was impressed by the timing of it all, happened within a day or two of emailing.

The communications guy is not aware of the issue, but wishes for me to bring in the macbook pro to an apple retail store and sit down with one of the geniuses there. I wonder if they're going to play the card about the SSD not being an Apple qualified part (is there any way to get around this?). I'm considering bringing up the heating issue as well because there is just too much heat when the machine's under load. Hopefully I can get somewhere with this issue.

 

[bb426]

So I emailed tim cook, and an executive support relayed the information onto its corporate communications officer and contact me. I was impressed by the timing of it all, happened within a day or two of emailing.

Sounds odd they would respond IMO... why would you email Tim over this?

And responding to my earlier post about swapping the SSD back to the HDD bay, the EFI update did nothing to fix the problems. I'm still waiting for a magic update from some company...

 

[bb426]

Hey guys, just thought I would update this thread for those who need it. The problems I was having with my Kingston HyperX SSD have been fixed with the latest firmware update from Kingston, the link is here. The drive now works flawlessly with OS X and Windows 7 in the normal HDD bay, but the update process was somewhat risky (for those who don't know what's going on), and it involved enabling AHCI in Windows 7 (since Bootcamp disables it) because the firmware update required AHCI to be updated. I followed this guide here for those who need it.

Thanks again for everything!

 

[rev.b]

Just to add something about Crucial m4 and MBP:

I have a m4 128 Gb that was working flawlessly on a '10 MBP (Sata II only). I just bough a early 2011 17" MBP and switched SDD and optibay to the new one.

I was afraid that this Sata III issue would pop up, but it is running just fine for 3 days now, even with TRIM enabled (with http://digitaldj.net/2011/07/21/trim-enabler-for-lion/ method NOT Trim Enabler).

Both SSD and MBP EFI are the latest versions. The m4 is on the hdd place, with a 6 Gbps link, benches show up to 500 Mb/s read

So I may have got a "working" one, or, as other sugested, Apple may have silently fixed this issue on the latest "early 2011" MBP.

 

[bb426]

Just to add something about Crucial m4 and MBP:

I have a m4 128 Gb that was working flawlessly on a '10 MBP (Sata II only). I just bough a early 2011 17" MBP and switched SDD and optibay to the new one.

I was afraid that this Sata III issue would pop up, but it is running just fine for 3 days now, even with TRIM enabled (with http://digitaldj.net/2011/07/21/trim-enabler-for-lion/ method NOT Trim Enabler).

Both SSD and MBP EFI are the latest versions. The m4 is on the hdd place, with a 6 Gbps link, benches show up to 500 Mb/s read

So I may have got a "working" one, or, as other sugested, Apple may have silently fixed this issue on the latest "early 2011" MBP.

I have a feeling it was either the recent EFI update or the one before, one of them supposedly fixed a lot of SATA issues that the early 2011 MBP's were having. I had updated to both of those prior to updating the SSD firmware, and neither fixed my problems.

And well, with my experience, you will probably have better performance by disabling TRIM. When I was having my prior problems, enabling TRIM seemed to help speed it up, but now that it's fixed, TRIM just seems to slightly slow it down (trust me, I've tested it a LOT... there IS a slight slow down, at least with my SSD). Because it's Sandforce, I'm sure you already know this, it has its own GC method, and enabling TRIM with these SSD's is like putting two antivirus programs on a Windows machine... both do the same exact thing, why have both? It certainly can't speed things up.

But test this for yourself, if you honestly don't see any change disabling it (or a big slowdown later in performance), then that's up to you. I'm just going by personal experience, understanding the technology, and looking around and listening to what other people say about it.

I'm super happy with the performance of mine though... 500 MB/s read speeds are nice. Though, in a few years, SSD's will be much more capable of higher speeds... and 500 MB/s will be puny compared to 2 GB/s, or whatever Though that may be a while off, who knows. Breakthroughs in efficiency happen!

Enjoy your speed machine...

 

[rev.b]

I have a feeling it was either the recent EFI update or the one before, one of them supposedly fixed a lot of SATA issues that the early 2011 MBP's were having. I had updated to both of those prior to updating the SSD firmware, and neither fixed my problems.

And well, with my experience, you will probably have better performance by disabling TRIM. When I was having my prior problems, enabling TRIM seemed to help speed it up, but now that it's fixed, TRIM just seems to slightly slow it down (trust me, I've tested it a LOT... there IS a slight slow down, at least with my SSD). Because it's Sandforce, I'm sure you already know this, it has its own GC method, and enabling TRIM with these SSD's is like putting two antivirus programs on a Windows machine... both do the same exact thing, why have both? It certainly can't speed things up.

But test this for yourself, if you honestly don't see any change disabling it (or a big slowdown later in performance), then that's up to you. I'm just going by personal experience, understanding the technology, and looking around and listening to what other people say about it.

I'm super happy with the performance of mine though... 500 MB/s read speeds are nice. Though, in a few years, SSD's will be much more capable of higher speeds... and 500 MB/s will be puny compared to 2 GB/s, or whatever Though that may be a while off, who knows. Breakthroughs in efficiency happen!

Enjoy your speed machine...

Word is Apple was undervolting the HM65 chipset to gain battery life...
Maybe they fixed it on latest EFI, but SSD firmware updates also seemed to help a lot. Firmware 009 from Crucial fixed it for many people.

About TRIM... yes I know it may cause a slight slow down, but I'm comfortable with it. I really don't notice it.
Your Sandforce SSD has a much more aggressive GC than the Marvell controller Crucial uses, so I guess my m4 should benefit more from having TRIM.

 

[Frixo Cool]

I have a 8-core Mac Pro with Kingston SSD (SV100S2128G) in Bay 1. The same issue. I have upgraded the firmware to D110225a (System Profiler says so) and the problem is still here.

I have done the upgrade from the bootable CD that Kingston made. Do I have to do the whole AHCI upgrade procedure as well (as I don't have Windows 7), or that was needed only as a prerequired step to flash SSD when no Mac bootable CD was available?

 

[Benna80]

Mine is a MBP late 2008 with snow leopard, with crucial M4 256GB. And i DO HAVE spinning beachball almost every time i boot-up the machine (during boot time) or during normal usage.

How do i fix this problem? I got a recent firmware update for this model fixing issue on the integrated Video Card but no update for this problem....

 

[paul117]

i recently got the kingston hyperx 120gb ssd for my early 2011 MBP and i have the same issue as the O.P. but this issue only started after i updated the firmware on the SSD before then it was working perfect... the ssd works perfect in my PC with a sata 3 controller.

any advice?

 

[patyoung]

Same issue here with early 2009 17" MBP and Crucial m4. It really doesn't happen that often to me, but it is certainly annoying when it does.

 

[lausse]

MacBook2,1 late 08 M4 128GB

Optibayuser here having a working setup with my Macbook 2,4Ghz, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD in HDDslot and a 128GB Crucial M4 in the other (Superdrivebay). It was working til last week when I got freq freezes and the M4 disappeared just when it hang - so I figured it was a power or SSD-issue.

Updated firmware from rev 2 to 4 and got Linkspeed doubled + solved problem. But it was pain in the **** to update... so no big thanks to Crucial if youre a mac user.