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OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD Problem
- Thread starter denm316
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Hibernation has nothing to do with battery calibration per say. It's just that when you run your battery down, the system will shut down cold instead of hibernating. You will lose anything that's in memory, so you should save any changes you have in applications before doing it.
350A13F0 has the problem too
Hi, I've just installed a OWC Extreme 240GB on my Macbook Pro 13, 2.6ghz, 8gb ram, mid 2010.
The firmware that came with my SSD is 350A13F0..
And I'm getting the issue every time it sleeps automatically.
I get an error message stating that the drive got disconnected (similar error that the one when you disconnect a pendrive without the safe disconnect).
The error also states that MAC OS X will try to "fix" the drive when restarted the OS..
Actually, I got the problem once I start using it. without the power cord (just using the battery)..
I still have my MAC OS installed on the 500gb hard disk. I also have a boot camp partition with windows 7, that seems to work just fine...
I've just turned off the "put the hard disk to sleep when possible" for both "on battery" and "on power"...
Question: THis should keep the mac away from future problems, right?
Thanks
Lucho
Hi, I've just installed a OWC Extreme 240GB on my Macbook Pro 13, 2.6ghz, 8gb ram, mid 2010.
The firmware that came with my SSD is 350A13F0..
And I'm getting the issue every time it sleeps automatically.
I get an error message stating that the drive got disconnected (similar error that the one when you disconnect a pendrive without the safe disconnect).
The error also states that MAC OS X will try to "fix" the drive when restarted the OS..
Actually, I got the problem once I start using it. without the power cord (just using the battery)..
I still have my MAC OS installed on the 500gb hard disk. I also have a boot camp partition with windows 7, that seems to work just fine...
I've just turned off the "put the hard disk to sleep when possible" for both "on battery" and "on power"...
Question: THis should keep the mac away from future problems, right?
Thanks
Lucho
No. What you want to do is go to Energy Saver pref pane and set the "Computer sleep:" slider all the way to the right to "Never" under both battery and A/C power so the computer will not go to sleep on its own. You can still sleep it by closing the lid or by the Sleep menu option in the Apple menu.
FW updater for OS X and hibernation fix in the work
Hi,
I just contacted the OWC tech support regarding the hibernation issue and a firmware updater for OS X. He confirmed the hibernation issue, but according to them the current FW does not have problems with sleep mode.
Also, a firmware updater for OS X is on the way along with a patch for the hibernation bug.
What do you think? Are they reliable? They better are...otherwise no more sales.
Hi,
I just contacted the OWC tech support regarding the hibernation issue and a firmware updater for OS X. He confirmed the hibernation issue, but according to them the current FW does not have problems with sleep mode.
Also, a firmware updater for OS X is on the way along with a patch for the hibernation bug.
What do you think? Are they reliable? They better are...otherwise no more sales.
Looks a couple posts up and you will see a user with FW 350 that still has the sleep bug.
Users here have reported good customer service from OWC but I am a little bothered they continue to ship a SSD they themselves acknowledge has a firmware bug that locks up the users machine.
I can confirm that:
a Macbook Pro 13 mid 2010, 2.66ghz, 8gb ram, original drive 500gb + 240GB SSD Extreme drive with the last firmware 350A13F0
It has the same sleep problem too.
BUT... since I still have my original 500gb spining drive as the boot drive. I see the color wheel , but I can still use it... The color whel shows for some minutes, until the SSD drive is disconnected from OS X Volumes, with an error message.
So, the problem is that the OS X loses the connection to the SSD Drive...
350A13F0 sleep problem
I have a 2007 MBP 15" 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo w/ 4gb ram and installed a 240GB OWC Extreme SSD this weekend (replacing the original 120GB 5400rpm) and can confirm the sleep (spinning wheel) issue still exists with the 350 firmware.
I set hibernate to 0 after reading this thread - seems fine and it works with no problems when closing the lid and opening back up.
The system is significantly faster with the SSD and probably faster than the new MBPs with a HDD. Not sure on the battery life however. It is too early to tell.
I have a 2007 MBP 15" 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo w/ 4gb ram and installed a 240GB OWC Extreme SSD this weekend (replacing the original 120GB 5400rpm) and can confirm the sleep (spinning wheel) issue still exists with the 350 firmware.
I set hibernate to 0 after reading this thread - seems fine and it works with no problems when closing the lid and opening back up.
The system is significantly faster with the SSD and probably faster than the new MBPs with a HDD. Not sure on the battery life however. It is too early to tell.
I just bought a 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro and the firmware is 350A13F0. That's even after I called and spoke with a sales rep to update my order for the 310 firmware. I just got it in, so I've not done extensive testing with the sleep issues yet. Running on an "Early 2008" MacBook Pro.
Also, I have made the changes discussed here: Optimizing Mac OS X for SSD drives. That does include switching hibernatemode to 0 and disabling hard drive sleep.
Also, I have made the changes discussed here: Optimizing Mac OS X for SSD drives. That does include switching hibernatemode to 0 and disabling hard drive sleep.
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That disables suspend to disk functionality entirely, so you would't hit any of these SSD issues.
However, I would think that with SSD one would want sleep settings similar to those on Macbook Air - with addition of deepsleep and deepsleepdelay parameters to take advantage of SSD's ability to come out of hibernate faster and save battery life during sleep. Has anyone experimented with deepsleep setting on MBPs with SSD (either Apple or 3rd party)?
I prefer that myself since it also frees up disk space equivalent to installed RAM if you delete the sleepimage file. In my case that's a 8GB of available space recovered.
Owc ssd
We can appreciate all the sentiments in this thread and wanted to reach out to say we hear you.
We have been and continue working diligently on this issue with SandForce, and while it doesn't affect 90% of those that purchased and are using an OWC SSD, it still is something that is a high priority for us to resolve.
Unfortunately, during a cutting edge product's evolution, issues can crop up despite all research measures employed during development.
To ensure the confidence in purchase, we were the first SSD manufacturer to offer a 30 day money back guarantee in the event of any dissatisfaction. And we offered this from day one of this product's introduction...not just a band-aid fix for this isolated hibernation issue.
We truly hope a new firmware update that solves this matter will be forthcoming from SandForce in the next several weeks. In fact, we have been testing the next firmware release version since mid-February and we hope to have an announcement shortly.
We want to thank you for your patience in this matter and should have you have any additional needs, please do not hesitate to contact our customer service/tech support departments.
Sincerely
OWC Grant
We can appreciate all the sentiments in this thread and wanted to reach out to say we hear you.
We have been and continue working diligently on this issue with SandForce, and while it doesn't affect 90% of those that purchased and are using an OWC SSD, it still is something that is a high priority for us to resolve.
Unfortunately, during a cutting edge product's evolution, issues can crop up despite all research measures employed during development.
To ensure the confidence in purchase, we were the first SSD manufacturer to offer a 30 day money back guarantee in the event of any dissatisfaction. And we offered this from day one of this product's introduction...not just a band-aid fix for this isolated hibernation issue.
We truly hope a new firmware update that solves this matter will be forthcoming from SandForce in the next several weeks. In fact, we have been testing the next firmware release version since mid-February and we hope to have an announcement shortly.
We want to thank you for your patience in this matter and should have you have any additional needs, please do not hesitate to contact our customer service/tech support departments.
Sincerely
OWC Grant
Glad to see an OWC rep post here considering I just tonight came across this thread and just this morning decided against my gut to pick up the OWC 120 Mercury Pro SSD over the Crucial C300 128GB SSD.
Currently I am running the Crucial C300 64GB SSD in my 2011 MBP and its been flawless for the last 10 or so days without any of the mentioned problems.
With luck I wont experience the issue with the OWC, as I believe the Crucial uses the very same SF1200 controller in its SSD's.
Drive and DataDoubler arrive on Monday, will post back any details if I have the issue or not.
Current Settings
Intel 6 Series Chipset:
Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported
C300-CTFDDAC064MAG:
Capacity: 64.02 GB (64,023,257,088 bytes)
Model: C300-CTFDDAC064MAG
Revision: 0006
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
BSD Name: disk0
Medium Type: Solid State
TRIM Support: No
Your right.. I guess if I had taken the time to simply google it I would have been a better "poster child" LOL
Any update on the OS X based firmware updater that was promised on your web site? Or even a Linux/FreeDOS CD-Rom installer would do the trick. The current solution OWC of installing Windows under Bootcamp for firmware updates is not very attractive from a user standpoint.
A double AMEN to that - having to install anything Windows to update SSD firmware = NO OWC PURCHASE !!!
I am not aware of any vendor with a native OS X updater. Many have a Linux or Free-DOS .iso that you DL and burn to a CD, then boot to that CD to do a firmware update and I would even be okay with that. I think you can use these .iso files to make a bootable USB key the same way if you don't have a optical drive (like a MB Air).
I know Intel and Crucial use the .iso CD-Rom method. This is much of what drove me away from OWC and toward Intel with my latest SSD purchase.
Anytime soon till June is there ETA for that... *sigh* I'm really thinking about just giving in and buying a SATA 3Gbps drive (I have 2011 MBP with SATA 6Gbps).
Should I care about TRIM support?
I just read an in depth review at anandtech.com and learned that the SSD's sold by Apple support TRIM with OS-X and are the only drives to do so (here's a quote below):
"If you're the conservative type and just wants something that for sure works with little to no concern about absolute performance, the Apple SSDs are probably the safest bet. You'll get a drive that's much faster than a hard drive, fully supported by Apple and with TRIM support. Yes, that's right, OS X finally has TRIM support but Apple only enables it on it's own branded SSDs. To Apple's credit, given the number of problems I've seen with SSDs over the past couple of years it makes sense to lock down and only support drives you've validated. On the flip side however, Apple should be validating and working with controller makers to ensure all drives work under OS X..."
I'm preparing to order an MBP 2011 13" and was planning on adding an aftermarket SSD after seeing discussion here in the forums, however after reading this review I am concerned about what aftermarket drive will give me the highest reliability/least concern. (I didn't really want to BTO as its the most expensive option, since I can order a stock PC from out of state save a couple hundred in tax as well as the higher price of the Apple SSD). While I want speed, it doesn't have to be the fastest on the planet. Reliability is most important.
Am I being overly concerned about fearing an aftermarket SSD? Is TRIM a desireable feature?
Thanks
I just read an in depth review at anandtech.com and learned that the SSD's sold by Apple support TRIM with OS-X and are the only drives to do so (here's a quote below):
"If you're the conservative type and just wants something that for sure works with little to no concern about absolute performance, the Apple SSDs are probably the safest bet. You'll get a drive that's much faster than a hard drive, fully supported by Apple and with TRIM support. Yes, that's right, OS X finally has TRIM support but Apple only enables it on it's own branded SSDs. To Apple's credit, given the number of problems I've seen with SSDs over the past couple of years it makes sense to lock down and only support drives you've validated. On the flip side however, Apple should be validating and working with controller makers to ensure all drives work under OS X..."
I'm preparing to order an MBP 2011 13" and was planning on adding an aftermarket SSD after seeing discussion here in the forums, however after reading this review I am concerned about what aftermarket drive will give me the highest reliability/least concern. (I didn't really want to BTO as its the most expensive option, since I can order a stock PC from out of state save a couple hundred in tax as well as the higher price of the Apple SSD). While I want speed, it doesn't have to be the fastest on the planet. Reliability is most important.
Am I being overly concerned about fearing an aftermarket SSD? Is TRIM a desireable feature?
Thanks
Yeah, that's what I hear. Kind of waiting on OWC before I pull the trigger on a new MBP and their drive. Never had this much trouble spending 2500 bucks in my life.
If you want reliability, no question get the Apple SSD. In terms of speed it might not be the fastest SSD on the market but you are mostly going to see that in benchmarks. In normal use I really doubt you could detect the difference between the Apple and the fastest SSD out there. And with the Apple you are going to get support and updates from Apple, not waiting months for a third party to get a firmware update. I got the Apple SSD and I think it was worth it. And price wise, it's actually cheaper to get the Apple SSD. Show me another 512GB SSD for $1100.