13" Mbp Only 1.5gb Sata ? - SOLVED!!!!!!!!!

[1984]

Just got my 2.53 13 umbp bto today with the 256 ssd and I was shocked to see that its sata I 1.5mbps. I had no idea of this issue and in googling it I found this thread. VERY DISAPPOINTED to say the least. Ive been waiting on the 13(well 12 really) since my 12 powerbook and have been using this big 15 ever since waiting patiently for the update. Now that its here I feel gyped. $800 bucks down the drain is what Im thinking to myself right now. I was a long time lurker here a while back and I had a few posts, Im sad that I didnt see this issue sooner. I mean yea its fast but I want this thing to last 5 years and not be worthless because the next gen ssd's will be choked out with a sata I. I havent done the research on it yet but CAN I even return this thing because its a build to order? Might have to cut my throat and put it on sleezebay for a 500 loss. What a let down.

Can you check to see what SSD it shipped with? I'm curious as to what Apple is using now. Thanks.

 

[Ruahrc]

Engadget has picked it up:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/15/new-macbook-pros-shipped-with-hdds-only-have-1-5gbps-sata-chips/

And I can see where they got it wrong claiming that BTO SSDs will ship with 3.0GBps enabled. There is NO PROOF that this will happen, and in fact people who are starting to receive their BTO SSD MBPs are realizing that they too are limited to 1.5GBps. It just makes absolutely no sense to me why people would think that this would be the case. It just shows a complete lack of common sense for someone to believe this.

Ruahrc

 

[iomatic]

And it won't be answered until MORE people bitch about it and it gets even more coverage, even beyond MacNN, 9to5Mac, here, Digg, and Gizmodo. The more bitching that is done, the more implied pressure it put on Apple to pull their heads out of their asses & stop hamstringing the machines for the sake of price/battery life.

No, please don't take my question out of context. The question I have is what real-world scenario is shown that this so-called downgrade is effectively hamstringing anyone's productivity?

I'm not sure how all the coverage is going to explain what you are clearly guessing at (Apple having craniums in rectums, machine "hamstringing", and for price/battery).

 

[fehhkk]

just forward a post of AHCI 1.2 manual from another post
http://download.intel.com/technology/serialata/pdf/rev1_2.pdf

on page 15 xlii found there is a register which can swith between sata speed

Interface Speed Support (ISS): Indicates the maximum speed the HBA can support
on its ports. These encodings match the system software programmable
PxSCTL.DET.SPD field. Values are:
Bits Definition
0000 Reserved
0001 Gen 1 (1.5 Gbps)
0010 Gen 2 (3 Gbps)
0011 Gen 3 (6 Gbps)
0100 - 1111 Reserved

if you do a search through the doc with keyword "speed" you can find there are several place need to be change.
anyone know how to mod the bios?

I hope the NVIDIA MCP79 AHCI controller can also do this, I can't see why not. Seems to me from readnig specs of the MCP79, that it is 3.0Gbps compatible. This could be solved by a firmware upgrade...

 

[mrrippey]

I'm confused-- will I benefit from upgrading to a 7200 RPM hard drive (not SSD) or will it be a waste of money and should i get a 5400 RPM?

you can get a 7200 RPM, it starts to be a 'waste' if you want to call it that with some of the faster SSD's out there like Vertex and definitly Intel SSD's

I still plan on getting an SSD with my 13" uMBP when it comes in later this week, maybe the new Corsair or G.Skill

 

[bcaslis]

And I can see where they got it wrong claiming that BTO SSDs will ship with 3.0GBps enabled. There is NO PROOF that this will happen, and in fact people who are starting to receive their BTO SSD MBPs are realizing that they too are limited to 1.5GBps. It just makes absolutely no sense to me why people would think that this would be the case. It just shows a complete lack of common sense for someone to believe this.

Ruahrc

Here, here! Why do we keep seeing this nonsense repeated? We have certainly seen BTO SSDs ship with 1.5Gb. Nobody has produced one BTO SSD with 3Gb yet.

 

[jicon]

There's gotta be a reason why Apple haven't paid money to enable SATA 2.

They did something similar with the first Mac Mini. Video thru DVI-D would flake out at 1600x1200 on a lot of monitors, either due to underpowering the discrete video chip (cut heat) -technical reason, or not paying ATI money for the updated firmware for the chip which fixed a similar issue (cost) - financial reason. Apple negotiates with vendors on which features they want to enable on a chip, allowing them to cut costs.

 

[1984]

I agree. There's also the fact that Apple uses SSDs that don't come close to saturating SATA 1.5 Gb/s even in the best circumstances, so there's no reason to use SATA 3 Gb/s short of upgradeability.

Which SSD's is Apple using currently?

 

[Dwalls90]

Which SSD's is Apple using currently?

I believe Intel or Toshiba, there's another thread discussing that which is quite recent.

 

[kidtronix]

Toshiba or Samsung.

 

[marold280]

Right, im on a white macbook atm. Which has 1.5 sata.
im going to upgrade to an 13 inch macbook pro.
I is there that much difference in speed ?
Hard drive wise

 

[aleksandra.]

oh yea of course I should read more because after 3 years learning computer architectures and now going for PhD I am clueless... Perhaps you should cut down on the koolaid. There is a reason EFI is not popular.

You managed to sound quite ignorant for someone with this sort of background.

 

[sam10685]

you can get a 7200 RPM, it starts to be a 'waste' if you want to call it that with some of the faster SSD's out there like Vertex and definitly Intel SSD's

I still plan on getting an SSD with my 13" uMBP when it comes in later this week, maybe the new Corsair or G.Skill

cool... Noob question but I won't have any issue installing a drive built for 3 Gb/s will I? Same size conector? Computer will only recognize 1.5 Gb/s?

 

[mrrippey]

cool... Noob question but I won't have any issue installing a drive built for 3 Gb/s will I? Same size conector? Computer will only recognize 1.5 Gb/s?

No issue except if you got say an Intel SSD which are very fast, it will cap out at 1.5Gbit xfer rate, everything else is the same, connector, how to install, etc.

 

[miula]

I purchased a new MBP 13" 2.53 Ghz and I have a Corsair P256 256gb SSD that I was planning on installing on it.

My question is, will it still be faster than with the 250gb HD or am I just wasting the SSD by installing it on a notebook capped at 1.5 Gbps?

 

[gødspeed]

Has a verdict been reached on 6/09 17" uMBPs with 7200rpm drives? 1.5 or 3.0 SATA? Mine should arrive Wednesday, and I'm wondering what to expect.

 

[jeme]

I am surprised that we have not heard from Apple yet on this issue - not a fix but at least some type of communication? Of course this is my first mac - so I am not familiair with how they have communicated in the past?

 

[mmoran27]

I just got my 17 3.06 mbp and it has sata 2 at 3.0 Gigabit

Just FYI.

 

[jeme]

Correct - there was no change on the 17inch regarding the sata interface - this just effects the new 13 inch and 15 inch new MBP unibody with the SD card readers.

 

[zsnow]

Just FYI.

thanks for the share. We are expecting an 15' uMBP with SSD BTO reports has 3.0Gb.I don't think it's possible though.
we all know 17' uMBP wasn't affected by this upgrade.

 

[mrrippey]

I purchased a new MBP 13" 2.53 Ghz and I have a Corsair P256 256gb SSD that I was planning on installing on it.

My question is, will it still be faster than with the 250gb HD or am I just wasting the SSD by installing it on a notebook capped at 1.5 Gbps?

It will be better than the HDD but maybe not the fastest that it really can be (due to the bottleneck).

Has a verdict been reached on 6/09 17" uMBPs with 7200rpm drives? 1.5 or 3.0 SATA? Mine should arrive Wednesday, and I'm wondering what to expect.

There was a mention of someone with a 17" that got 3.0gbit SATA 2 so maybe you will be lucky.

 

[jazz1]

Here's what I think:

ALL New 13" MBP's have the 1.5 GB/s hard drive transfer rate

ALL New 15" MBP's with a mechanical hard drive, have the 1.5 GB/s transfer rate
ALL New 15" MBP's with a solid state disk, have the 3.0 GB/s transfer rate

ALL New 17" MBP's have the 3.0 Gb/S hard drive transfer rate

If this is the case those who order with a mechanical HD need to have a way to adjust this if they upgrade to an SSD later. I hope that this eventually turns out to be the case. I suppose throttling it back makes sense, but SSD's are really starting to be less and less "bleeding edge" in capacity and price. Not there yet, but my guess is in a year or two you might want to be able to slap in an SSD in the 1.5 throttled MBP and get the full benefit of an SSD.

 

[Icaras]

Anandtech Article

Sorry if someone just posted this. Too lazy to to skim through the past pages, but Anandtech has finally caught up on the issue:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3582&p=2

 

[mrrippey]

Sorry if someone just posted this. Too lazy to to skim through the past pages, but Anandtech has finally caught up on the issue:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3582&p=2

Excerpt from this article which people should understand:

"All three of the SSDs in the table above would be interface limited on the new MBP because of their high sequential read speeds. If you were copying large files from the SSD in your MacBook to a similarly fast device, the transfers could take longer. I doubt the performance difference would be significant or noticeable in real world notebook usage, but it doesn’t change that there’s no reason to take a step backwards like that. In the coming years we’ll see more drives that can consistently break 150MB/s; Apple artificially limiting performance today would just hinder progress. "

 

[angemon89]

Wow, this thread is already at 1000 posts!