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Lookin at Vertex/OWC Sata III SSD...anyone having problems

The performance is possibly better than you've heard. Some users with 17" have issues with the Sata cable but OWC has a fix thats cheap.

Out of the box they work fine. If you want to upgrade the firmware you'll enjoy a little more speed and a little better battery life but you can run with the older versions and it will work fine.

The firmware is a pain in the neck to upgrade, I recommend you use a Windows PC to do it. You can not use Bootcamp without jumping through some serious hoops.

Other than that, they are problem free. If you have the means I highly recommend picking one up. They are choice.
 
tumblr_l3vcc5i36J1qc39fro1_500.jpg
 
I tried to update my Vertex 3 by putting it into my PC laptop and the laptop woundn't recognize it. Just had a blank screen. I guess I'm um.....third....
 
p1ngputts said:
I tried to update my Vertex 3 by putting it into my PC laptop and the laptop woundn't recognize it. Just had a blank screen. I guess I'm um.....third....
Click to expand...

You don't boot off it. You use it as an external drive and the firmware installer finds it and installs the update.
 
altecXP said:
You don't boot off it. You use it as an external drive and the firmware installer finds it and installs the update.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that windows will not recognize any HD if its formatted on MAC OS Extended(Journaled). So you will have to backup your drive, open Disk utility, use format: MS-DOS(FAT). Then you can use it on a windows machine, update the firmware and returned to your Mac, reformat on MAC OS Extended(Journaled) and restore your system backup.

A little pain in the #$@. :mad:
 
aldejesus said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that windows will not recognize any HD if its formatted on MAC OS Extended(Journaled). So you will have to backup your drive, open Disk utility, use format: MS-DOS(FAT). Then you can use it on a windows machine, update the firmware and returned to your Mac, reformat on MAC OS Extended(Journaled) and restore your system backup.

A little pain in the #$@. :mad:
Click to expand...


You don't need windows to recognize the file system, just that the HW is there.
 
altecXP said:
You don't need windows to recognize the file system, just that the HW is there.
Click to expand...

Well, In the case of OWC you need a NTFS or FAT32 partition to run the upgrade. If not you could loose your data. Read: http://eshop.macsales.com/Customized_Pages/Framework.cfm?page=sf_firmware.html

So in my case, that I dont use windows (No bootcamp, No paralells, No VMware) for me windows is useless. I will have to do what I wrote in the first post, when a FW update for my OWC Mercury Extreme PRO 6g comes out.

Returning to the original question, I have been using OWC's ssd for several months and no issues at all. ;) And tech support it excellent. Also I just check and they lowered the price form $319 to $297 on the 120g sata3 ssd, I assume this is to compete with the OCZ vertex 3 price.
 
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Thanks..Im gonna be switching my main HD to Optibay and the SSD to main...what would you recommend for Optibay Caddy? Anything good besides the Data Doubler at that price???
 
Tin88 said:
Thanks..Im gonna be switching my main HD to Optibay and the SSD to main...what would you recommend for Optibay Caddy? Anything good besides the Data Doubler at that price???
Click to expand...

Another option you have is MCE's Optibay. But it's a bit higher in price than OWC's data doubler. If I were you, I'd go for OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G + data doubler since their prices are reasonable and reliable. In fact I have the 120GB 6G SSD and I've never had any troubles with it.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

If your optical bay's SATA connector is 6gbps, I would put the SSD in there and leave the stock HDD where it is for SMS and such. I'm using this setup and everything runs flawlessly.

*Using the 120 OWC SATA 6gbps drive and their Data Doubler.
 
I came here looking for this same info. I am surprised that everyone seems to recommend the OWC. I would have thought that OCZ would be a better brand anyway. Any reasons to go with OWC over OCZ?
 
This is why I got my OWC. It just works and here are my AJA results!
I/O Transactions
Frame MB/sec
Read Write
00.0 489.3 529.2
01.0 480.1 533.1
02.0 480.5 527.4
03.0 475.3 527.4
04.0 481.8 530.2
05.0 484.0 526.5
06.0 483.8 529.0
07.0 486.7 334.7
08.0 489.4 531.3
09.0 480.8 533.1
10.0 484.5 531.3
11.0 480.6 531.4
12.0 485.1 531.7
13.0 489.4 531.4
14.0 484.4 532.2
15.0 477.3 531.7
16.0 482.2 530.9
17.0 477.5 530.9
18.0 478.3 532.2
19.0 486.8 531.0
20.0 482.9 334.7
21.0 480.8 532.1
22.0 479.0 532.0
23.0 490.6 531.1
24.0 481.4 530.8
25.0 480.4 533.5
26.0 487.9 530.1
27.0 479.7 532.0
28.0 481.9 531.8
29.0 479.3 532.4
30.0 479.5 531.0
31.0 479.6 532.2
32.0 484.2 531.7
33.0 478.3 532.2
34.0 482.3 335.7
35.0 477.2 531.8
36.0 481.2 532.1
37.0 480.7 532.3
38.0 482.2 532.1
39.0 493.9 530.7
40.0 482.2 531.9
41.0 480.7 531.6
42.0 484.8 532.1
43.0 498.5 531.7
44.0 481.1 531.2
45.0 473.2 533.2
46.0 483.9 531.7
47.0 495.7 531.4
48.0 473.9 334.1
49.0 485.8 532.1
50.0 489.9 532.9
51.0 494.9 531.9
52.0 485.6 530.1
53.0 477.7 531.4
54.0 502.7 532.1
55.0 496.7 531.5
56.0 483.3 531.6
57.0 484.7 531.1
58.0 515.1 532.3
59.0 478.5 533.3
60.0 474.2 531.9
61.0 495.0 340.8
62.0 504.2 531.9
63.0 491.8 531.1
64.0 485.4 531.2
65.0 507.5 532.7
66.0 500.3 531.6
67.0 468.6 533.1
68.0 490.6 531.3
69.0 515.0 532.0
70.0 488.7 532.9
71.0 480.2 532.0
72.0 495.9 531.5
73.0 515.1 530.8
74.0 487.4 533.5
75.0 479.4 328.6
76.0 507.7 532.3
77.0 510.4 516.1
78.0 478.3 517.5
79.0 491.8 530.8
80.0 514.6 531.5
81.0 506.0 531.0
82.0 482.1 530.4
83.0 491.7 529.7
84.0 514.3 530.8
85.0 497.6 532.3
86.0 484.3 530.8
87.0 509.9 531.3
88.0 516.3 530.9
89.0 500.3 336.1
90.0 493.5 531.7
91.0 511.0 532.7
92.0 510.7 532.3
93.0 485.1 531.8
94.0 510.9 531.8
95.0 511.9 532.8
96.0 509.6 530.2
97.0 490.6 532.5
98.0 514.3 532.3
99.0 509.7 531.6
100.0 496.6 532.3
101.0 501.2 532.1
102.0 515.2 326.4
103.0 509.9 532.7
104.0 497.9 530.9
105.0 501.5 531.4
106.0 512.3 531.0
107.0 513.1 532.5
108.0 489.9 530.2
109.0 512.0 531.8
110.0 514.5 531.8
111.0 510.2 531.3
112.0 511.0 530.8
113.0 514.2 531.9
114.0 515.4 531.7
115.0 511.9 530.0
116.0 513.3 520.7
117.0 511.0 533.1
118.0 511.6 531.4
119.0 513.1 532.9
120.0 513.6 531.6
 
Those numbers look almost identical to my Corsair Force 3. That makes me feel a lot better about it. :)

Glad I saved $60 vs the OWC.

What causes the random drops to the 340mb speed though?
 
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jjk454ss said:
I came here looking for this same info. I am surprised that everyone seems to recommend the OWC. I would have thought that OCZ would be a better brand anyway. Any reasons to go with OWC over OCZ?
Click to expand...

I think everybody buys into the OWC marketing that their SSD is somehow more "Mac compatible" since they focus on selling to Mac customers, although there is no evidence to support their SSD is any more compatible than OCZ.

Right now the OWC 6G 240GB is $569 on their web site and the Vertex 3 240GB is $484 at Newegg. I see no reason anyone would pay a $85 price premium for the OWC. They both use the same controller and have similar performance.

I know OWC keeps promising a Mac firmware updater. Maybe people are buying OWC because they think this software will actually materialize someday.
 
Weaselboy said:
I think everybody buys into the OWC marketing that their SSD is somehow more "Mac compatible" since they focus on selling to Mac customers, although there is no evidence to support their SSD is any more compatible than OCZ.

Right now the OWC 6G 240GB is $569 on their web site and the Vertex 3 240GB is $484 at Newegg. I see no reason anyone would pay a $85 price premium for the OWC. They both use the same controller and have similar performance.

I know OWC keeps promising a Mac firmware updater. Maybe people are buying OWC because they think this software will actually materialize someday.
Click to expand...
I can't get a OCZ where I live and OWC offer international shipping.
 
If you read the reviews on Newegg for the OCZ alotta ppl hate em...For newer 2011 MBP's OWC has atlot less issues because of the newest firmware....check around Corsairs Forum is the same a ton of ppl are havin issues and bricking them....Also my Optibay is Sata II I got my MBP March 9th, the ones made more recently are SATA III on both
 
Tin88 said:
If you read the reviews on Newegg for the OCZ alotta ppl hate em...For newer 2011 MBP's OWC has atlot less issues because of the newest firmware....check around Corsairs Forum is the same a ton of ppl are havin issues and bricking them....Also my Optibay is Sata II I got my MBP March 9th, the ones made more recently are SATA III on both
Click to expand...

This is a SATA3 converstation. Different hardware, and different firmware.
 
Tin88 said:
If you read the reviews on Newegg for the OCZ alotta ppl hate em...For newer 2011 MBP's OWC has atlot less issues because of the newest firmware...
Click to expand...

Maybe you are reading Vertex 2 reviews (?) because the Newegg reviews for the Vertex 3 look pretty good overall. I'm not sure where one would obtain any similar problem data to make a judgement on the OWC though.

Unless you have a situation like user Macsavvytech posted where he just can't get a Vertex 3, I see no reason anybody would pay more for a OWC over a Vertex 3 if those are the two options one is interested in.
 
If you look at the Vertex 3 reviews, like with most SSD's, some are good some are bad. One review talks about going thru 3 drives and they all failed, another got bricked after firmware update. So its pretty much the same as what you find on these forums of ppl havin problems with OWC
 
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