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Cricual M4 SSD/Optibay/Early 2011 MBP - but 6Gbps??

K

Kristan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 22, 2011
18
0
Hi,

I recently decided I needed a bit more space, so got myself an optibay and installed a 256GB Crucial M4 (after putting one in the mrs Blackbook). Foolishly it seems however, as I didn't do my research and I seem to be suffering from the odd stuttering and random beach ball accessing data on the drive in the optibay.

I checked the firmware and I'm running 000F (apparently not ideal) however looking in system info, I see my Apple SSD in the main bay (CTO option) saying :

Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit

The crucial M4 however, says :

Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 6 Gigabit

Now I thought the early 2011 MBP's like mine (MacBookPro8,2) only had 3Gbps SATA ports in optical bay, yet mine says it negotiated 6Gbps - or is that the issue? It thinks it's negotiated at 6Gbps but really it's 3?

And why is the Apple SSD not 6Gbps? Quick xBench says the Apple SSD is indeed slower by a substantial margin in the random read/write, which I completely didn't expect (631.99 for the Apple vs 1218 for the M4).

Anyone any ideas??
 
Kristan said:
Hi,

I recently decided I needed a bit more space, so got myself an optibay and installed a 256GB Crucial M4 (after putting one in the mrs Blackbook). Foolishly it seems however, as I didn't do my research and I seem to be suffering from the odd stuttering and random beach ball accessing data on the drive in the optibay.

I checked the firmware and I'm running 000F (apparently not ideal) however looking in system info, I see my Apple SSD in the main bay (CTO option) saying :

Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit

The crucial M4 however, says :

Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 6 Gigabit

Now I thought the early 2011 MBP's like mine (MacBookPro8,2) only had 3Gbps SATA ports in optical bay, yet mine says it negotiated 6Gbps - or is that the issue? It thinks it's negotiated at 6Gbps but really it's 3?

And why is the Apple SSD not 6Gbps? Quick xBench says the Apple SSD is indeed slower by a substantial margin in the random read/write, which I completely didn't expect (631.99 for the Apple vs 1218 for the M4).

Anyone any ideas??
Click to expand...

Some Macbook Pro 8,2 had 6 Gbps in optical bay: http://blog.macsales.com/10433-macbook-pro-2011-models-and-sata-3-0-6-0gbs-update-5272011

That's why you're seeing 6 Gbps on the m4.

The controller inside the Apple SSD with the 2011 Macbook Pro is only capable of 3 Gbps even though the link is capable of 6 Gbps which is why you're seeing 3 Gbps on your Apple SSD.
 
So if I swap the Apple SSD to the optibay and put the M4 in the main bay I should be good?
 
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