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Intel SSD in Macbook Pro
- Thread starter Trey M
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Not having much luck...
Unfortunately I'm not having much luck...
I have a late 2011 (8,2) MacBook Pro 2.2GHz i7 with 8Gb RAM, OSX Lion 10.7.5 and 500Gb HDD.
I have put an Intel 520 480Gb drive into an Optibay enclosure replacing the Superdrive. My original 500Gb HDD is in the main bay.
The plan was to format the new SSD, install OSX fresh onto it, and then move my applications over as required.
I formatted my drive in Disk Utility (Initially I wanted to have more than one partition, but after initial problems now I have just one: GPT:GUID.) According to all the forum posts I've read it's formatted correctly, being reported as 6Gb/s transfer capable, and currently not set up for TRIM. SMC Version is 1.69f3
I hardly even got past the first hurdle. I created a restore disk for Lion on a USB stick and installed it onto the SSD. When rebooting with the Option key down, I was expecting to see the SSD available as a Boot drive. Not there. Instead I boot up into the Restore disk and run Disk Utility and it tells me there are errors on the drive. I repaired them successfully and then tried again. Still not showing as a boot drive. Run Disk check again and discover that the drive still has errors. (Specifically "Unused node is not erased" and "Volume bitmap needs minor repair for orphaned blocks").
A post on the internet led me to believe that OSX Lion may be deficient in it's support for SATA III and so I bought OSX Mountain Lion and tried to install that instead. I ran the installer and then on reboot it tried to install onto the SSD and then told me to enable Journaling on the drive - only the menu item was greyed out and I couldn't do it. (The fact the drive was formatted with Journaling meant this error was nonsense anyway!) I tried again and was next told there were errors on the SSD that could not be repaired, and that the OS install could not go ahead.
So I went back to booting onto my HDD (thank goodness that's still OK).
So now I'm stuck for what to do.
I'm pretty sure the drive is OK, but I can't rule it out. I've read some forums here that say that their drives work fine under windows but not on the MacBook Pro, and are pointing their fingers at the SATA controllers or OS.
Files can be copied with no trouble onto the SSD, it's just that the Mac doesn't seem to format it quite correctly.
Some options I could try:
1) Update the firmware on the SSD itself.
2) Update the SATA drivers on the MacBook Pro
2) Swap the SSD and the HDD inside the Mac, so that the SSD is in the primary bay and the HDD is in the OptiBay.
3) Use Carbon Copy to clone the HDD to the SDD instead of doing a clean install.
4) Upgrade the HDD to Mountain Lion and then try 3) (although I'm getting some reports that Mountain Lion may have power management issues?)
5) Back out completely and send the drive back to Intel claiming it's faulty (Any way I can tell if it really is faulty?)
What would you do next? Any other suggestions?
I'm really frustrated - especially after talking to a friend who installed a Crucial SSD into an OptiBay on his MBP 2012 with no problems.
Unfortunately I'm not having much luck...
I have a late 2011 (8,2) MacBook Pro 2.2GHz i7 with 8Gb RAM, OSX Lion 10.7.5 and 500Gb HDD.
I have put an Intel 520 480Gb drive into an Optibay enclosure replacing the Superdrive. My original 500Gb HDD is in the main bay.
The plan was to format the new SSD, install OSX fresh onto it, and then move my applications over as required.
I formatted my drive in Disk Utility (Initially I wanted to have more than one partition, but after initial problems now I have just one: GPT:GUID.) According to all the forum posts I've read it's formatted correctly, being reported as 6Gb/s transfer capable, and currently not set up for TRIM. SMC Version is 1.69f3
I hardly even got past the first hurdle. I created a restore disk for Lion on a USB stick and installed it onto the SSD. When rebooting with the Option key down, I was expecting to see the SSD available as a Boot drive. Not there. Instead I boot up into the Restore disk and run Disk Utility and it tells me there are errors on the drive. I repaired them successfully and then tried again. Still not showing as a boot drive. Run Disk check again and discover that the drive still has errors. (Specifically "Unused node is not erased" and "Volume bitmap needs minor repair for orphaned blocks").
A post on the internet led me to believe that OSX Lion may be deficient in it's support for SATA III and so I bought OSX Mountain Lion and tried to install that instead. I ran the installer and then on reboot it tried to install onto the SSD and then told me to enable Journaling on the drive - only the menu item was greyed out and I couldn't do it. (The fact the drive was formatted with Journaling meant this error was nonsense anyway!) I tried again and was next told there were errors on the SSD that could not be repaired, and that the OS install could not go ahead.
So I went back to booting onto my HDD (thank goodness that's still OK).
So now I'm stuck for what to do.
I'm pretty sure the drive is OK, but I can't rule it out. I've read some forums here that say that their drives work fine under windows but not on the MacBook Pro, and are pointing their fingers at the SATA controllers or OS.
Files can be copied with no trouble onto the SSD, it's just that the Mac doesn't seem to format it quite correctly.
Some options I could try:
1) Update the firmware on the SSD itself.
2) Update the SATA drivers on the MacBook Pro
2) Swap the SSD and the HDD inside the Mac, so that the SSD is in the primary bay and the HDD is in the OptiBay.
3) Use Carbon Copy to clone the HDD to the SDD instead of doing a clean install.
4) Upgrade the HDD to Mountain Lion and then try 3) (although I'm getting some reports that Mountain Lion may have power management issues?)
5) Back out completely and send the drive back to Intel claiming it's faulty (Any way I can tell if it really is faulty?)
What would you do next? Any other suggestions?
I'm really frustrated - especially after talking to a friend who installed a Crucial SSD into an OptiBay on his MBP 2012 with no problems.
Definitely swap the drives. The 2011 MBP's do not support SATA III drives in optical bay according to OWC:
"Special compatibility notes related to use of this product with 6Gb/s SSDs in the following machines:
2011 MacBook Pro 15" (Model ID MacBookPro8,2)
2011 MacBook Pro 17" (Model ID MacBookPro8,3)
OPTICAL BAY: The optical bay interface in these machines may either be SATA Revision 2.0 3Gb/s OR SATA Revision 3.0 6Gb/s. There is no way to specify/order this data interface with Apple, but you can confirm what interface/link speed version your optical bay offers via the Apple System Profiler.
Testing has demonstrated that Apple factory hardware does not reliably support a 6G (6Gb/s) Solid State Drive or Hard Disk Drive in the optical bay of 2011 MacBook Pros (ModeI ID8,1; 8,2; 8,3). If your OWC Data Doubler bundle comes with a 6G drive, you should ONLY install that drive in the main drive bay and utilize the Data Doubler to re-task your existing drive or install a new 3G SSD or HDD in the optical bay. PRE-2011 models can utilize a 6G drive in the optical bay, but will do so at a reduced 3G (3Gb/s) speed."
"Special compatibility notes related to use of this product with 6Gb/s SSDs in the following machines:
2011 MacBook Pro 15" (Model ID MacBookPro8,2)
2011 MacBook Pro 17" (Model ID MacBookPro8,3)
OPTICAL BAY: The optical bay interface in these machines may either be SATA Revision 2.0 3Gb/s OR SATA Revision 3.0 6Gb/s. There is no way to specify/order this data interface with Apple, but you can confirm what interface/link speed version your optical bay offers via the Apple System Profiler.
Testing has demonstrated that Apple factory hardware does not reliably support a 6G (6Gb/s) Solid State Drive or Hard Disk Drive in the optical bay of 2011 MacBook Pros (ModeI ID8,1; 8,2; 8,3). If your OWC Data Doubler bundle comes with a 6G drive, you should ONLY install that drive in the main drive bay and utilize the Data Doubler to re-task your existing drive or install a new 3G SSD or HDD in the optical bay. PRE-2011 models can utilize a 6G drive in the optical bay, but will do so at a reduced 3G (3Gb/s) speed."
Thank you soooooo much! This has been driving me crazy!!
I'll try swapping the drives over tomorrow.
Weird thing is that the Apple System profiler states that it's recognized a 6Gb drive with a 6Gb interface.
I'll let you know how it goes...
I'll try swapping the drives over tomorrow.
Weird thing is that the Apple System profiler states that it's recognized a 6Gb drive with a 6Gb interface.
I'll let you know how it goes...
