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New SSD - ONLY 1.5G - PLEASE HELP!

J

jamin100

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 22, 2008
498
0
Hey guys,

Ive installed a Kingston 120GB SSD in the optical bay of my early 2009 24" iMac. The SSD is SATA III but i expected it to work at SATA II speeds.

Anyway, After installing the drive, im only getting SATA I speed.

I have reset the pram and NVRAM

Any Ideas?

This is the drive I have
http://www.kingston.com/en/ssd/vplus#svp200s3
 
Last edited:
Lunfai said:
Please use search:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1371521/

You're Mac will only negotiate the link speed at 1.5G, even though the mac support SATA II speeds. Seems to be a configuration that Apple has enforced on the 2009 models, and I don't think you will be able to reach SATA II.
Click to expand...

Not sure thats whats happening here. That post refers to the 21.5" imac and mine is the 24. Ive seen many videos on youtube with the SSD Drive in the optical bay and them achieving SATA II speeds
 
This is crap

Looks like I'm going to have to take it apart again.

So the plan now is to remove the main hd and put the ssd in there. Will it then utilise the full 3 gigabit speed?

I'll then put a portable hd in the optical bay..
 
For anyone interested I've now resolved this. The ssd I had brought has a sand force controller which has issues with nvidia chipsets.

Changing the ssd to an ocz agility 3 and updating the firmware solved the issue and I'm now running at 3 gigabit :)
 
jamin100 said:
For anyone interested I've now resolved this. The ssd I had brought has a sand force controller which has issues with nvidia chipsets.

Changing the ssd to an ocz agility 3 and updating the firmware solved the issue and I'm now running at 3 gigabit :)
Click to expand...

Do you know if OCZ is the only brand that supports full 3Gigabit speed on the early iMac 2009? I have bought ADATA SSD(some local Taiwan brand) and its only showing 1.5 gigabit speed. What is the read/write speed you are getting on your current OCZ? Thanks
 
enin said:
Do you know if OCZ is the only brand that supports full 3Gigabit speed on the early iMac 2009? I have bought ADATA SSD(some local Taiwan brand) and its only showing 1.5 gigabit speed. What is the read/write speed you are getting on your current OCZ? Thanks
Click to expand...

Its ti do with the controller the SSD uses. Technically its an Intel problem but it doesnt seem like they are going to fix it. However OCZ released a fix to force the drives into 3 Gigabit speeds.

Im not at home now but off the top of my head im getting 150 write and 210 read. wheras when i was at 1.5 gpbs i was getting 100 write, 135 read
 
jamin100 said:
Its ti do with the controller the SSD uses. Technically its an Intel problem but it doesnt seem like they are going to fix it. However OCZ released a fix to force the drives into 3 Gigabit speeds.

Im not at home now but off the top of my head im getting 150 write and 210 read. wheras when i was at 1.5 gpbs i was getting 100 write, 135 read
Click to expand...

I've switch my SSD to the original HDD spot and I was able to get full 3Gbps, so now the problem is whether its the cable that is restricting the SATA2 speed or its the caddy that is only supporting SATA1.
 
enin said:
I've switch my SSD to the original HDD spot and I was able to get full 3Gbps, so now the problem is whether its the cable that is restricting the SATA2 speed or its the caddy that is only supporting SATA1.
Click to expand...

Mine defiantly was the SSD as when I took mine out of the optical slot and into the main HDD slot I was still only getting 1.5Gbps
 
jamin100 said:
Mine defiantly was the SSD as when I took mine out of the optical slot and into the main HDD slot I was still only getting 1.5Gbps
Click to expand...

I've put my SSD and the optical bay on my Lenovo X201 ultradrive. When I check the info, the SSD does perform on SATA2 speed. So that means its iMac that is restricting the speed and its not related to my caddy or my harddisk problem.
 
enin said:
I've put my SSD and the optical bay on my Lenovo X201 ultradrive. When I check the info, the SSD does perform on SATA2 speed. So that means its iMac that is restricting the speed and its not related to my caddy or my harddisk problem.
Click to expand...

Yes but your Lenovo probably has a different chipset. The problem arises with the imac because it uses the Nvidia MCP79 chipset.

See this thread

http://communities.intel.com/thread/28764

The problem is the "bug" which neither Apple / Nvidia / or Intel are seemingly going to fix. This is why i changed my SSD for a OCZ one as they HAVE fixed the issue with a firmware update for the drive
 
jamin100 said:
... Technically its an Intel problem...
Click to expand...

No, technically it's an NVIDIA problem – and one of SSD vendors.

And just to clarify: The problem is between the NVIDIA chipset on the motherboard and the SandForce 2200 series chipset on many SSDs.
With an older firmware the OCZ Agility 3, which sports a SandForce 2200 series chipset, has the same problem. A friend of mine experienced it a few days ago. It's the latest SSD firmware that lets OCZ SATA3 SSDs work at SATA2 speeds with the NVIDIA chipset.
 
I think all the OWC SSD's can also negotiate SATA II speeds with the Nvidia chipsets.
 
Here's the deal:

If you have an nvidia ata chipset and pair it with a 6g (sata iii) sand force 2200 ssd in a computer that only supports 3G (Sata ii) it will only run at 1.5g (Sata I). The two workarounds are to get a different ssd that is not sand force or get a sand force 2200 3G drive. Done.
 
jbg232 said:
Here's the deal:

If you have an nvidia ata chipset and pair it with a 6g (sata iii) sand force 2200 ssd in a computer that only supports 3G (Sata ii) it will only run at 1.5g (Sata I). The two workarounds are to get a different ssd that is not sand force or get a sand force 2200 3G drive. Done.
Click to expand...

Not entirely correct. Via the OCZ's firmware upgrade page you can find a patch that'll make your 6G OCZ SSD be recognized as a 3G SSD and work at that speed with the nvidia chipset.
 
looks like I will need to buy ocz agility 3 to get the SATA2 speed out of the iMac, do you all think its worth selling the existing SSD and get the ocz agility 3 to boost up the speed from SATA1 to SATA2?
 
Negotiated link speed 1.5Gb

I think that I have resolved the 1.5Gb/s problem. The HDD caddy I installed was keeping the speed down. I removed the caddy and connected the SSD data cable directly to the motherboard using a SATA cable. I bought a SATA power splitter and used it to power both the HDD and the SSD. Voilà!. Both drives linking at 3Gb/s.
 
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