MacBook Pro 2011 Optbay SATA 3
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Interesting...
I connected the the 1TB drive externally, formatted (HFS+ / GUID), then inserted it internally. This time, I could boot into lion!
However, it's acting dodgy. Safari quits automatically. The 1TB drive didn't show during boot and came up with a 'disk was not initialized' error. Disk utility see's it, then I get the beach ball and Disk utility shuts down....
Do you think this means that it's a SATA3 issue or an issue with the caddy combined with the HDD?
I connected the the 1TB drive externally, formatted (HFS+ / GUID), then inserted it internally. This time, I could boot into lion!
However, it's acting dodgy. Safari quits automatically. The 1TB drive didn't show during boot and came up with a 'disk was not initialized' error. Disk utility see's it, then I get the beach ball and Disk utility shuts down....
Do you think this means that it's a SATA3 issue or an issue with the caddy combined with the HDD?
Yahooligan
macrumors 6502a
By using the external enclosure you ruled out the drive. There's nothing wrong with it.
If the optical drive worked/works fine then the port should be fine. That leaves the caddy. These things are cheap, it's not unlikely for someone to get one that's defective.
Interesting... I've tested both Caddies with the 500gb drive internally and they work perfectly. I'm using one of them now with the SATA2 500GB drive. The caddies look a bit like this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2ND-SATA-...-MacBook-Pro-Unibody-SuperDrive-/320755696041
Does that rule it out or could the 1TB thing cause a difference. I'm happy to buy another caddy if one is different to test.
Could it be anything else?
Mr. Retrofire
macrumors 603
Mr. Retrofire
macrumors 603
No. See also:To correct one of the posts above regarding speed...
SATA-I = 1.5Gb/sec = 187.5MB/sec
SATA-II = 3Gb/sec = 375MB/sec
SATA-III = 6Gb/sec = 750MB/sec
Bits / 8 = bytes
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=15914767#post15914767
Yahooligan
macrumors 6502a
Yahooligan
macrumors 6502a
This is what I ordered, it really looks to be virtually identical.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AUA2XGO/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Do you know if the 500GB drive you tested is SATA-II or -III? I'm just thinking if one is SATA-II and the other is SATA-III then that doesn't rule out the caddy or cable if the drive is trying to negotiate SATA-III and is failing, causing the drive to not show up at all. Size shouldn't have any bearing on whether or not the drive works in the optibay.
Do you have a friend or someone local that would be able to help out and test the 1TB+caddy in their MBP?
Other users have reported no problems with using 1TB drives with the optibay in 2011 MBPs, most seem to recommend WD drives but they seem to have had luck with other brands.
There's only so many things that it can be.
Other than size, what's different between the 500GB and 1TB drives?
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Newishmacguy,
The main bay has the 750gb 7200 rpm XT. Boots cold to ready to go in 37 sec. The 1TB 5400 rpm in the optibay was cloned off the 750gb with Carbon Copy. It boots in 28sec from the optibay. My opinion is it loads applications faster and obviously boots faster.
The main bay has the 750gb 7200 rpm XT. Boots cold to ready to go in 37 sec. The 1TB 5400 rpm in the optibay was cloned off the 750gb with Carbon Copy. It boots in 28sec from the optibay. My opinion is it loads applications faster and obviously boots faster.
Yahooligan
macrumors 6502a
That doesn't make much sense.
Have you ran Blackmagic against both drives to see which actually provide more throughput?
I've replaced 5400RPM drives with 7200RPM drives in laptops numerous times, including using XT drives in place of the original 5400RPM drives, and at no time was the old 5400RPM drive faster in any way.
This is what I ordered, it really looks to be virtually identical.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AUA2XGO/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Do you know if the 500GB drive you tested is SATA-II or -III? I'm just thinking if one is SATA-II and the other is SATA-III then that doesn't rule out the caddy or cable if the drive is trying to negotiate SATA-III and is failing, causing the drive to not show up at all. Size shouldn't have any bearing on whether or not the drive works in the optibay.
Do you have a friend or someone local that would be able to help out and test the 1TB+caddy in their MBP?
Other users have reported no problems with using 1TB drives with the optibay in 2011 MBPs, most seem to recommend WD drives but they seem to have had luck with other brands.
There's only so many things that it can be.
According to amazon and other sites, the 500GB drive (Hitachi HTS725050A9A362 ) is SATA II. See
http://www.amazon.com/Hts725050a9a362-Hitachi-Drives-Sata-ii-500gb-7200rpm/sim/B0049D77PU/2
Perhaps. I might be able to try this later. My friend has a 13 inch MBP.
I've tested 2 caddies with the 500GB (SATAII) and they worked fine. The 1TB drive (SATAII) didn't work with either of them.
If the 1TB drive works with a caddy on his computer, then does that indicate that it's the logic board or something else?
There's only so many things that it can be.
I think it must be the caddy or the logic board or firmware or something because my Samsung 830 SSD (SATAIII) won't work in the optibay using either of the caddies either :/
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If these caddies for some reason work with SATAII but not SATAIII on my machine, then...
Would an 'OWC Data Doubler bundle' likely enable me to use the 1TB sata 3 in in the optibay of an early 2011 mbp?
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gngan
macrumors 68000
Correction: My optical bay is SATA II rather than SATA III.
Crucial just swap my dead SSD and now my WD 1TB is very slow. It used to be a lot snappier. It would have random beach ball when I am trying to access the files. The difference is the SSD came with newer firmware.
Weird.
Crucial just swap my dead SSD and now my WD 1TB is very slow. It used to be a lot snappier. It would have random beach ball when I am trying to access the files. The difference is the SSD came with newer firmware.
Weird.
phamhainguyen68
macrumors newbie
Root cause of the instability when running the 1TB SATA3 Hitachi drive on MBP 2011
Hi, I used to have the same problem when using an 1TB-7200rpm-SATA3 Hitachi drive in my late MBP 2011 15"
I plugged it to the main bay and it was recognized at 6Gbps. But it ran very unstable as sometimes the whole drive hang for 20-30s (I/O error in the system log).
It turned out the root cause was neither my MBP, nor the SATA cable, but the Drive itself. When running at full SATA 3 speed, it will be very unstable like. I contacted Hitachi support and ask them for the tool which can modify the drive so that it will run at SATA 2 only. When I got the tool, I used it to force the drive running at SATA 2 speed only. And the drive is now running happily in my machine in the main bay at SATA 2 speed, along with my SSD running at SATA 3 in the optibay.
Hope this information could help you who is having trouble with this infamous drive.
Hi, I used to have the same problem when using an 1TB-7200rpm-SATA3 Hitachi drive in my late MBP 2011 15"
I plugged it to the main bay and it was recognized at 6Gbps. But it ran very unstable as sometimes the whole drive hang for 20-30s (I/O error in the system log).
It turned out the root cause was neither my MBP, nor the SATA cable, but the Drive itself. When running at full SATA 3 speed, it will be very unstable like. I contacted Hitachi support and ask them for the tool which can modify the drive so that it will run at SATA 2 only. When I got the tool, I used it to force the drive running at SATA 2 speed only. And the drive is now running happily in my machine in the main bay at SATA 2 speed, along with my SSD running at SATA 3 in the optibay.
Hope this information could help you who is having trouble with this infamous drive.
Last edited:
Very, very interesting. What's the tool?
Is it a firmware update or something?
I'm going to try this.
phamhainguyen68
macrumors newbie
Hitachi sent me an iso file: HDDFT10.iso. I thought this is the most-updated version of Hitachi HDD Feature Tool which supports the 1TB drive. With this one, you can change the SATA mode of the drive (From SATA 3 to SATA 2 or SATA 1).
NewishMacGuy
macrumors 6502a
Wow, that's pretty slow, like maybe somethings wrong slow. My gen 2 XT 750/8 boots cold (start counting at the check sound) to login in about 12 seconds and from login to ready to go in another 4-5, with 16 3rd party menubar apps. My wife's is about 2 seconds faster, but she has many fewer menubar apps running at startup.
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That doesn't make much sense.
Have you ran Blackmagic against both drives to see which actually provide more throughput?
I've replaced 5400RPM drives with 7200RPM drives in laptops numerous times, including using XT drives in place of the original 5400RPM drives, and at no time was the old 5400RPM drive faster in any way.
We are talking about the new Seagate 5400rpm 1TB Hybrid against the old Seagate 7200rpm 750GB Hybrid, not just a stock 5400rpm drive vs. 7200rpm.
Even so, bigger but slower spinning drives can theoretically be just as fast as or possibly faster than smaller and faster spinning drives due to platter density. I'm no expert, but would imagine that if the platters on the 5400rpm drive are more than 1.333 times as dense as those of the 7200rpm drive, the slower spinning drive will be faster. Then there's also the question of caching size and efficacy.
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Yahooligan
macrumors 6502a
My bad, missed that he said it was the hybrid earlier in this thread.
That said, Seagate specs show it's still slower than a 7200RPM hybrid in terms of latency and reviews comparing the 3rd-gen 5400RPM drives to the 2nd-gen 7200RPM drives agree, the newer drives are slower once you hit the platters.
Since data isn't written in whole and sequentially on the drive you still have to deal with seek times, which will be slower on slower-spinning drives. That's just physics. I understand your thinking about density, but the data is still spread all across the platters and the heads still have to get to it.
duervo
macrumors 68020
I'm not much of a fan of the hybrid drives. Marketing spin makes some promises that are never lived up to with them, mainly due to the limited amount of flash that they have on them, and maybe/possibly poor algorithms when generating and making operations against the drive's heat map. The latter would've most likely been fixed by now, so I doubt it's that. It's most likely the limited amount of flash on them.
For anyone else using early 2011 MBP and 1TB drives that cause drama.
The issue may be that your drive is running in SATA3 instead of SATA2.
That was the problem I had with a 1TB hitachi travelstar drive.
I ended up using the Hitachi Feature Tool to disable SATA 3 and run it at 3gbps (SATA2).
Thank you to phamhainguyen68 who gave me the winning Feature Tool that works with osx HDDFT10.iso
The issue may be that your drive is running in SATA3 instead of SATA2.
That was the problem I had with a 1TB hitachi travelstar drive.
I ended up using the Hitachi Feature Tool to disable SATA 3 and run it at 3gbps (SATA2).
Thank you to phamhainguyen68 who gave me the winning Feature Tool that works with osx HDDFT10.iso
NewishMacGuy
macrumors 6502a
Good points.
I wouldn't have expected the new Segate hybrids to be as fast as the old despite the marketing hype, except for in the write department because apparently they write cache to the NAND flash whereas the old ones don't. Still when you consider that they still only have 8GB on board, I would think that the space reserved for writes would slow overall reads as well. The change was almost certainly designed solely to reduce the cost base and keep margin as prices drop. In exchange for what's likely a slightly slower drive overall, you get an extra 250GB. Might work for some, but i don't need the extra 250GB.
__
NewishMacGuy
macrumors 6502a
Hear you on the marketing spin, but my real world experience is that the Gen2 Momentus XT is quite a bit faster than a normal HDD for not a lot more money. I paid about $50 more than for a "regular" 750GB HDD. In my normal usage, the only thing that I find myself waiting for is internet content load time (over crappy rural DSL). Disk read access is WAY faster than on my children's iMac or the Dell I use at work, orders of magnitude faster for every app I use regularly and probably 30-50% faster for those I don't. I'd still rather have a full SSD at the 256GB price point - but at 500GB+ it's not worth it yet for me.
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Optical Bay problems with HGST 1.5TB drive
Early 2011 (8,3) 17" MBP System report Main Drive bay:
Intel 6 Series Chipset:
Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Physical Interconnect: SATA
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported
Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB
Optical Bay:
Intel 6 Series Chipset:
Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Physical Interconnect: SATA
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported
Same chipset, same Link speed, but 3 Gb negotiated speed. HGST drive fails in this bay, but works fine in external case via FW800.
Anyone hear of any potential fixes. I confess, I didn't read the fine print when I ordered the drive and optical bay adapter from OWC. I previously had a 1TB drive in the optical bay which ran fine, but this was a 3GB/s drive, rather than a 6GB/s.
Early 2011 (8,3) 17" MBP System report Main Drive bay:
Intel 6 Series Chipset:
Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Physical Interconnect: SATA
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported
Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB
Optical Bay:
Intel 6 Series Chipset:
Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Physical Interconnect: SATA
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported
Same chipset, same Link speed, but 3 Gb negotiated speed. HGST drive fails in this bay, but works fine in external case via FW800.
Anyone hear of any potential fixes. I confess, I didn't read the fine print when I ordered the drive and optical bay adapter from OWC. I previously had a 1TB drive in the optical bay which ran fine, but this was a 3GB/s drive, rather than a 6GB/s.
twisted0815
macrumors newbie
Hey
just signed up to thank you.
read tius and ordered a 7k1000 instad of a scorpio black.
i completely oversaw the linked hddft10.iso and downloaded the feature tool.
when i tried it failed and i was shicked but thought ok this isnt the right iso. because the name is different.
so i contacted support and they told me there is no such iso or program.
the moment i hang up i see the attachment and download it.... make usb stick and it works like a charm!!!
set it from 6gb to 3gb...
Thank you very much for this thing!
just signed up to thank you.
read tius and ordered a 7k1000 instad of a scorpio black.
i completely oversaw the linked hddft10.iso and downloaded the feature tool.
when i tried it failed and i was shicked but thought ok this isnt the right iso. because the name is different.
so i contacted support and they told me there is no such iso or program.
the moment i hang up i see the attachment and download it.... make usb stick and it works like a charm!!!
set it from 6gb to 3gb...
Thank you very much for this thing!
Hi all. I have an early 2011 15" MacBook Pro, and I installed the optibay today.
The drive that I bought is a SATA 3 1tb western digital blue drive.
I was aware of the SATA 3 issue with my Mac, but the local retailers only had SATA 3s in stock.
Expectedly, I ran into freezing issues. Does anybody know if there are utilities or tools that would allow me to force the WD drive to run at 3Gbit/s? Thanks!
The drive that I bought is a SATA 3 1tb western digital blue drive.
I was aware of the SATA 3 issue with my Mac, but the local retailers only had SATA 3s in stock.
Expectedly, I ran into freezing issues. Does anybody know if there are utilities or tools that would allow me to force the WD drive to run at 3Gbit/s? Thanks!