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Samsung 840 EVO Performance update on iMac 2009 Fusion drive

K

Koxi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 31, 2014
6
1
I have a late 2009 iMac 27" which I modified with a Fusion Drive.
A 250GB Samsung 840 EVO replaced the Superdrive and works with the original internal 1TB Harddrive.

The Performance is really good, but the Samsung SSD has a bug in the Firmware that decreases the performance of Files older than a year to below
30MB/s read/write.

Now Samsung released a "Performance Update" (Bootable CD) with which the firmware gets updated and all files are read & written once again to get rid of the problem.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html

I tested this CD on my 2009 MacBook Pro with an 128GB Samung 840 EVO and it worked perfect.

On the iMac there are some problems.
1.) The iMac does not boot off an external USB Device anymore (which seems to be an intentional behavior by apple when the superdrive is replaced by a bootable device.
2.) rEFInd does not support LVMs with Yosemite which is sad, because Fusion Drive is based on it
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/yosemite.html

So I got 2 Problems:
How do I get an external Device beeing used as boot device (USB Superdrive, USB Liteon or USB Stick)

Does this firmware update work on a fusion drive (LVM) at all ?

And additional:
Is it possible to connect the ssd as an external usb drive and keep the existing LVM (to reconnect the superdrive internaly)
 
Thanks for the tip, but it didn't work.

I turned the iMac on with ALT pressed and saw 3 possibilities (2x Macintosh HD which seem to be SSD + HD used in my fusion drive) and TimeCapsule.

I plugged in the USB stick and waited about 5 minutes. Nothing happened at all. I tried the stick with my MacBook Pro. Works perfectly.

:/ .. Anyone else with an idea ?
 
Koxi said:
Thanks for the tip, but it didn't work.

I turned the iMac on with ALT pressed and saw 3 possibilities (2x Macintosh HD which seem to be SSD + HD used in my fusion drive) and TimeCapsule.

I plugged in the USB stick and waited about 5 minutes. Nothing happened at all. I tried the stick with my MacBook Pro. Works perfectly.

:/ .. Anyone else with an idea ?
Click to expand...

Got the same iMac with a OWC SSD in a data doubler.
Tried to updated firmware. Have the same issue.
It needs to boot of CD or USB stick with updater.
I tried all possibilities - no luck!

Ended up taking the SSD out, put it in a Laptop, upgraded the firmware and put it back.
 
I guess the Logical Volume was destroyed afterwards ?

I wanted to avoid this, but I probably need to restore the installation vom TimeMachine :(
 
Koxi said:
I guess the Logical Volume was destroyed afterwards ?

I wanted to avoid this, but I probably need to restore the installation vom TimeMachine :(
Click to expand...

"Duh! My brain hurts."
 
:) ..

Yes .. Disassemble the iMac, remove SSD, Disassemble MacBook Pro, Plugin SSD, Boot from CD in a "Dos" Mode OS, Do Firmware update an then let the Program run that needs to read/write all the data on the SSD, unplug SSD and assemble both machines again.

I wanted to avoid restore from timecapsule because this needs additional 7+ hours. My installation was first setup in 2007 ;)

Its not a firmwareupdate alone, it also needs to rewrite all the data to fix this performance issue.

But Probably vkd is right: The OCE Update was Firmware only, so my fault to ask him that.

@T'hain Esh Kelch: Well interesting question if the Firmware update works via Firewire. (MacBook Pro Host with SSD)
 
Last edited:
:mad:

Is it real?
To update EVO SSD, I need to disassemble the iMac? It's maaad.
My system is same as Koxi, EVO SSD with 1TB HDD fusion LVM
 
Did you try the external USB optical drive?

Even though your Mac cannot boot from the USB stick (apart from OSX), it may still possible to boot FreeDOS from USB optical drive. The media type will make the difference, not just USB itself.
 
h9826790 said:
Did you try the external USB optical drive?

Even though your Mac cannot boot from the USB stick (apart from OSX), it may still possible to boot FreeDOS from USB optical drive. The media type will make the difference, not just USB itself.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I don't have external optical drive.
I'm looking for firmware updating method without the external optical drive.
 
You have to take the drive out, or stick the optical back in, plug the SSD in the primary 3.5 inch port though I would just take the SSD and plug it in any computer , even a windows system into an active sata port and boot off the Samsung CD.
 
I've tried with the internal ODD :(

But I couldn't update firmware of EVO SSD

It was stopped "scanning EVO drive....."

How did you guys update the firmware?
 
turntoblue said:
I've tried with the internal ODD :(

But I couldn't update firmware of EVO SSD

It was stopped "scanning EVO drive....."

How did you guys update the firmware?
Click to expand...

I did a clients one the other day from a MBP optibay setup and put it in sled 2 of my Mac Pro and booted off the cd.

You don't have one so Take the ssd out, stick it in any friends windows box with a direct SATA connection and boot off the cd to do it. When finished turn the windows box off after exiting the utility so windows doesn't have a clue about it.
 
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