Yeah my current is 343 with the issues, my new one will be 310 and they claim it does not have the sleep issues (older firmware).
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD Problem
- Thread starter denm316
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yeah my current is 343 with the issues, my new one will be 310 and they claim it does not have the sleep issues (older firmware).
I have a 120GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD in my Mac Pro, with the Icy Dock (Mac Pro tower, not MacBook Pro). I have never had this issue at all with freezing on wake from sleep.
My firmware is:
310A13F0
My firmware is:
310A13F0
Hows that new 343 drive? haha
Im gonna try to call OWC before they ship mine out and get a 310 sent.
Hows that new 343 drive? haha
Im gonna try to call OWC before they ship mine out and get a 310 sent.
It works fine haha... it just has that sleep issue.
They are next day shipping me another one this time with 310xxxx haha.... so I will have 3 OWC SSDs in my possession at once. They aren't making me send the others back until the newest one arrives.
So tomorrow I should get the new SSD, get it installed, make sure all is working well... then I'm sending the other two back to them
Been great customer service, was just a mistake of sending the newly flashed firmware out instead of the old firmware, as that's probably a pretty rare request.
It works fine haha... it just has that sleep issue.
They are next day shipping me another one this time with 310xxxx haha.... so I will have 3 OWC SSDs in my possession at once. They aren't making me send the others back until the newest one arrives.
So tomorrow I should get the new SSD, get it installed, make sure all is working well... then I'm sending the other two back to them
Been great customer service, was just a mistake of sending the newly flashed firmware out instead of the old firmware, as that's probably a pretty rare request.
Wanna call them for me?
Are there other advantages to updating the firmware other than the sleep issue? I have never used auto-sleep and never will, so I don't have the common SF1200 problem, and my current setup has not had any issue for the past month I have had it installed.
I just got off the phone to check on my drive, shipping today and there was a note... *Drive flashed to 310 firmware*
Yes!
Yes!
Is it a Firmware issue or installation related?
After searching the net to find an answer to confirm whether the Macbook Pro's optical drive connection is similar in speed to the HDD connection (i.e. both SATA 2 etc), I came across an article describing how to install a second drive (SSD) in optical drive bay.
The article however had an updated note stating that there seem to be a sleep issue with drives connected to the optical bay connector and the recommendation is to install your primary drive (SSD) in the original HDD location with secondary drive in optical bay.
I did note one or two questions in the thread asking this, but there never was an answer. This is why I'm asking whether it really is a Sandforce issue, or perhaps the intermittent" occurrence could be due to placement of drive?
After searching the net to find an answer to confirm whether the Macbook Pro's optical drive connection is similar in speed to the HDD connection (i.e. both SATA 2 etc), I came across an article describing how to install a second drive (SSD) in optical drive bay.
The article however had an updated note stating that there seem to be a sleep issue with drives connected to the optical bay connector and the recommendation is to install your primary drive (SSD) in the original HDD location with secondary drive in optical bay.
I did note one or two questions in the thread asking this, but there never was an answer. This is why I'm asking whether it really is a Sandforce issue, or perhaps the intermittent" occurrence could be due to placement of drive?
Incorrect labeling of OWC 120 SSD
This is my first post on this board after searching for anyone who has encountered the same problem with OWC I experienced this week...
Recently I purchased a 120 Extreme Pro SSD and installed it today, only to find it was actually a 60gig drive. Everything about the packing slip and externals of the drive described the 120gig model I ordered, so I obviously called OWC customer support immediately. I was shocked to find that they already knew about the issue since they had mislabeled an unknown number of these SSD drives. Knowing this they were just waiting to see who complained without being proactive and alerting their customers of the mistake. A replacement drive will be shipped to me this week. Gee thanks OWC. So, I thought I'd pass the news along to anyone else considering doing business with them.
Caveat Emptor!
This is my first post on this board after searching for anyone who has encountered the same problem with OWC I experienced this week...
Recently I purchased a 120 Extreme Pro SSD and installed it today, only to find it was actually a 60gig drive. Everything about the packing slip and externals of the drive described the 120gig model I ordered, so I obviously called OWC customer support immediately. I was shocked to find that they already knew about the issue since they had mislabeled an unknown number of these SSD drives. Knowing this they were just waiting to see who complained without being proactive and alerting their customers of the mistake. A replacement drive will be shipped to me this week. Gee thanks OWC. So, I thought I'd pass the news along to anyone else considering doing business with them.
Caveat Emptor!
That's a little dramatic. While I agree that OWC should be contacting customers rather than wait for them to complain, I doubt it's intentional deception. OWC has a good reputation in the Mac community. I've always had good experiences buying RAM, enclosure, and a SSD from them.
Not dramatic. If they know there is problem they should isolate those drives before shipping them out to consumers. Less tech savvy people might not even realize the mistake. It's their responsibility to correct the mistake, not the customer.
Get real. I doubt they shipped them that way on purpose and with prior knowledge. They probably realized it after the fact and I bet they make good to every customer. A company like OWC isn't going to be that stupid about damaging their reputation.
OK, you're right. Somebody ships me a mislabeled drive that costs twice as much and it's not their fault. Even though dude said they know about the issue and they are just waiting to see who complained. Amazing.
There's a difference between fault for a mistake and outright deception. They're guilty of the former. As I said I agree they should contact the customers with the wrong drives. But we don't know the back story. Maybe they don't know which ones got wrong drives? Nevertheless, I'm willing to cut them slack because they are a good outfit in general and I like supporting that.
Last edited:
Very good point. Chances are they don't know when the problem originally started and don't know for how long the 120GB drives were mislabeled by whomever their supplier and don't know what portion of the drives were actually 60GB. One in a hundred? One in ten? One in two? Presumably now that they know, they've checked their stock and ensured it doesn't continue.
Lets be clear...
I never implied that there was "outright deception". Rather, its essentially laziness and casual disregard of the customers that they _new_ had purchased drives that were potentially mislabeled. Ever heard of product recalls by a manufacturer? That said, my point was to warn anyone else who recently purchased these from OWC to check their drive in an external enclosure first. Had I done that, the tedious process of opening my MacBookPro _twice_ would have been avoided. <deep sigh>
Furthermore, I expect some compensation from OWC in this nightmare purchase which has cost me considerable time, effort, and loss of use. To this point, their customer service representative could only offer free shipping of the replacement drive. (OWC, are you kidding me?)
Lets consider a different, hypothetical scenario...
A customer orders a 120gig SSD and discovers after installing the drive that is is actually a mislabeled 240gig drive. Who eats the cost of that mistake? Assuming OWC discovered the problem, would they ship the correct (smaller) drive to said customer and expect that person to bear the time and expense of correcting the issue? Free shipping aside, of course
MBPro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, mid 2007,MacBookPro3,1
OS 10.6.5
Initially, the 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD was installed in the original hard drive position, and, a 750GB ST Momentus, in a newmodeus caddy, in the optical bay. The observed behaviour was sporatic freezes(spinning ball; having to hold down the power button to restart) when waking up from a sleep induced by computer inactivity, and, no problems following a manually induced sleep.
OWC Support asked me to try swapping the two drives. The behaviour now is sort of reversed. Manual sleeping (lid closing or the apple menu) yields only a black screen - nothing will wake up the computer other than holding down the power button for a restart. What is working are system induced
display-sleep-hard disk spindowns then wakeups, by setting the energy
saver "computer sleep" to "never", Display sleep to 10 minutes, and enable
"put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible". The Seagate sounds like it is spinning down, as do the two firewire 800 external drives.
The OWC Support response to this information was that they, and their suppliers, have pinpointed several causes for similar issues with most SSDs and Mac laptops. One most likely being a SMC (more or less system firmware) issue that Apple should be able to patch in the next OS update (suggested month end), thus avoiding a SSD reformatting to apply a patch.
This response was just before the OS 10.6.6 release, which has yet to be installed, in case of bugs, being a work computer.
Has OS 10.6.6 changed anything for anyone?
Have very much enjoyed my interaction with OWC Support.
ssd
OWC 120gb ssd in optical bay 343- Mac pro 13 os 10.6.6 -sleep never.
closing the lid to sleep seems to work ok.
I've had the spinning ball before, but think because I didn't have it on -sleep never, also was os 10.6.5.
Kinda afraid to change any thing now, cause it's working so well.
(or run on battery cause of auto sleep).
OWC 120gb ssd in optical bay 343- Mac pro 13 os 10.6.6 -sleep never.
closing the lid to sleep seems to work ok.
I've had the spinning ball before, but think because I didn't have it on -sleep never, also was os 10.6.5.
Kinda afraid to change any thing now, cause it's working so well.
(or run on battery cause of auto sleep).
Yep, also got the wrong one. Quite annoying though! I fully agree this hasn't been intentional, but it comes with a fair share of effort (i.e. having to open MacBook twice, dealing with Fedex due to customs clearance etc). In my day-dream OWC will be sending me a 240GB replacement drive as part of their apology
As I live in South Africa, the replacement drive "import" has to go through Customs - I am being charged VAT and assessment fees again (of approx $60) as the invoice is not zero rated and properly marked as a RMA. Item now stuck in Customs and still trying to sort this one out.
I did set up the 60GB SSD and will restore it to the 120GB version once received. I use a MBP 15" 2.8GHz mid 2009 unibody with 8GB RAM and haven't really experienced these sleep issues (on 10.6.6 with drive installed in optical bay). I am however a bit disappointed with its general performance. My previous drive was a Momentus XT and although the SSD is faster, it is not that overwhelming. From pressing the power button to login screen it takes about 35 seconds.
I have a PC configured with a Kingston 128GB SSDNow+ drive (on a Asus Rampage 3 Extreme Mobo, Core i7 980 Extreme and 6GB HyperX triple channel 2,250MHz RAM). Startup is virtually in 18 seconds with Windows 7.
As my previous post comparison could be a bit unfair (with the PC hardware much more powerful), I thought of rather comparing the SSD startup performance with my work notebook (a HP Elitebook 2530p with 2GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM and 80GB Intel X25 SSD).
Startup time (from switching on to login screen) took 46 seconds. I must just note that the work notebook has all sorts of enterprise smartcard security software loading as part of boot. External benchmarks show the Mercury Extreme SSD performance more superior in some tests to the Intel X25, but it is not coming though so clearly in real life use.
Would like to hear other users experience after installing their OWC SSD.
Startup time (from switching on to login screen) took 46 seconds. I must just note that the work notebook has all sorts of enterprise smartcard security software loading as part of boot. External benchmarks show the Mercury Extreme SSD performance more superior in some tests to the Intel X25, but it is not coming though so clearly in real life use.
Would like to hear other users experience after installing their OWC SSD.
So my question is, has OWC got these problems worked out OK now? If I buy a drive today from them, will it ship to me with the correct firmware or will they still ship out drives that have the problems?
I know they are fully aware of the sleep issues by now, they should have this worked out by this point.
I really need to know. Thinking about getting a couple more SSDs for my other Macs. My Mac Pro is the only one with the SSD now (120GB Mercury Pro Extreme), and it is 310 revision firmware. Everything works fine.
I don't want to buy a problematic drive. Please let me know if OWC has fixed this by now.
Thanks
I know they are fully aware of the sleep issues by now, they should have this worked out by this point.
I really need to know. Thinking about getting a couple more SSDs for my other Macs. My Mac Pro is the only one with the SSD now (120GB Mercury Pro Extreme), and it is 310 revision firmware. Everything works fine.
I don't want to buy a problematic drive. Please let me know if OWC has fixed this by now.
Thanks