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Tenashus1

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2011
501
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I just upgraded my mid 2009 13" MBP 2.26 ghz with a 250gb Kingston Hyper 3k SSD. Blackmagic shows 109 write and 138 read, but it seems to function much quicker than the hard drive it replaced. I'm wondering why the read/write numbers are so low. Shouldn't they be in the low 200s. Plus, this is supposed to be a pretty speedy SSD at 6gb. Any ideas? Thanks.
 
I just upgraded my mid 2009 13" MBP 2.26 ghz with a 250gb Kingston Hyper 3k SSD. Blackmagic shows 109 write and 138 read, but it seems to function much quicker than the hard drive it replaced. I'm wondering why the read/write numbers are so low. Shouldn't they be in the low 200s. Plus, this is supposed to be a pretty speedy SSD at 6gb. Any ideas? Thanks.

I'm pretty sure the 2009 only supports 3gbps so the ssd is running at that speed
 
You can use the following applications to benchmark the speed of your SSD:

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test compresses its data, thus you might get slower reported speeds.
The fast speeds you experience are not the sequential read and write speeds you can benchmark, but the low latency (finding and opening a file or application).

Your 2009 MBP has an S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) interface, thus any S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) SSD will be limited to S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II). I have a 2009 MBP with an S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) SSD and it performs quite well with 190 to 220 MB/s read and write speeds, which I rarely need though, as the latency is more important.
 
I'm pretty sure the 2009 only supports 3gbps so the ssd is running at that speed

Yes, but even so, I would have thought it would have speed tested a bit higher. Despite the low numbers, the computer does seem to have a lot more zip. That's not evident from the numbers though.

----------

You can use the following applications to benchmark the speed of your SSD:

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test compresses its data, thus you might get slower reported speeds.
The fast speeds you experience are not the sequential read and write speeds you can benchmark, but the low latency (finding and opening a file or application).

Your 2009 MBP has an S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) interface, thus any S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) SSD will be limited to S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II). I have a 2009 MBP with an S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) SSD and it performs quite well with 190 to 220 MB/s read and write speeds, which I rarely need though, as the latency is more important.

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks. :)
 
It sounds to me like your drive negotiated its link speed with the system as SATA1, because the speeds you're seeing are more in line with that spec.

When drives end up negotiating at that spec, it's usually caused by some form incompatibility with the drive's firmware, and the system in which the drive is installed.

I would check with Kingston to see if there's a newer firmware release for your drive.
 
It sounds to me like your drive negotiated its link speed with the system as SATA1, because the speeds you're seeing are more in line with that spec.

When drives end up negotiating at that spec, it's usually caused by some form incompatibility with the drive's firmware, and the system in which the drive is installed.

I would check with Kingston to see if there's a newer firmware release for your drive.

Yes, I did thanks. There is none for Mac. You might be right about that though. My negotiated link speed is 1.5.

One reason I purchased this SSD was the great reviews I had seen -especially one on Amazon by someone with the same MBP getting read/ write speeds in the high 200s. Should have stayed with M4 rather than experimenting. Got an M4 for my 2012 MBP and it well does the trick. Variety is not always the spice of life. Going to return this SSD to Amazon for an M4.
 
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Yes, I did thanks. There is none for Mac. You might be right about that though. My negotiated link speed is 1.5.

One reason I purchased this SSD was the great reviews I had seen -especially one on Amazon by someone with the same MBP getting read/ write speeds in the high 200s. Should have stayed with M4 rather than experimenting. Got an M4 for my 2012 MBP and it well does the trick. Variety is not always the spice of life. Going to return this SSD to Amazon for an M4.

What EFI firmware version are you running on your Mac? The most recent firmware is 1.7 and it addresses SATA speed issues.

http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacBook_Pro_EFI_Firmware_Update_1_7_

That being said, I'm running a Crucial M4 in my mid 2009 and it works great.
 
Thanks for the help. Tried the EFI update but got an alert saying the computer didn't need it. Upgrading the OSX to ML so I can use File Vault II to securely erase the Kingston, and send it back to Amazon for an M4. Thanks again.
 
Some Sandforce chipset SSDs like the Kingston HyperX will be stuck at SATA 1 speeds with the 2009 Macbook/Pro.
 
Hi everyone!

I also have Macbook Pro 13" early 2011 with core i5 and 8Gb memory.

Few days ago I installed kingston ssd v300 and test it by Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. My results is 137 mb/s write and 174 mb/s read.

Does this results are normal? I have a 6 GB/s (SATA III) connection and expected much more speed.

Thanks!
 
Hi everyone!

I also have Macbook Pro 13" early 2011 with core i5 and 8Gb memory.

Few days ago I installed kingston ssd v300 and test it by Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. My results is 137 mb/s write and 174 mb/s read.

Does this results are normal? I have a 6 GB/s (SATA III) connection and expected much more speed.

Thanks!

The Kingston SSD V300 uses a Sandforce controller which uses compression to achieve it's performance, but it's not so good on incompressible data, which is what the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test is using.

Which size is your Kingston SSD?
The performance is not the same for all sizes.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6733/kingston-ssdnow-v300-review/2

If you have the 120GB, I'm not so surprised about the slow sequential write speed.
However I would have expected that your read performance would have been better than that.

Perhaps you also need to check that it is really running at SATA-3.
Do you have the latest EFI and SMC updates installed?

Some people used to have these problems with the older EFI versions:
http://blog.macsales.com/11895-2011-macbook-pro-sata-problems-resolved
 
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