MBP early 2011 Intel SSD problem

[hausjam]

MacBook Pro 13" MC724LL/A
It's SATAIII, came with a 500 gb 5400 rpm drive.

On a whim (a Black Friday junk email actually) I bought an Intel SSD 330, 240 gb (it has the most current firmware). Of course I didn't research the matter beforehand.

I pulled the hard drive and installed the SSD. I installed Mountain Lion from a usb drive, which went smoothly, and only took about 25 minutes. Personalization goes through without issue. I get to the desktop, I am immediately treated to lots of spinning pin wheel. It seems like every time I click on something I get 30 seconds of the dreaded pinwheel. Then it might go 5-10 minutes of normal operation, then back to 30-60 seconds of pinwheel.

I installed and activated Trim Enabler. Same results.

I installed Windows 8 on a bootcamp partition, and it runs trouble free. So I don't think the SSD is bad.

I am a Mac newbie, I will admit, but I have been building/maintaining PCs for 20 years. So I pulled the SSD, and put in a fresh, non-apple branded, 250 gb hard drive. Installed ML the same way. And it runs just fine. No pinwheels at all.

Am I out of luck? I read the SSD sticky, that SATAIII MBP are finicky with SSD. Are there any tricks I am missing?

I have spent hours searching on this problem, and have come up dry. My next step is to swap the 330 with the Kingston HyperX SSD in my workstation and see if I have the same problem with it.

Unless one of you guise has a tip for me?

 

[Orlandoech]

• Even though the firmware is the latest, I would reinstall the latest firmware.
  
• If the SSD is in the Optibay, I would move it to the HDD Bay.
  
• Format/Parition the SSD Again
  
• Reinstall ML as a clean install
  

Issues still persist, I would RMA the SSD. I recommend Samsung 830/840/840Pro and OCZ Vertex 4 SSD.

I do know Intel 330 SSD uses the Sandforce controller and the Sandforce SSD controller doesnt get along well with Macs for some reason, so the SSD could be perfectly fine and this is just the issue.

 

[hausjam]

Thankfully, work has been really slow.

So today, I did as I said, I swapped the SSDs. I put the Intel SSD into my Dell Workstation. Installed Windows 8, and it runs just fine.

I put the Kingston HyperX in the Macbook, and so far, so good. No pinwheel. And it boots up MUCH faster.

As Orlandoech states, the Macbook just doesn't like Intel SSD.

 

[NewishMacGuy]

Thankfully, work has been really slow.

So today, I did as I said, I swapped the SSDs. I put the Intel SSD into my Dell Workstation. Installed Windows 8, and it runs just fine.

I put the Kingston HyperX in the Macbook, and so far, so good. No pinwheel. And it boots up MUCH faster.

As Orlandoech states, the Macbook just doesn't like Intel SSD.

Could also be that there are known issues with the 2011 cMBPs (especially the 15") and SATA III drive compatibility in the optibay.

 

[hausjam]

I did not use the SuperDrive bay.