SATA issue after 10.6.3 update

[fernando.kreutz]

Hi all, after the 10.6.3 update i made today, my sata link speed was downgraded to 1.5gb/s of it's 3gb/s before it.

a print screen to prove it:



So, i was wondering if anyone alse got this problem after the update. My laptop is the one listed in my signature.

[Labaguette]

i guess this is related to your rather old hard disk, because the adapter supports 3GBit even in your screenshot, just the HD can not uplink that fast...

mine works fine:

[reallynotnick]

It's kind of a moot point being that you are running an HDD that will never saturate a SATA 1.5 connection. Plus it's just "negotiated speed" which means the HDD is probably a 1.5 drive, again nothing to sweat about.

[runtohell121]

I notice my MBP 13" boots up 6 second slower than before after the update (21 second now, used to be 15 second)

[coryndiego]

Mine was altered to 1.5 too. What does this mean? Negotiated?

[fernando.kreutz]

Well, as you could see in my signature, my laptop is the last macbook pro 15 inch model, so it doesnt featuyre an old hard drive. This is a Toshiba harddrive, and i already checked it's specs, and it runs natively on sata 3gb/s.

About the negotiated link speed, is the feature that alows new sata 2 (3gb/s) harddrives to be installed in old chipsets that only supports sata 1
(1.5gb/s)


So, as i'm not the only one with this issue, it is a bug in this last update.

[Labaguette]

maybe it's an issue related to hard drives installed originally by apple?

[fernando.kreutz]

Originally Posted by Labaguette

maybe it's an issue related to hard drives installed originally by apple?

maybe, because my harddrive is the default one

[Labaguette]

coryndiego's 160GB Hitachi Drive is also the stock one installed in his 13" MBP... and he has the same issue.

[Ice Dragon]

Originally Posted by runtohell121

I notice my MBP 13" boots up 6 second slower than before after the update (21 second now, used to be 15 second)

Maybe Intel needs to do an update to work with things?

Plus is it generally a good idea to update right to a new version? I'm not so sure.

[fernando.kreutz]

Originally Posted by Ice Dragon

Maybe Intel needs to do an update to work with things?

Plus is it generally a good idea to update right to a new version? I'm not so sure.

men, he related the difference int boot up time because the hdd link speed was reduced with this update, as i reported. I just checked system profiler after the update because i've imediatly noticed it was slower than normal.

[Stepint0sh]

I have two drives in my MBP (one instead of my SuperDrive)

One Intel X-25M Intel Postville SSD 160 GB and one 320 GB 7200 Seagate (default Apple).

The SSD which I bought later is at full 3 Gbit speeds and the 320 GB with 7200 rpm is at a negotiated speed of 1.5. I think the 320 GB just doesn't reach the speeds!

[coryndiego]

Originally Posted by coryndiego

Mine was altered to 1.5 too. What does this mean? Negotiated?

I just got off the phone with Apple Support..

The "Negotiated Link Speed" has been added to give a TRUE speed of that the hard drive is communicating. The 3 Gigabit listed is the maximum and not the actual. I was more concerned that it might have crippled the speed and that would have sucked as I'm about to upgrade my HDD.

So, I guess there is no concern just more accurate information.

[fernando.kreutz]

Originally Posted by coryndiego

I just got off the phone with Apple Support..

The "Negotiated Link Speed" has been added to give a TRUE speed of that the hard drive is communicating. The 3 Gigabit listed is the maximum and not the actual. I was more concerned that it might have crippled the speed and that would have sucked as I'm about to upgrade my HDD.

So, I guess there is no concern just more accurate information.

Yes, there are reasons to be concerned, since it is a native sata 2 device and is being used as a sata 1. It is not right, it is not fair.
After the update i felt that it is slower than before, caused by this issue.
If anyone is not convinced about what i'm talking, take a look on the toshiba's website with the harddrive specs
link to toshiba's spec website: http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Pat...Kxx55GSXSeries

[runtohell121]

I do understand what you mean and I wish Apple would fix it. I'm using an Intel X25-M G2 80GB SSD. 15 second boot up and click on safari was the best. Everything was usable after the boot up in 15 second. Now it slowed down to 21 second after the update... But other than boot up, I didn't notice any other performance decrease.

[vant]

I'm also noticing slower bootups.

[coryndiego]

Originally Posted by vant

I'm also noticing slower bootups.

Yeah, it is much slower... I only saw the black spinner for a sec or two before and now it spins for 6 or 7 secs. bummer!
Safari was a bit slower to load too the graphics were there in a flash and now there's load time... I don't get it.

[Takashi]

So does that mean we should not update our macs?

[mmdc]

Slower startup after the update here as well. I am using an Intel X25-M G2 80GB SSD in a MB991LL/A.

Startup used to only take 1-2 rotations of the "cog" and after the update, it takes about 10.

Trying a couple things like repairing disk permissions, resetting PRAM... Will report back, and hopefully startup time goes back to normal!

[wallace0134]

I am going to go with the theory that it is not 10.6.3 limiting the speed, but you are just now finding out the true speed.

The Hitachi drives Apple use have model names ending in "SAxx", which means they are set to run in SATA 1.5 Gbps mode (source: Hitachi web site, legend for model names). Only if the drives' model names ended in "A3xx" would they be for 3 Gbps mode. That's why those drives are shown as having a negotiated link of 1.5 Gbps; the hardware/firmware of the drive is limited to such.

Also, for the non-Hitachi drives, note that it has been speculated before (and somewhat supported) that Apple has the hard drive manufacturers do a special firmware for the hard drives it uses in the computers for various purposes, and this may include limiting drives to 1.5 Gbps. [Speculation of this was even more well-supported when users of the mid-2009 13" and 15" MBP upgraded to EFI 1.7, and had troubles with new drives running at 3 Gbps but not when those drives were artificially limited to 1.5 Gbps, or when using Apple-shipping drives reported to run at 1.5 Gbps when chucked into another system.] So it is entirely plausible that your drives won't negotiate a link of faster than 1.5 Gbps in any system by firmware restraint at Apple's request.

For the non-Apple drive users where the drive should link at 3 Gbps, please check if it is so on your system. The screenshots so far have been of Apple-shipping drives, and comments about non-Apple drives have not included actual link speed but focused more on the tangible performance during system and program start-up.

I'd hope that a permissions repair, a good Carbon Copy Clone/"defragment" (files can still get scattered across the drive with HFS in OS X, after all, as some failed Bootcamp attempts show), a proper cache cleaning, the standby fix-all SMC/PRAM reset, or a few days' patience applied to this update irons any issues out.

[newdeal]

Originally Posted by mmdc

Slower startup after the update here as well. I am using an Intel X25-M G2 80GB SSD in a MB991LL/A.

Startup used to only take 1-2 rotations of the "cog" and after the update, it takes about 10.

Trying a couple things like repairing disk permissions, resetting PRAM... Will report back, and hopefully startup time goes back to normal!

I had the exact same issue with my OWC SSD, used to be a 16 second boot from the time I pressed the power button and then after teh update it went to 26 seconds. I tried everything including reseting the SMC, repairing permissions, running all the onyx automator scripts. The thing that brought back my boot speed was to run cleanmymac and delete all the application caches (I left the safari cache because I don't like having to reload my top sites). After cleaning the caches the boot time is back to where it was

[neteng101]

Late '08 2.53 MB471 with no issues - Hitachi 7K500 and under 45 seconds to boot from power button to login screen.

[fernando.kreutz]

at this point i dont know what happend. I just know that it is slower specially in boot up and it is showing 1.5 gbps speed. Ill check on windows.

[runtohell121]

I think someone should contact Apple about this problem o.o... I hate my 22 second boot up time now =/.. I love my old 15 second boot up before this update.

[coryndiego]

Originally Posted by runtohell121

I think someone should contact Apple about this problem o.o... I hate my 22 second boot up time now =/.. I love my old 15 second boot up before this update.

I called and completely stumped the support guy who answered. After 20 minutes of questions he put me on hold for 5 minutes to talk to a senior support tech... then he told me what I wrote above. I would like to read about another call to Apple. Anyone?