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I think my new Intel 320 pooped the bed...[Update]

bozz2006

bozz2006

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Aug 24, 2007
2,530
0
Minnesota
Brought my MBP to the airport asleep. Opened it for security and it woke right up. Got on the plane and opened iTunes for my son to watch a movie. I tired to change the volume and found it to be frozen up, then noticed some of my toolbar icons disappearing (smc fan control, you control tunes). Then it shut down. Tried to restArt and got the flashing question mark folder. Option start showed no suitable start up drive. PRAM reset did nothing... Wonder if the files in my home folder are ok. I had the ssd in optical bay with maxupgrades caddy. Anyone able to diagnose this for me? I assume the ssd just randomly died. Computer and ssd are both about two weeks old.
 
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you could load the restore CD or leopard/SL install disk and see if disk utility sees anything. I suspect bad HD. if you have another mac with firewire you can start the MBP in target firewire (hold T while turning computer on) and connect both computers via firewire cable.

I think your hard drive bit the dust unfortunately.
 
We were at the airport leaving formvacation. Won't be home for a little over a week. So now I have this dead weight to carry aroundnuntil then! Lol. Will try disk utility with install disk when I get home. And I do have another Mac. Unfortunately it's one of the "collector's edition" 2008 aluminum MacBooks with no FireWire.
 
bozz2006 said:
We were at the airport leaving formvacation. Won't be home for a little over a week. So now I have this dead weight to carry aroundnuntil then! Lol. Will try disk utility with install disk when I get home. And I do have another Mac. Unfortunately it's one of the "collector's edition" 2008 aluminum MacBooks with no FireWire.
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$29 for a 10.6 upgrade disc if you're vacationing someplace where you can pick one up. I'd be doing that if it were me, couldn't wait the week :)
 
I think the leopard disc available at stores is 10.6.3 and you need 10.6.6 for 2011 mbp.
 
We are setting.g sail on a Caribbean cruise tomorrow so not Apple store. Lol. I guess the reason I made this tread was just to ask you all if you thought it was he SSD or something else. I'm content to forget about it for a few days and figure it or when we get home
 
bozz2006 said:
We are setting.g sail on a Caribbean cruise tomorrow so not Apple store. Lol. I guess the reason I made this tread was just to ask you all if you thought it was he SSD or something else. I'm content to forget about it for a few days and figure it or when we get home
Click to expand...

It does sound like a disk failure.

Try to enjoy your vacation and worry about this later!
 
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I got home around midnight last night, and just popped the install disk in to see if Disk Utility could repair it.... And I'm thinking the fact that it shows up as unformatted, and with only 8.4MB of capacity means that the SSD is dead! lol

Anyhow, the fact that my home folder resides on a separate disk, which appears fine, should mean that reinstallation when I get the new SSD should be a snap.
 
I guess you just got unlucky :( Intels SSDs are still the most reliable option there is right now. Did you have to X-ray your MBP at the airport-security? Usually there is no problem, but who knows...

Are you getting a replacement from Intel?
 
Yeah, it did go under X-ray but I can't imagine that's what did it. Who knows though. Tomorrow I'll call Intel try and get them to warranty it. I don't anticipate any problems with that process. Just a little inconvenience on my end.
 
Let us know how the warranty process goes. I just ordered my 320 on Friday, should be here this next week.
 
I will. Don't get too freaked out by my experience. I'm pretty sure this is a very isolated incident. I haven't heard from anyone who's had a similar experience with an Intel SSD before. I know they're out there, just not very many of them. No manufacturer can have a 0% failure rate.
 
Yeah it just stinks when you're part of the 0.5% or whatever their failure rate is. I think this thread is the only one I've ever seen where an Intel drive just flat out laid an egg.
 
bozz2006 said:
Yeah, it did go under X-ray but I can't imagine that's what did it. Who knows though. Tomorrow I'll call Intel try and get them to warranty it. I don't anticipate any problems with that process. Just a little inconvenience on my end.
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Wow. Sucks to have it go out on a road trip like you were.
 
Had a little bit of a frustrating and long run-around with Intel this morning. Long story short; since the 320 is still a new product and it takes a couple of months after a product is released before they have any in stock for the warranty department to ship out (don't understand why not, since the two ladies I spoke with said that they don't refurbish SSDs and that they're all brand new), they wouldn't be able to ship me a replacement for about a month. This wasn't acceptable to me, so with more run around, they're working on just giving me a refund. So I guess I'm back in the market to purchase an SSD. Should I go for the 320 again? Maybe the 510? OWC??? Decisions, decisions, decisions.
 
I'd stick to Intel, but thats a personal opinion. The 510 is faster, but also has more issues with the Macbook Pros and is a little more expensive.
Other companies have even more problems, while usually being a little more affordable. Sandforce based SSDs have the big plus of an internal garbage collection, which the Intel ones lack. As other members of this forum have shown, the TRIM hack in Mac OS X cripples the random I/O of the 320. For now, you would be stuck with having to TRIM your drive with an Ubuntu live cd (easy and fast process)

Still, I'd say the 320 would be the most conservative choices, but thats totally up to you.

P.S.: I really don't understand why they have trouble sending you a new one? Where did you order? Here in Germany, all the big stores have them in stock.
 
I don't understand either. But to be clear, it's a warranty issue, and not a return issue. I ordered the drive from Newegg but have been dealing with Intel directly for the warranty. Seems very weird that they wouldn't be able to just send me a replacement.

Anyway, I'm kind of leaning to the 510. I will be using the SSD in the optical bay for the time being (stock HDD doesn't have built in SMS), so I won't be able to utilized SATA3 speeds. But if people are not having any compatibility issues with the 510 I may go for that one.

I'm kind of nervous about how the TRIM hack messes with the randon I/Os though. Somebody mentioned a way to boot from a linux (I think) disc to TRIM the disc sporadically. Maybe I'll check that out.
 
The speed on the SATA3 OCZ and OWC drives are looking very appealing, but man, their power consumption numbers are HIGH!
 
bozz2006 said:
Anyway, I'm kind of leaning to the 510. I will be using the SSD in the optical bay for the time being (stock HDD doesn't have built in SMS), so I won't be able to utilized SATA3 speeds. But if people are not having any compatibility issues with the 510 I may go for that one.

I'm kind of nervous about how the TRIM hack messes with the randon I/Os though. Somebody mentioned a way to boot from a linux (I think) disc to TRIM the disc sporadically. Maybe I'll check that out.
Click to expand...

I ended up with the 510 in my 2011 13" MBP and have not had any problems at all. When the 510 first came out there was a thread here with some users having trouble, but it seemed to dwindle off. Maybe the latest EFI update for the 2011s fixed things? It did make my bootup much faster.

Depending on how you use the machine, you may not notice much difference between the 320 and the 510. It looks like the main difference is higher large file sequential read speeds on the 510.

User JGO posted these intructions for the Linux TRIM operation. I have not tried it yet.
 
Interesting! I've been having problems with the same SSD. First installation was taking so much time. Second, installed ok, but with constant Kernel Panics. Now I can't install Snow Leopard anymore. The installation process fails in the first 5 minutes. I don't know what to do. This is the thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1147764/
 
Bozz>> Check out this thread on the Intel support forums. Although a Windows user, he reports the same 8MB remaining issue you are seeing and mentioned a possible fix. See the last post.
 
That's interesting... I'm not literate with that level of computing. Would I be able to run that program on my apple computer?

Edit: And which drives did you say were able to be firmware updated by the user? Intel and Crucial? I'm just going round and round again on what to do. Get another 320? a 510? A different brand? I'm concerned about TRIM and garbage collection, etc. etc. etc.....
 
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