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OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD Problem

Just spoke with OWC again today, and as stated before (and on their update page) they are planning to release a OSX firmware updater Q1 of 2011.

They are also "working hard" on a fix for the firmware update, I assume it won't be launched until the same time of the OSX updater, as the issue seems to only be with OSX.

Meantime... I guess you can use an app called "smart sleep" which you can set the computer to sleep instead of hibernate, which I assume fixes the issue?

When the computer idles to sleep... is that hibernate actually?

When I shut my lid, I have no issues at all waking up... but if I let it idle to "sleep?", that's when my issues come... so I assume that is hibernate?
 
millerb7 said:
Just spoke with OWC again today, and as stated before (and on their update page) they are planning to release a OSX firmware updater Q1 of 2011.

They are also "working hard" on a fix for the firmware update, I assume it won't be launched until the same time of the OSX updater, as the issue seems to only be with OSX.

Meantime... I guess you can use an app called "smart sleep" which you can set the computer to sleep instead of hibernate, which I assume fixes the issue?

When the computer idles to sleep... is that hibernate actually?

When I shut my lid, I have no issues at all waking up... but if I let it idle to "sleep?", that's when my issues come... so I assume that is hibernate?
Click to expand...

Nope. When the computer idle to sleep. It is supposingly the same sleep as closing lid. The difference, I suspect, is that one is ACPI (apple hardware) driven and 1 is OS driven.

Whether the machine hibernates depends on a setting called hibernatemode in the system. Smartsleep basically change that setting. You can also see the setting if you open terminal and type "pmset -g". If hibernatemode is 0, hibernation is disabled. If hibernatemode is 1, the machine will hibernate no matter you close the lid or let it idle. If hibernatemode is 3, the machine will sleep but writes the memory content to the hibernate file so that if your machine loss power, it will resume operation from the image before sleep.

343 seems to have issue with hibernate and sleep with idle timer. However it sleeps well with closing the lid, pressing the power button and choose sleep, or using the apple menu to sleep.
 
I recently installed an OWC 240GB SSD in my Late 2008 Unibody MacbookPro and was having similar issues. The computer would not wake from trackpad press (had to use the spacebar or enter key) and when it did wake, the wifi icon in the menu bar would freak out and search for for home wifi network but not find anything. Any applications clicked would not launch and hitting the Apple icon in the menubar did nothing.

Unchecking the "Put the hard disk to sleep" mode has seemed to resolve the problem for me. Obviously this works because the hard drive never shuts off and thus the computer never goes into hibernation mode. Like others here, I'd like a better solution but this seems to do the trick.

System Preferences > Energy Saver > Uncheck "Put the hard disk to sleep when possible".
Screen%20shot%202010-12-09%20at%2012.21.12%20AM.png
 
That was one of the first things I did and unfortuntely for me, that did not make any difference. Changing the hibernation mode however for my circumstances proved successful, so I'll live with hibernation mode 0
 
maflynn said:
That was one of the first things I did and unfortuntely for me, that did not make any difference. Changing the hibernation mode however for my circumstances proved successful, so I'll live with hibernation mode 0
Click to expand...

I guess my computer has never gone into hibernation <shrugs>?

All I have issues with is if it idles to sleep. Any other way of putting it to sleep works great.

I can close the lid, come back a day or two later, and starts right up... so apparently I'm not sure what puts the computer into "hibernate" vs "sleep".

What will actually cause the computer to hibernate, besides it actually running out of battery while sleeping? At that point it writes the data onto the hard drive and then I cannot get it to wake up without freaking out... that hibernate then?

Just trying to get the terminology down as I have always just called sleep "sleep".
 
Yes i was wondering that.

Whats all the options that you can and cannot turn off and what do they do?

This must be random thing for ssd's otherwise OWC couldn't sell thousands of them and all have problems.

Very strange.

I hope my fixed or replaced one has no issues, fingers crossed.
 
Jezthomp said:
This must be random thing for ssd's otherwise OWC couldn't sell thousands of them and all have problems.

Very strange.
Click to expand...

As I sit on the fence, I wonder if there any information regarding whether these problems affect both those who cloned their existing drive to their SSD as well as those who did a clean install? Or is there a skewed distribution towards one method or the other?
 
deeddawg said:
As I sit on the fence, I wonder if there any information regarding whether these problems affect both those who cloned their existing drive to their SSD as well as those who did a clean install? Or is there a skewed distribution towards one method or the other?
Click to expand...

I dont want a clone though, i want a fresh install from scratch... :(

At first i thought you had to format it a certain way but seems thats not the case either...
 
Jezthomp said:
Yes i was wondering that.

Whats all the options that you can and cannot turn off and what do they do?

This must be random thing for ssd's otherwise OWC couldn't sell thousands of them and all have problems.

Very strange.

I hope my fixed or replaced one has no issues, fingers crossed.
Click to expand...
It seems to be a sandforce controller issue, not a OWC issue, as OCZ is having the same issue.

deeddawg said:
As I sit on the fence, I wonder if there any information regarding whether these problems affect both those who cloned their existing drive to their SSD as well as those who did a clean install? Or is there a skewed distribution towards one method or the other?
Click to expand...

I did a clean install and have the "hibernate... whatever that may be haha" issue.... I won't do a clone, so not an option for me.... but as I said, all I had to do was set my "sleep to never" from the battery management pref. and I haven't had a single issue yet... I just close my lid when I need it to sleep.
 
Not having the issue on my sandforce ssd, but I disabled hibernation as soon as I got my Mbp. And just cloned to the ssd when I got it. :)
 
Last edited:
Jezthomp said:
Thats not really any use being you need a PC to apply the firmware.

Most folk are buying this for their Macs.
Click to expand...

The point is the firmware comes from Sandforce, be it a PC only flasher or a Mac version, too.

And you don't need a PC to flash an OCZ SSD, not even a Windows installation .
 
Jezthomp said:
Thats not really any use being you need a PC to apply the firmware.

Most folk are buying this for their Macs.
Click to expand...

Most people are buying OWC SSDs for their macs. Those SSDs contain the sandforce controller and they not OWC are supplying the updated firmware. They're the ones that initially sent out the windows only update.
 
maflynn said:
Most people are buying OWC SSDs for their macs. Those SSDs contain the sandforce controller and they not OWC are supplying the updated firmware. They're the ones that initially sent out the windows only update.
Click to expand...

Yup OWC sent me the Sandforce update but i had no ways or means of applying it.

Its odd that a Mac aimed SSD needs Windows to apply stuff to it.

I'm not blaming OWC they have been superb with sorting me out and i hope my replacement or fix works well when they send it back to me, their customer service is excellent.

I wonder if the Mac firmware updater will work with the Sandforce as well as the actual drives update?
 
Jezthomp said:
Its odd that a Mac aimed SSD needs Windows to apply stuff to it.
Click to expand...

There are no SSDs or HDDs made for the Mac, or Windows, it just so happened that Windows has a greater market share, and also Apple is not a Sandforce customer .

If it was simple, or if Apple cared, we'd probably have flashing tools for OSX already .
There aren't any for HDDs, either .
 
Jezthomp said:
Yup OWC sent me the Sandforce update but i had no ways or means of applying it.
Click to expand...
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, I think its wacky for a Mac focused retailer to provide a windows updater. While there are some who run windows who can take advantage of the updater, they should have done more work beforehand to make it make friendly.
 
maflynn said:
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, I think its wacky for a Mac focused retailer to provide a windows updater. While there are some who run windows who can take advantage of the updater, they should have done more work beforehand to make it make friendly.
Click to expand...

I doubt OWC has the resources to do it; afaik there are no FW updaters for any HDDs that work in OSX either.
 
Same problem here. I have the 240 Mercury Pro SSD for a week and crashed three times. I googled and I thought hibernate was the course too. I disabled it with smart sleep (just sleep, not writing sleep image on disk), but the same issue came back again last night when my 13" macbook pro waking up from sleep.

The disk failed to save an open document (locked-up, failed to write error message on screen), and the rainbow spinning ball came in after that I had to forced restart

I noticed all my four crashes that I had that involved clicking on any open finder windows or application windows. If my macbook pro wakes up from sleep only showing a desktop that it would be ok. Anyone has similar issue like this?
 
asp30deuce said:
I wish I would have read this thread, I just ordered the 240Gb SSD Pro last night :(
Click to expand...

You'll be fine. Just turn hibernate off... your will ship with the new firmware, as mine did which was ordered a week or two ago.

It has nothing to do with the SSD, it has to do with the sandforce controller. You would have fun into the same issue with any sandforce-based SSD. OWC still degrades much less according to benchmarks than OCZ does... and is WAY faster than intel SSD (which seems to be the only SSD atm 100% issue free).

Enjoy it, you'll love it. They will release a new update Q1 2011 so you can allow hibernation again.

Also, for me, the ONLY thing I had to do to fix my issue, was set my "ide sleep timer" under system preferences to "never" instead of "5, 10, etc minutes".
 
I've had the same issue with my 120GB OCZ Vertex-2 SSD. It is confirmed to be a Sandforce Firmware issue, OCZ and OWC are familiar with the issue. I installed the SSD in my Mac Pro (see thread: OCZ Vertex 2 in 2010 Mac Pro 6-Core - Known Issue with Sandforce SSD's, and had kernel panics when waking from hibernating overnight. OCZ Vertex 2 SSD's have a new firmware update, 1.24, to address the issue. However I could not flash the SSD on my 6-Core Pro with Windows 7 64-bit installed on another SATA HDD. Finally gave up, and learned a trick that someone took the time in teaching me (thanks again Kevin) which has been covered in this thread, that is using terminal to never hibernate the system. However, as I have always put my Pro to sleep at night I don't like the idea of having to leave it on 24/7.

Side note: I spent weeks researching SSD's and chose OCZ over OWC. I regret that decision as OCZ customer support is awful. Reading through OCZ forums for help, tech admins are arrogant and rude to their customers, I was stunned at some of their comments. Wish I went with OWC.
 
bedifferent said:
I've had the same issue with my 120GB OCZ Vertex-2 SSD. It is confirmed to be a Sandforce Firmware issue, OCZ and OWC are familiar with the issue. I installed the SSD in my Mac Pro (see thread: OCZ Vertex 2 in 2010 Mac Pro 6-Core - Known Issue with Sandforce SSD's, and had kernel panics when waking from hibernating overnight. OCZ Vertex 2 SSD's have a new firmware update, 1.24, to address the issue. However I could not flash the SSD on my 6-Core Pro with Windows 7 64-bit installed on another SATA HDD. Finally gave up, and learned a trick that someone took the time in teaching me (thanks again Kevin) which has been covered in this thread, that is using terminal to never hibernate the system. However, as I have always put my Pro to sleep at night I don't like the idea of having to leave it on 24/7.

Side note: I spent weeks researching SSD's and chose OCZ over OWC. I regret that decision as OCZ customer support is awful. Reading through OCZ forums for help, tech admins are arrogant and rude to their customers, I was stunned at some of their comments. Wish I went with OWC.
Click to expand...

Hibernate isn't sleep, its just incase well its more a laptop issue, if your computer runs out of power when the lid is closed or its a sleep.

If you plug it in and give some power it will wake up from where you left off.

Sleep is separate from my understanding.
 
Solution to idle sleep

The only thing that I can do right now is to disable the idle sleep timer and hibernation.

Once those 2 were disabled, the machine is just fine. Whenever I don't need to use my computer, I close the lid to sleep, or power it off.

Booting up is really extremely fast (like 10-12 secs). iPhoto is also fast as hell (in the past scrolling even in my MacbookPro is sluggish, now it is smooth).

I talked to OWC people and they already acknowledge the issue. Hopefully the coming firmware update will resolve it.
 
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