OWC Electra 6G low speed

[ArmanUV]

So I installed a 120GB OWC Electra 6G in my 2011 15" MBP.Everything has been stable and great so far. One problem: Disk benchmarks show crappy speeds.

AFAIK, read and write speeds should be in the 400MBps range.
Is this normal?

 

[ArmanUV]

I just test the SSD under Windows 7 with Crystal Disk and I got around the same results. Any ideas?

 

[Steve Mobs]

It's running under SATA I rather than III because you put the SSD where your optical drive was.

 

[altecXP]

It's running under SATA I rather than III because you put the SSD where your optical drive was.

In that case it should be running SATA2 shouldn't it? SATA2 drives work just fine.

 

[shardey]

It's running under SATA I rather than III because you put the SSD where your optical drive was.

Wrong, theoretical speed of sata I is 1.5 gbs or at most 187.5 MB/s. He is achieving above that speed.

 

[Steve Mobs]

I thought you could have speeds that hover above and around the max for some reason. I have no idea now.

 

[Kuray]

Same SSD
Same computer (2.0 2011)
Lion
No TRIM
Connected to SATA III

430-470 MB speed with test applications


When I duplicate file, lower speed

 

[ArmanUV]

The SSD is in the mainbay not in the optical bay.
The reported link speed is 6G.

Even the 4k read/writes are super low:
http://cl.ly/2e1N1U2R1z0t0i0k031O

I contacted OWC technical support and after sending them a few benchmarks this is their answer:

Arman,

The product development team was just as baffled by these numbers as I was. The one thing I wanted to confirm, I think I already asked this but need to be sure, do you have the SSD in the main drive bay or the optical drive bay? If it is the optical drive bay that is why these numbers are so low.

If the SSD is in the main drive bay than you'll want to take your computer to an Apple store for a technician to look at it. The SATA controller on the computer most likely is faulty.

Sincerely,

OWC ...
Technical Customer Service Representative
Other World Computing, Inc. (OWC)
OWC.net, Inc.

I don't what else to do . considering that OS X is running 100% stable, it seems unlikely to me that the controller is faulty. If it was, shouldn't I be experiencing beachballs and kernel panics? it seems to me that something is throttling the speeds and that something is more likely to be the Sandforce controller rather than MBP's logic board.
I can't send the MBP to apple with schools opening in a few days. Nevertheless, apple is probabely going to blame the optibay removal and void the warranty.
What else can I do?

 

[ArmanUV]

Boy. Talk about good costumer service!

I called Apple support and explained the problem + a noise issue I had with the hinge. The rep offered me a replacement since the 14 day return window hadn't passed. Since I wanted to send this one back after receiving the replacement, the rep told me they need to charge me first and that they will issue a credit after they receive the faulty MBP. I'd financed my order and there was a $5000 limit on the loan. The replacement MBP increased the total to $5130 so the rep waived $150 off the order! She also bumped the shipping to expedited for free. I should receive it by Sep 3rd.
I just hope the SSD isn't the faulty product here. I'll post here when I find out.

 

[ArmanUV]

Boy. Talk about good costumer service!

I called Apple support and explained the problem + a noise issue I had with the hinge. The rep offered me a replacement since the 14 day return window hadn't passed. Since I wanted to send this one back after receiving the replacement, the rep told me they need to charge me first and that they will issue a credit after they receive the faulty MBP. I'd financed my order and there was a $5000 limit on the loan. The replacement MBP increased the total to $5130 so the rep waived $150 off the order! She also bumped the shipping to expedited for free. I should receive it by Sep 3rd.
I just hope the SSD isn't the faulty product here. I'll post here when I find out.

FYI people: the replacement MBP arrived today. Unfortunately, it's behaving the same way with the SSD. I sent an email to OWC to get a replacement.

 

[DWBurke811]

That's very cool you got a new MacBook, but hopefully OWC will exchange your drive. Even "Mac Tested" drives can have problems, and hopefully they admit that.

 

[RayK]

It's good to hear two great companies are still great with it comes to customer service and support.

 

[ArmanUV]

Apple costumer service was superb. I still haven't received a respond from OWC though. They made me replace a perfectly good MBP (although it did result in ~$150 saving for me) when their product was actually the faulty piece.