ssd under Yosemite in Mac Pro 4,1

[Apple Corps]

As of today, 6.6.15, is there any better explanation as to why some of us continue to experience issues with SSD under Yosemite? I can only get the drive - Crucial MX200 - to mount intermittently and then, in disk utility, a banner pops up saying the disk is locked. The same drive will work in my Akitio external enclosure (Thunderbolt - iMac) but will not allow a change in partition size / number. But it does mount and reads and writes.

Is there some bad Ju Ju with an SSD / Yosemite / Mac Pro 4,1?

 

[pastrychef]

I have used Crucial M4, M500, and M550 SSDs in my Mac Pro 5,1. All have performed very well and I never had any issues with any of them. I used them as startup drives with OS X on it.

The M550 was installed in my Mac Pro 5,1 with Yosemite for months before I switched to one of the blade type SSDs like those used in the cylindrical Mac Pros. My old M4 is still in use in my old MacBook and the M550 has since moved to my Mac mini. They continue to perform flawlessly and both are running Yosemite. I have never encountered any mounting issues or messages saying the disk is locked.

Do you have TRIM enabled? Do you put the system and/or the drives to sleep often? In some situations, if you set your energy saver preferences too aggressively, it's possible to prevent the internal garbage collection to do its magic. Enabling TRIM can help keep the SSD healthy.

 

[Apple Corps]

pastrychef:

TRIM not enabled
Sleep settings = never

The drive rarely shows up (not mounting) and the two times it did I was unable to format or partition it - got the disk locked message.

My 4,1 continues to work perfectly except for this SSD issue. I wonder is the IcyDock adapter for my Mac Pro may be an issue?

 

[pastrychef]

Ah. You might be right. I used an Icy Dock when I first started using an SSD and the first one that was shipped to me was defective and the drive never mounted.

I feel the following is a much better solution than the Icy Dock:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MMP35T25/

 

[Apple Corps]

pastrychef,

thanks for the link - I will probably order one of those as the Icy Dock looks kind of "kludgy" - too much metal and a hinged door drive seating mechanism that looks questionable.

However, by hook n crook, I got it working:

Well, lo and behold, I tried the new Crucial drives in my iMac (external enclosure) - they mounted, were already properly formatted, and swapped them back into my Mac Pro - Bingo - mounted and ready to go All under Yosemite 10.10.3

Many times I am reduced to just trying things with little idea of how these things really work.

 

[JaguarGod]

pastrychef,

thanks for the link - I will probably order one of those as the Icy Dock looks kind of "kludgy" - too much metal and a hinged door drive seating mechanism that looks questionable.

However, by hook n crook, I got it working:

"
Well, lo and behold, I tried the new Crucial drives in my iMac (external enclosure) - they mounted, were already properly formatted, and swapped them into my Mac Pro - Bingo - mounted and ready to go All under Yosemite 10.10.3

Many times I am reduced to just trying things with little idea of how these things really work."

As long as they work! Good to hear it's working for you.

 

[pastrychef]

Good to hear that the SSD is working.