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OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD Problem
- Thread starter denm316
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Again, it is an issue with 10.6.5 AND sandforce... how they work/respond to each other. I doubt you can say it's all OSX's fault. Otherwise sandforce wouldn't be working so hard on a firmware update.
Rest assured apples cares less about it, they aren't changing any of their stuff to make it work with sandforce, sandforce is changing to make it work with apple.
I started following this thread after experiencing wake-from-sleep lockups with the 240 GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro that I purchased in November. That problem was fixed easily enough by disabling the sleep timer on my MacBook Pro and instead putting it to sleep manually (I actually discovered that before finding this thread).
Unfortunately, the SSD failed completely this morning. Wouldn't boot. Not repairable in Disk Utility. Not even mountable now. I've set up an RMA with OWC, so hopefully they will get this straightened out quickly. In the meantime I'm going to put a hard drive back in the machine and mull over whether I should give the SSD another chance once I get it back from OWC.
Unfortunately, the SSD failed completely this morning. Wouldn't boot. Not repairable in Disk Utility. Not even mountable now. I've set up an RMA with OWC, so hopefully they will get this straightened out quickly. In the meantime I'm going to put a hard drive back in the machine and mull over whether I should give the SSD another chance once I get it back from OWC.
I have not heard of any flat out failed drives like you have Poly... maybe you just got a lemon.
My Mercury extreme pro is on the way from OWC. After reading this thread i felt that it was fine to get it and make changes to my sleep, etc, if needed.
2 things i want to say:
1. If you order the drive from OWC there is a $25 discount if you purchase using amazon payments. I don't know if it always offers this or not but it's a nice little discount. I assume you need an amazon.com account to do this and then it just bills the credit card you have on account with amazon.
2. I'm confused about which settings i may need to change if i have the problem. Would someone be so kind as to list all the possible settings that may need to be changed and how/where to change them and what they do to the system. And how to change them back if a new firmware comes out that fixes the problem. It seems that some changes you do just by sliding a slider in the settings to "never" and some you have to use the terminal.
Thank you.
2 things i want to say:
1. If you order the drive from OWC there is a $25 discount if you purchase using amazon payments. I don't know if it always offers this or not but it's a nice little discount. I assume you need an amazon.com account to do this and then it just bills the credit card you have on account with amazon.
2. I'm confused about which settings i may need to change if i have the problem. Would someone be so kind as to list all the possible settings that may need to be changed and how/where to change them and what they do to the system. And how to change them back if a new firmware comes out that fixes the problem. It seems that some changes you do just by sliding a slider in the settings to "never" and some you have to use the terminal.
Thank you.
go back and loo at post #108 in this thread. I listed the Terminal commands that will set all the changes for using a SSD.
I see that this is what you posted:
My sleep 0 setting is only for AC Power.
Here's pmset -g when I'm on battery:
halfdim 1
sms 0
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
gpuswitch 2
disksleep 0
sleep 1
hibernatemode 0
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 1
acwake 0
lidwake 1
-- Do all of these need to be changed from previous defaults or only some of them? Can you put the defaults in a ( ) after the number you listed. And do you make all the changes through the terminal or does the pmset -g show settings made through terminal and preferences pane?
Thanks.
Look again, post #108. The Terminal commands are in the post, e.g.
sudo pmset -a ....
pmset -g shows what the current settings are for your current power mode (shown with *). Whether you do them via terminal or GUI is doesn't matter.
I wish these forums allowed a wiki post at the top where good info like this could be listed so all could find it easily.
I think I'm probably under some kind of bizarre holiday curse. The drive that I replaced with the Mercury Extreme Pro SSD started failing the week of Thanksgiving.
On a more serious note, the SSD was extremely nice while it worked. My MacBook Pro felt much more responsive than my RAIDed Mac Pro. Hopefully the second time is a charm.
SSD in the UK
Hi there
Just pitching in from London... I just had my OWC mercury SSD sent over and installed (240Gb) into my MacPro (4.1 model). But within the second day of using it, I must have experienced 6-7 hang/freeze/death scenarios.
looking into it is quickly becomes apparent that these are the same freezing / hanging problems as many other OWC 'customers' (should that be 'victims' / 'mugs'?) - makes me wonder how OWC can get away with marketing these drives directly to the mac community, seeing as they seem to have an aversion to recent Mac / OSX setups!
Anyway, while waiting for them to get back to me, am I right in thinking that the best way to survive at the moment is to completely switch of the sleep settings? - this is my current pm readout from Terminal.
//
Active Profiles:
UPS Power -1
AC Power -1*
Currently in use:
hibernatemode 0
womp 1
sleep 0
powerbutton 1
disksleep 0
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
autorestart 0
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 12
//
any advice on whether this is OK much appreciated!
thanks...
Hi there
Just pitching in from London... I just had my OWC mercury SSD sent over and installed (240Gb) into my MacPro (4.1 model). But within the second day of using it, I must have experienced 6-7 hang/freeze/death scenarios.
looking into it is quickly becomes apparent that these are the same freezing / hanging problems as many other OWC 'customers' (should that be 'victims' / 'mugs'?) - makes me wonder how OWC can get away with marketing these drives directly to the mac community, seeing as they seem to have an aversion to recent Mac / OSX setups!
Anyway, while waiting for them to get back to me, am I right in thinking that the best way to survive at the moment is to completely switch of the sleep settings? - this is my current pm readout from Terminal.
//
Active Profiles:
UPS Power -1
AC Power -1*
Currently in use:
hibernatemode 0
womp 1
sleep 0
powerbutton 1
disksleep 0
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
autorestart 0
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 12
//
any advice on whether this is OK much appreciated!
thanks...
Looks about right. You can review my post #106 in this thread to see what I did for my MBP. I have had zero stability issues.
The same happened to me after 8 months of use. A 200 GB model, worked
like a charm and suddenly a beach ball, no response, dead.
Probably the controller died. A replacement should be here today, but it s@cks.
please tell me how OWC's drive degrades less than OCZ's?
You would need to run identical test patterns from fresh installs over say a 30 day period to have any accuracy, power on the machines at exactly the same time and idle them at the same time and power them off at exactly the same time.
so...how was it done?
I got my 120gb OWC ssd on christmas....installed it and got about 2 freezes that day. Did a fresh install, turned everything off, disksleep, sleep, sms and it still froze. Another fresh install, froze. Called OWC yesterday and my SSD is on its way to Illinois today to be replaced.
So far my SSD has been great. The sandforce hibernate issue but I don't hibernate anyways so no biggie for me.
I'm curious to see what the next year or two bring though... I'd like to see intel really kick out a good SSD sometime in 2011... and not just bigger sizes... I'd love to see some better speeds from them.
I'm also curious to see what Lion will bring as far as TRIM if any.
I think we easily have until 2012 probably before price/GB starts getting reasonable.
I'm curious to see what the next year or two bring though... I'd like to see intel really kick out a good SSD sometime in 2011... and not just bigger sizes... I'd love to see some better speeds from them.
I'm also curious to see what Lion will bring as far as TRIM if any.
I think we easily have until 2012 probably before price/GB starts getting reasonable.
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Which firmware was your last one and when had you purchased it?
ot73nl said:I've just got a replacement 240gb OWC ssd (sent it back because of the idle sleep problem). The replacement ssd has 310A13F0 firmware and does not have any problems with freezing after idle sleep.
Which firmware was your last one and when had you purchased it?
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I got it on December, 2. It had 343... Firmware. After chatting with the customer support they requested me to RMA it. I was also told that this idle sleep problem appears on smal quantity of OWC sdd's only. The replacement came today and it works perfectly with i5 2,4 MacBook pro.
I got it on December, 2. It had 343... Firmware. After chatting with the customer support they requested me to RMA it. I was also told that this idle sleep problem appears on smal quantity of OWC sdd's only. The replacement came today and it works perfectly with i5 2,4 MacBook pro.
Apparently the 343 is the newest and is the one having the issues.... the earlier version 310 I haven't found some one with the issue.
I'd love to hear from more folks.
EDIT
So I just finished chatting with OWC again myself. It does seem they believe the older 310xxx version does not have the issue.
They are going to send me a new SSD with the older firmware (310xxx) and then allow me to send my old one back to them AFTER I received my new one. It keeps me with VERY minimal downtime.
The customer service rep was super amazing that I talked with today. They originally wanted to RMA my old drive and flash it back to older firmware, but that would have kept me down for a few days which just isn't possible. So they agreed to send me the new one first with just having to ask politely ONE time... It was amazing haha!
They also gave me pre-paid shipping back. Anyways, it was my first time having to return to OWC and I was impressed.
I'll update in this thread later this week when my new SSD arrives and I have it installed on the sleep/hibernate issues.
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