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2010 MBP defect causes 40% SATA speed loss

J

jasonbro

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 22, 2011
203
5
The combined SATA speeds on 2010 MacBooks are limited to about 330 mbps. Merely 30 megabytes over a single SATA connection.

UNLESS (wait for it) you have a firewire connection active. Then both SATA connections work at full speed, no problems.


I hooked up dual 64gb Samsung 830's running in raid in my 2010 2.8ghz i7. Which are interesting because the max write is low at 160 mb/s since its a small drive.

I easily max out write speeds in RAID at 318 mb/s, but in write i hit the 330 mb/s limit and can't get higher. It's not until the Firewire port is active that the SATA 2 ports start to work normally.

It's been documented for a couple years now. I'm really surprised i don't see much of anything more about it.

This sucks.

http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-MacBookProCore_i7-SATA-Bizarre.html

http://macs.about.com/b/2010/05/17/macbook-pro-sata-firewire-issue.htm
 
Unfortunately this is old news and was known soon after the release. Apple locked the stock hdds at sata 1 speeds to prevent data corruption. This is the biggest reason I sold my 2010 and upgraded to the 2011.
 
magbarn said:
Unfortunately this is old news and was known soon after the release. Apple locked the stock hdds at sata 1 speeds to prevent data corruption. This is the biggest reason I sold my 2010 and upgraded to the 2011.
Click to expand...

Au contrair my friend,

Sata 2 works fine. and in fact, RAID works *perfect* at 500+ mb/s with the firewire port active.

Even with a card reader in the port, without card, just by being powered on. The SATA works perfect.

EDIT: As far as i know SATA 2 has always worked in the 2010 MBP. Maybe you're thinking 2009??? Even the links i posted are from may 2010 and they were successfully using SATA 2.

(EDIT 2: and FIY, coincidentally the "Genuis" today mentioned something about an EFI update for the 2009's that they released last week which allows SATA 2 now.)
 
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Dark Void said:
You could always reuse them or put the other into another computer.
Click to expand...

Yea i know....

I ordered a second 128gb Samsung 830 for my 2011 imac which is going to RIP in raid i'm sure (i just need to find a pc to update the firmware on the older one)

Unfortunately i bought these 64gb drives just for this computer so i wouldn't feel such a need to upgrade...

The newer MBP's are hit and miss (mostly miss) with running raid at SATA 3 so i'd probably just end up with one SSD running at SATA 3 with a HDD in the optical if i upgraded..... and in that case it wouldnt be a 64gb...
 
No one needs speeds faster than 330 mbps. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
 
The genius today told me about how last week they activated SATA 2 in 2009 MacBooks last week. Although i have no idea if thats true.

You'd think it'd be an easy fix maybe? Just activate the same protocols that get activated to give the boost with firewire active?

330 combined means you can't even us an SSD and a CD drive at once. I mean you can but they can't run at full potential. They'd cycle down i bet. SSD is 300 mb/sand a 7200 reads at 70 or so.
 
jasonbro said:
Au contrair my friend,

Sata 2 works fine. and in fact, RAID works *perfect* at 500+ mb/s with the firewire port active.

Even with a card reader in the port, without card, just by being powered on. The SATA works perfect.

EDIT: As far as i know SATA 2 has always worked in the 2010 MBP. Maybe you're thinking 2009??? Even the links i posted are from may 2010 and they were successfully using SATA 2.

(EDIT 2: and FIY, coincidentally the "Genuis" today mentioned something about an EFI update for the 2009's that they released last week which allows SATA 2 now.)
Click to expand...

Ah, you're right I mixed up the 2009 and 2010 versions. So they finally enabled sata 2 after 3 dang years lol. Have you tried replicating your FireWire sata interaction issue in bootcamp? I wonder if it's a driver vs a chipset bug.
 
magbarn said:
Ah, you're right I mixed up the 2009 and 2010 versions. So they finally enabled sata 2 after 3 dang years lol. Have you tried replicating your FireWire sata interaction issue in bootcamp? I wonder if it's a driver vs a chipset bug.
Click to expand...

You mean in boot camp while running windows? No i havent tried that. I dont have windows. ALthough thats a great idea...

Damn..... Thats a really good idea. OK so i'm going to try to find a trial version of windows or something i can use in boot camp. I've never done boot camp before but i'll give it a shot. I have a feeling this is going to take a long time to get windows installed and RAID working....

I found some "windows 7 enterprise trial" that i'm downloading. hope this works!

EDIT: It wont let me do boot camp without an internal CD drive. I cant get past the first screen...
 
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magbarn said:
Ah, you're right I mixed up the 2009 and 2010 versions. So they finally enabled sata 2 after 3 dang years lol. Have you tried replicating your FireWire sata interaction issue in bootcamp? I wonder if it's a driver vs a chipset bug.
Click to expand...

The more i try to do this and the more i learn about it doesnt it use the same mac drivers when running windows in boot camp?
 
jasonbro said:
You mean in boot camp while running windows? No i havent tried that. I dont have windows. ALthough thats a great idea...

Damn..... Thats a really good idea. OK so i'm going to try to find a trial version of windows or something i can use in boot camp. I've never done boot camp before but i'll give it a shot. I have a feeling this is going to take a long time to get windows installed and RAID working....

I found some "windows 7 enterprise trial" that i'm downloading. hope this works!

EDIT: It wont let me do boot camp without an internal CD drive. I cant get past the first screen...
Click to expand...

Arghh forgot you're running a raid setup. When I used to have a 2011 with optibay I used to have to take out the optibay drive to put back in the optical drive to install windows. Guess the windows idea won't work.... Btw the newer MacBooks can install windows off a USB stick.
 
magbarn said:
Arghh forgot you're running a raid setup. When I used to have a 2011 with optibay I used to have to take out the optibay drive to put back in the optical drive to install windows. Guess the windows idea won't work.... Btw the newer MacBooks can install windows off a USB stick.
Click to expand...

i havent given up!

I took out the Samsung SSD's and put in my old intel SSD, and optical drive. Installed windows 8 trial(its what i could find) on boot camp and i seem to have it working.

Now i'm going to backup the intel ssd to time machine. Install the old SSD's in raid, and restore..

I hope it works.

I assume that after i get windows running i should just download some speed tester app and check it out?

EDIT: It didn't work. I put the Samsung SSD's back in boot in recovery, I reconfigure RAID and everything and it won't mount the recovery files once i begin time machine recovery. It fails.
 
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