2011 Macbook Pro 13 - many beachballs with 510 SSD

desantii · Mar 7, 2011

This is the first time I use an SSD on a Mac (my Imac has a regulard hdd). I installed an Intel 510 SSD and am getting random 30+ second beachballs, sometimes when opening safari or firefox, system profiler, etc. When I get no beachballs its uper fast but its very aggravating... I turned off the allow HDD to sleep, turned off the sms and same issue.

Ironically, I have a windows 7 bootcamp partition and it works great under win7, so lockups.

Is there any special setting for an SSD OSX?

thanks

1BadMac · Mar 7, 2011

Did you disable Sudden Motion Sensor? Try an SMC reset (after you reloaded OS)?

Anything in the Console being logged? Any process running hot when beachballing?

desantii · Mar 7, 2011

I did turn off SMS and did a reset... even getting the beach ball with fresh install. Activity Monitor is frozen while it is beach balling

1BadMac said:
Did you disable Sudden Motion Sensor? Try an SMC reset (after you reloaded OS)?

Anything in the Console being logged? Any process running hot when beachballing?

1BadMac · Mar 7, 2011

desantii said:
I did turn off SMS and did a reset... even getting the beach ball with fresh install. Activity Monitor is frozen while it is beach balling

So you did the SMC reset BEFORE the fresh OS install?

desantii · Mar 7, 2011

I did both, before and after to try to see if there was any change. I am getting beachballs randomly, like when opening the profiler, clicking on downloads, etc

applefanDrew · Mar 7, 2011

I had a similar problem where the machine wouldn't even boot on the ssd. I just reset the PRAM and all has been good since.

desantii · Mar 7, 2011

Just did a PMRAM reset, same issue continues.

As an example, turned teh machine on, launched Safari, no issues

Launched firefox... no issues

Launched activity monitor ... beachball

went to safari, typed in a url, pressed enter .. beachball

DustinT · Mar 7, 2011

desantii said:
Just did a PMRAM reset, same issue continues.

As an example, turned teh machine on, launched Safari, no issues

Launched firefox... no issues

Launched activity monitor ... beachball

went to safari, typed in a url, pressed enter .. beachball

I'd email anand.shimpi@anandtech.com and explain whats happening.

desantii · Mar 7, 2011

Just sent him an email. I will also borrow a 120gb G2 intel to test if it happens there

axu539 · Mar 7, 2011

I've heard the MBP does not play nice with the Crucial SATA III SSDs either. It might have to do with SATA III compatibility and not the SSD itself.

yno · Mar 8, 2011

Just got my new MBP 17 and installed a 510 250 gig this weekend. Loads of trouble. In the end I could not even get the osx installation to go through. And in my frustration I ended up installing windows 7. That worked fine, although taking for ever to install. When it finally was finished it did not work at SATA6 link speeds and would all the sudden hang for 20-30 seconds before working again.

There is something wrong with the MBP intel 510 combo, and if anyone has figured what needs to be done I´m eager for some input.

mrxad81 · Mar 8, 2011

Can anybody confirm these problems with the new mbp and the intel 510.
I will recieve my one tomorrow.

ilkevinli · Mar 8, 2011

Ive been running a C300 for the last 5 days without any issues.

axu539 said:
I've heard the MBP does not play nice with the Crucial SATA III SSDs either. It might have to do with SATA III compatibility and not the SSD itself.

stephens · Mar 8, 2011

No issues my end with a 2011 MBP 15" and Intel 510 250gb SSD.

Just needed to do an SMC reset to boost the speed to 6 Gigabit.

ImaITGuy · Mar 8, 2011

axu539 said:
I've heard the MBP does not play nice with the Crucial SATA III SSDs either. It might have to do with SATA III compatibility and not the SSD itself.

Have had mine in over a week and its super fast without any hiccups at all

Crucial C300 64GB SSD Sata 3

hystery · Mar 8, 2011

ImaITGuy said:
Have had mine in over a week and its super fast without any hiccups at all

Crucial C300 64GB SSD Sata 3

Cool to hear that, I was thinking about getting one with 2011 model. Does it work with the connection speed 6G?

CompanionCube · Mar 8, 2011

After reading about troubles with the C300 I knew it would be best to stay away from the 510s (and most likely the Vertex 3) for a few months. It's most likely a firmware issue which is not going to go away. I opted for a G2 X25-m and it's been flawless and blazingly fast in my 2011.

I'm sure it will take an Intel firmware update to fix this.

MacRS4 · Mar 8, 2011

hystery said:
Cool to hear that, I was thinking about getting one with 2011 model. Does it work with the connection speed 6G?

C300 here - works fine at SATA III speeds. See: http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2011/3/3_2011_Macbook_Pro_and_SATA_III_6Gbps.html

hystery · Mar 8, 2011

MacRS4 said:
C300 here - works fine at SATA III speeds. See: http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2011/3/3_2011_Macbook_Pro_and_SATA_III_6Gbps.html

Amazing scores for laptop. A bit dissapointing is memory score, I wonder what is being bottleneck. Do you feel the difference (if you've had used SATAII before and upgraded to SATAIII) in practical situation?

MacRS4 · Mar 9, 2011

To be fair I had a Vertex2E in it previously - have I noticed the difference? Not massively, no.

Saving snapshots on VMs is notably quicker, that's about it really.

Weaselboy · Mar 9, 2011

Just installed a 120GB Intel 510 SSD in my 2011 13" MBP and it is working perfectly.

I removed the OEM HD and installed the new SSD then did a SMC reset and booted from the OEM HD in a USB enclosure. Then ran Disk Util and partitioned the SSD and used Carbon Copy Cloner to move everything to the SSD. I shutdown and disconnected the USB drive and started off the SSD. Went to System Profile and the SSD is linked at SATAIII 6gbps. I set the new SSD as the Startup Disk then started again. Everything seems to work just fine.

Posted below are the XBench scores on the SSD.

Code:

Disk Test	336.16	
		Sequential	214.06	
			Uncached Write	199.20	122.31 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	320.29	181.22 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	112.53	32.93 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	603.17	303.15 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	782.48	
			Uncached Write	601.20	63.64 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	514.06	164.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	2091.92	14.82 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	975.34	180.98 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Here is a link to the XBench score if you want to use it to compare to other systems.

I disabled the sudden motion sensor just because it appealed to the OCD part of me, but I was not having any problems with it enabled.

I set the machine to sleep after one minute and let it go to sleep on its own. Hit the space bar and it woke right up no problems. So apparently no sleep crash bug.

Overall I am quite happy with the IntelSSD install. From the test results, there are probably SATAII drives that cost less and will give close to the same test results (and probably no perceivable difference in actual use), but based on all the good reports from users of Intels previous SSD lines I figured it was worth a little extra money to have a stable system. Also, the fact that Intel provides a boot CD that works for Mac firmware upgrades appealed to me. I had a OWC SSD in my 2008 MBP that worked fine except the sleep bug and it bothered me Sandforce has still not fixed this nor have they or OWC provided a Mac solution for firmware upgrades.

MacRS4 · Mar 9, 2011

That is a SATA II speed index, not a SATA III. I get about 320 with my SATA II based Vertex 2E.

Even my mid stream C300 SATA III device is reporting way over 400:

Yours may be operationally fine, but the performance isn't what it should be.

You sure it's negotiated a 6Gbps connection?

Like this:

if they were the stats I was getting out of a SATA III 510 I'd be gutted.

MacRS4 · Mar 9, 2011

By way of comparison - specs on the 120Gb 510:

Specs on the C300:

See my point?

Good scores and it's still proper fast - but not what the specs say?

Weaselboy · Mar 9, 2011

MacRS4 said:
You sure it's negotiated a 6Gbps connection.

I am well aware of how to tell it is connected at SATAIII as I explained in my post.

Weaselboy · Mar 9, 2011

MacRS4 said:
By way of comparison - specs on the 120Gb 510:

Specs on the C300:

See my point?

Good scores and it's still proper fast - but not what the specs say?

Intel is using Iometer with 512KB blocks (I assume under Windows) to show that speed. I don't think you will see a one to one correlation to a 256K block test using XBench. Comparing XBench to XBench scores is a valid comparison though.

Intel specs the 3Gb/s (SATAII) speed for sequential read at 265 MB/s, again using Iometer 512KB blocks, and the XBench score on mine is exceeding that at 303 MB/s, so that should tell you it is working at SATAIII.

If you read the Anand review on the Intel 510 you will see Intel for whatever reason put the emphasis on sequential read and comparing the XBench scores shows that.

2011 Macbook Pro 13 - many beachballs with 510 SSD

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