2 OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs...2 lemons!

[OrangeGuutan]

I'm just wondering if I'm horribly unlucky or if OWC is having some sort of manufacturing problem or something with their Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs. I received my first lemon on March 4th, RMA'd it, and received my second lemon yesterday, March 11th!

Both SSDs would mount and partition, but refuse to transfer even the smallest of files, let alone large files or synthetic benchmarks. Also, both could not install OS X 10.6 when plugged in to an external firewire enclosure or directly to my mid-2009 13" MacBook Pro.

I know lots of people love their Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs, but I'm having a hard time not just asking OWC for a refund and getting an Intel or OCZ Vertex 3. Any suggestions?

 

[vincenz]

Third time's a charm.

 

[Technologist]

I'm just wondering if I'm horribly unlucky or if OWC is having some sort of manufacturing problem or something with their Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs. I received my first lemon on March 4th, RMA'd it, and received my second lemon yesterday, March 11th!

Both SSDs would mount and partition, but refuse to transfer even the smallest of files, let alone large files or synthetic benchmarks. Also, both could not install OS X 10.6 when plugged in to an external firewire enclosure or directly to my mid-2009 13" MacBook Pro.

I know lots of people love their Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs, but I'm having a hard time not just asking OWC for a refund and getting an Intel or OCZ Vertex 3. Any suggestions?

I'll give you my top 4 reasons:


1. End user has read numerous online Reviews. Those reviews show that the soon to be released $499MSRP Vertex 3 with 550MB/s Reads, 525MB/s writes. A SSD that already saturates a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, and 60000 IOPS completely smokes the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs.

2. User Error.

3. Hardware Compatibility

4. Two defective units. <---- Very doubtful.


Unfortunately you won't see much gain with your 2009 Macbook with the Vertex 3. You really need a 6Gbps interface and preferability a Sandy Bridge chipset.

 

[OrangeGuutan]

I'll give you my top 4 reasons:


1. End user has read numerous online Reviews. Those reviews show that the soon to be released $499MSRP Vertex 3 with 550MB/s Reads, 525MB/s writes. A SSD that already saturates a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, and 60000 IOPS completely smokes the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs.

2. User Error.

3. Hardware Compatibility

4. Two defective units. <---- Very doubtful.


Unfortunately you won't see much gain with your 2009 Macbook with the Vertex 3. You really need a 6Gbps interface and preferability a Sandy Bridge chipset.

1. I understand that newer SSDs will saturate SATA III, let alone SATA II, hence why I originally decided to go with the older but "more reliable" OWC Mercury Extreme Pro.

2. What user error could I have made? I plugged it in to both an external firewire enclosure and the internal SATA of my MacBook Pro. This is actually a real question. If there is anything that I could be doing to prevent the OWC SSD from working, let me know!!!

3. A mid-2009 MacBook Pro has a SATA II port...it should be compatible with this SSD.

4. Agreed, but doubtful does not equal impossible.

 

[OrangeGuutan]

Just as a follow-up for anyone who might find this thread via Google or elsewhere, here's what happened.

OWC originally sent me a bad drive. I sent it back, and they reflashed it thinking that would be a fix. They then sent me the reflashed SSD, but unfortunately, it was still non-functional. OWC is currently sending me a brand new Mercury Extreme Pro, and fingers crossed, that one will work