OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD Problem

[denm316]

Wondering if anyone else here is experiencing this issue with the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD.

I have a 2010 2.4GHz 15inch i5 MBP. Everything is stock except for the hard drive. I removed the 320GB 5400rpm drive that the laptop came with and installed a 240GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD.

Whenever the laptop goes to sleep on its own and I wake it up, all I get is the spinning beach-ball and cant do anything with the machine, cant force quit or anything. I have to hold the power button in to cycle the machine. Then all is fine.

If the laptop goes to sleep by me closing the lid then it is fine. The issue only arises when the machine goes to sleep on its own (both on power and battery).

While this is not an end of the world issue, it is annoying as it is a $500 hard drive. The laptop and the drive are about 2 weeks or so old. This problem doesn't occur when using the stock drive.

Any help that can be given is appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[millerb7]

Wondering if anyone else here is experiencing this issue with the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD.

I have a 2010 2.4GHz 15inch i5 MBP. Everything is stock except for the hard drive. I removed the 320GB 5400rpm drive that the laptop came with and installed a 240GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD.

Whenever the laptop goes to sleep on its own and I wake it up, all I get is the spinning beach-ball and cant do anything with the machine, cant force quit or anything. I have to hold the power button in to cycle the machine. Then all is fine.

If the laptop goes to sleep by me closing the lid then it is fine. The issue only arises when the machine goes to sleep on its own (both on power and battery).

While this is not an end of the world issue, it is annoying as it is a $500 hard drive. The laptop and the drive are about 2 weeks or so old. This problem doesn't occur when using the stock drive.

Any help that can be given is appreciated.

Thanks,

It is NOT a OWC SSD issue... it is an SSD issue almost across the board with macs for some stupid reason. And it's not 100% either, it's a weird one that's talked about tons on the SSD boards. Doesn't happen to all macs, certain models etc.

OCZ, OWC, Kingston, GSkill all are prone to it. Make sure you have the latest firmware for your SSD and I'd put the auto-sleep function off for now until a new update comes out that fixes it. Some of the imac folks are turning off their motion stuff to which seems to help.

Intel seems to be the only one avoiding the issue for the most part, but their speeds of their SSD's are half the others so I went with a OWC myself.... it'll be here Wednesday.

I assure you though, if you return the OWC for a diff. brand it'll still happen. If it happens at all with one SSD it'll happen with them all, if you're lucky and don't have the issue, you're golden.

I'm sure there is a "real" fix out there somewhere, nothing I've run across as of yet though.

 

[tanousjm]

Very strange; I have three OWC SSDs in three different Macs (2008 15" MBP, 2010 15" MBP, 2007 Mac Mini) and none have this issue. All three SSDs are the 100GB Mercury Extreme Pro RE, and one of them had to be replaced because it failed to install OSX out of the box (OWC has great customer service, by the way), but never had this freezing upon wake issue that you describe, nor anything close.

Perhaps you could try to return it, although this could be a problem with the "non-RE" models that my "RE" models don't have. I don't have any non-RE's to test with.

 

[denm316]

It is NOT a OWC SSD issue... it is an SSD issue almost across the board with macs for some stupid reason. And it's not 100% either, it's a weird one that's talked about tons on the SSD boards. Doesn't happen to all macs, certain models etc.

OCZ, OWC, Kingston, GSkill all are prone to it. Make sure you have the latest firmware for your SSD and I'd put the auto-sleep function off for now until a new update comes out that fixes it. Some of the imac folks are turning off their motion stuff to which seems to help.

Intel seems to be the only one avoiding the issue for the most part, but their speeds of their SSD's are half the others so I went with a OWC myself.... it'll be here Wednesday.

I assure you though, if you return the OWC for a diff. brand it'll still happen. If it happens at all with one SSD it'll happen with them all, if you're lucky and don't have the issue, you're golden.

I'm sure there is a "real" fix out there somewhere, nothing I've run across as of yet though.

Wasn't aware of all that, good to know even though the answer isn't what I necessarily wanted to hear.

It's funny it never happened to my Rev. B Macbook Air which came installed with a 128GB SSD. That worked flawlessly. However the drive performance seems faster with OWC.

Like I said, this isn't the end of the world but just really annoying for the most part. You just want everything to be perfect especially because of the amount sent in total. I was going to contact OWC to swap it out but I don't feel like going through the hassle if it is going to happen again. I will see if the drivers shipping now have newer firmware, however this one is only 3 weeks old so I doubt it.

 

[henry999]

... imac folks are turning off their motion stuff ...

???

Sorry, but what do you mean by 'imac [sic] motion stuff'?

cheers,

Henry

 

[millerb7]

Wasn't aware of all that, good to know even though the answer isn't what I necessarily wanted to hear.

It's funny it never happened to my Rev. B Macbook Air which came installed with a 128GB SSD. That worked flawlessly. However the drive performance seems faster with OWC.

Like I said, this isn't the end of the world but just really annoying for the most part. You just want everything to be perfect especially because of the amount sent in total. I was going to contact OWC to swap it out but I don't feel like going through the hassle if it is going to happen again. I will see if the drivers shipping now have newer firmware, however this one is only 3 weeks old so I doubt it.

Yeah, I mean some folks are having 100% success rate, others are failure after failure.... it seems after all my research that OWC was the "least" failed SSD... but still doesn't mean it's perfect.

The technology is so new still. I mean most (OCZ, GSKILL, ETC) don't even support OSX firmware updates.

 

[millerb7]

???

Sorry, but what do you mean by 'imac [sic] motion stuff'?

cheers,

Henry

Typo I was on a roll haha.

 

[michaellam]

I've got exactly the same problem

I've got exactly the same problem, also in a Macbook Pro Core i5 Mid 2010.

The problem only happens when going to sleep via timer (it appears). Sleeping by closing the lid seems to be fine.

Upgrading to latest firmware (it is a pain, need to remove OSX and install Windows because the instruction says I need to format the drive to MBR), tested and still fail.

Some recommendation says to disable sleep and use hibernate (which I don't prefer) and it doesn't work as well. When waking from hibernate the progress bar goes around 1/3 and the notebook hangs.

Raised a technical support request to OWC for almost 3 days. Yet no response

I thought that their reputation is good so I purchased from them. Hopefully should get an answer.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Have a simular problem with mine. I have a OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD 128 Gig in my 2009 15" mackbook pro. Same spinning beach ball during wakeup. But it also does it sporadically when I continue to use it with lags starting programs. Last time I used it, it totally locked up. I am going to return mine.

 

[michaellam]

Further diagnosis

I finally get in touch with OWC people. Trying a few more things tonight.

By the way, how much RAM do you have? Mine has 8G and wondering if this have any impact as well. Seems from one of the forum thread the other one having problem also have 8G of memory.

 

[EarthDawn]

I have one in my 13" mid 2010 pro and have not had this issue but am very curious to hear what they had to say and what resolution it comes to...

looking forward to reading the solution and there take on the issue.

 

[michaellam]

Tried some additional things but still failed

I've managed to tried a few more thing to see if it helps. But still failed.

I've removed my 8G memory (purchased somewhere else) and put back the stock 4G from apple. It didn't help.

Managed to get a FireWire case and boot from it. Strangely it sleeps well with it.

However, that doesn't really help since FW have it's own sleep mechanism. So I can't really determine whether it is an interface problem with my mac, since my stock hard drive works well and sleep well with it.

Am hesitating to see if I should go to Apple to get this fixed, return the SSD or wait and hopefully some magical firmware will be released and fix it.

 

[Matt.H]

Also want to chime in here, I have not long fitted a 120GB OWC SSD into my mid-2009 MacBook Pro.

When I close the lid to put it to sleep, it wakes up fine, but as everyone else is experiencing, when it goes to sleep via timer/automatically, when it wakes it hangs and beachballs.

Least I know to avoid letting it do this! The speed increase makes up for it majorly.

 

[michaellam]

Wondering if it is a common problem

If it is a common problem hopefully it is not my motherboard issue. So if that's the case I would not need to return it.

 

[michaellam]

Almost singled out the issue

I've almost singled out the issue.

It seems only happen if I sleep the machine with idle timer. The sleep issue doesn't happen when:
1. I close the lid.
2. I use some program to sleep the machine. (I try this using handbrake. There is an option to sleep the computer when video encoding finished.)
I'm trying power button and the sleep option in the apple menu tonight.

Have forwarded all these to OWC. Hopefully will get some updates. So far their technical support is very responsive.

 

[Thiol]

I finally get in touch with OWC people. Trying a few more things tonight.

By the way, how much RAM do you have? Mine has 8G and wondering if this have any impact as well. Seems from one of the forum thread the other one having problem also have 8G of memory.

Does this happen with hibernatemode 0 when safesleep is turned off?

 

[millerb7]

I have the same MBP and the 120GB Mercury Pro OWC SSD and have no issues at all.... seems to be intermittent.

Heard about it with all drives so far.

 

[michaellam]

Tried a lot of different settings already

I've tried several different settings already.

Hibernatemode=0
Disksleep=0
hibernatemode=1
disksleep timer longer and shorter than sleep timer

All reported to OWC already.

I know that the problem does not happen to everyone. But if you do a google search you'll see this happening with a lot of users.

It is not specific to OWC as well, happens to almost all SF1200 controller vendors.

When I'm buying a new hard drive, I'd expect it to work without basic issue. If it is a defect in Sandforce controllers, they should make a product recall.

Hopefully a firmware fix will resolve this...

 

[jamesryanbell]

I'm *very* interested to hear a solution to this before I buy.

 

[stangrunner]

Firmware upgrade fixed the issue.....

I had the same problem with an OWC 40GB SSD. Found this thread and fixed mine. Smooth as glass and no lock ups.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1041834/

Good Luck.

 

[michaellam]

Let's see how it goes

The thread starter of that post, like me, upgraded firmware to 343 as well. He just posted that his drive is freezing again.

I like the performance. Really hope 1 more firmware upgrade can fix my issue. It now only happens when I am sleeping from timer so I can live with it. However, would wait for OWC's recommendation before making a final decision.

 

[Jezthomp]

Problems here too, 120GB version.

Started off with the problems, turned off the motion sensor, worked beautiful for a day or so.

Now back to spinning beach ball.

Has similar worse issues with the Vertex 2 had to get rid of that, so dont think its the actual drive...

Anyone have anymore tips?

I thought the motion sensor had fixed it, odd that it was perfect now not again..

 

[Jezthomp]

The thread starter of that post, like me, upgraded firmware to 343 as well. He just posted that his drive is freezing again.

I like the performance. Really hope 1 more firmware upgrade can fix my issue. It now only happens when I am sleeping from timer so I can live with it. However, would wait for OWC's recommendation before making a final decision.

Mine came with FW 340A13F0

Is there a newer version than that, using bootcamp to put it on?

 

[millerb7]

I just threw in the 120GB OWC SSD into my 2010 MBP i5 2.4GHz unibody, ZERO issues with anything. Only been in like 48 hours though lol... but so far so good. Possible firmware upgrade? As my drive is only like 3 days old?

 

[Jezthomp]

I just threw in the 120GB OWC SSD into my 2010 MBP i5 2.4GHz unibody, ZERO issues with anything. Only been in like 48 hours though lol... but so far so good. Possible firmware upgrade? As my drive is only like 3 days old?

What version FW is your please Miller?

My MBP is the following and i'm having all sorts of issues, sometimes sweet other times just spinning ball after spinning ball...

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz