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Stuck with Crucial M4 and Vertex 3 SSD on MBP 15" 2011

X

Xscapes

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 16, 2011
166
9
New York
So i had look through lots of forum and review about these 2 SSD(Crucial M4 and Vertex 3)

I read a lot about that people getting frequently BSOD, freeze, hang etc. with Vertex 3. Crucial M4 i heard lot of good review, but the Vertex 3 has a much faster speed.

I want a SSD upgrade with stability with no BSOD, freeze, hang all those stuff.
Please give me some advice and share me your experience.


System:
MacBook Pro 15" i7 2.0GHz (2011 October)
4GB RAM(Ordered 8GB to install)
500GB HDD 5400 RPM
Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2

Thank You.
 
I have a OCZ-Vertex 3 240gig in the 6gig port and a 750gig 7.2k drive in the DVD slot.

Was having stuttering and freezing and beach-balls from SL up to Lion 10.7.1 when suddenly, poof, they all went away. No changes just installed 10.7.1 and all my troubles melted away.

I had tried every sort of troubleshooting to no avail up until that point. Never had any BSOD mind. Just annoying stalls all over the place.

Up until 10.7.1 I would have said to stay away from Vertex 3, now it comes highly recommended.
 
cmclaughlan said:
I have a OCZ-Vertex 3 240gig in the 6gig port and a 750gig 7.2k drive in the DVD slot.

Was having stuttering and freezing and beach-balls from SL up to Lion 10.7.1 when suddenly, poof, they all went away. No changes just installed 10.7.1 and all my troubles melted away.

I had tried every sort of troubleshooting to no avail up until that point. Never had any BSOD mind. Just annoying stalls all over the place.

Up until 10.7.1 I would have said to stay away from Vertex 3, now it comes highly recommended.
Click to expand...

I have a huge debate about this too, I was debating about getting the M4 because I read a lot of issues about the Vertex 3 and macs...

Did you have to update any firmware on your Vertex3? Since I know a lot of the firmware updates require either a.) superdrive or b.) windows, and I probably won't have neither since my HDDs most likely going into my optibay.

I know that the M4 has rev 0009 firmware on it, that makes it run near flawless w/ the 2011 MBPs... Do you by any chance know if it's the same for the Vertex3s that are being sold right now? If they come w/ updated firmware and don't require any updates, etc.
 
Have 2011 Macbook Pro 15" with Vertex 3 + 750G HDD in Optibay.

Currently running 10.7.2 Lion with absolutely no issues.

Get the Vertex 3 the speed is insane, trust me.
 
Its probably because of the fact that 10.7.1 Lion supports the TRIM function... just a guess...
 
Thanks for all the reply, but i still need some more Vertex 3 user to share their experience. If Vertex 3 really run without any issues with 10.7.2 then i may go with it since it have faster read/write speed.
 
Last edited:
Xscapes said:
Thanks for all the reply, but i still need some more Vertex 3 user to share their experience. If Vertex 3 really run without any issues with 10.7.2 then i may go with it since it have faster read/write speed.
Click to expand...

I would not be overly influenced by these claims of "much faster" speeds with the Vertex 3. Look at reviews and in some tests the M4 is faster and in others the Vertex 3 is faster. In actual usage you are not going to be able to tell the difference. Go with whichever drive you think will be most compatible and reliable.

One thing not mentioned is Sandforce controller drives like the Vertex 3 tend to do poorly when confronted with incompressible data like a video file. So if you do a lot of work with large videos that may not lend itself to the Vertex 3 option.
 
Nope was never able to upgrade the firmware.

And no, I do not believe the issue is TRIM related as the freezing was not during times of garbage cleanup but rather during access. I could get TRIM enabled in SL, 7.0 and 7.1 and was still getting freezes. (also tried the other tricks such as disabling motion sensor to no avail)

Wish I could get AJA to report speed but that stopped working with SSD on Lion.
 
My Vertex 3 came with firmware 2.11 and I did a clean install of Lion 10.7 then upgraded to 10.7.1, and now at 10.7.2

I don't know about SL but there has been no issues with Lion at all, and yes you can reach speeds at the 500MB range if you have it on SATA III.
 
Most of the review i read about the issues were all on PC's, so i guess it don't cost any problem when using it on Mac Lion.
 
1twojay said:
My Vertex 3 came with firmware 2.11 and I did a clean install of Lion 10.7 then upgraded to 10.7.1, and now at 10.7.2

I don't know about SL but there has been no issues with Lion at all, and yes you can reach speeds at the 500MB range if you have it on SATA III.
Click to expand...

Yes you can get 500MB+ with the Vertex 3 in Sata III mode :
 

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Nice figures on the Vertex 3. Any experiences with the Kingston HyperX SSD? From most of the reviews I've seen it is mostly even faster than the Vertex 3 Max IOPS. Sandforce might generally not be a reliable choice, but it's blazingly fast and it has a nice garbage collection technology built in (which is good for Mac OS X, since it has no TRIM).

I'm personally waiting for the Samsung SSD 830. Might not be as fast, but Samsung's certainly been very reliable and from here it seems it'll be very cheap (€240 for 256GB is insane).
 
Quinoky said:
Nice figures on the Vertex 3. Any experiences with the Kingston HyperX SSD? From most of the reviews I've seen it is mostly even faster than the Vertex 3 Max IOPS. Sandforce might generally not be a reliable choice, but it's blazingly fast and it has a nice garbage collection technology built in (which is good for Mac OS X, since it has no TRIM).

I'm personally waiting for the Samsung SSD 830. Might not be as fast, but Samsung's certainly been very reliable and from here it seems it'll be very cheap (€240 for 256GB is insane).
Click to expand...

Mac OS X Lion has supported TRIM.
 
Haven't looked at the HyperX.

The Vertex 3 was the biggest, fastest drive I could afford. Also has excellent MTBF and 3 years warranty made it a match for how long I expect to use this laptop.

I'm not obsessed about TRIM in OS X since the Sanforce controller takes care of this and I believe the controller is more reliable than you think.
 
I have a crucial m4 that I just pulled out of my MBP because I am selling it. It's only 2-3 months old. If you want to make a deal lets talk.

It saw 400mb transfer rates on mine. Very fast and reliable. Stay away from OCZ because they have issues with all their drives and poor customer service.
 
nizmoz said:
Trim enabler.
Click to expand...

Ah. You see, Apple didn't turn on TRIM for third party SSD's for a reason. From various sources I've read that TRIM enabler could have adverse effects. Has something to do with cycle timings. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it seems every SSD has different timings, and therefore enabling TRIM on an SSD with different timings than an Apple branded one could actually increase wear on the memory cells. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.
 
I've never had any issues with my Vertex 3 MI. Early 2011 MBP's have had issues with SATA 6G, but Apple resolved them with a firmware update not too long ago...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1229468/

But honestly, no matter which SATA 6G drive you buy, they are all freaking fast! If I had to choose one now, I would probably go with 830 from Samsung.
 
JronMasteR said:
I've never had any issues with my Vertex 3 MI. Early 2011 MBP's have had issues with SATA 6G, but Apple resolved them with a firmware update not too long ago...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1229468/

But honestly, no matter which SATA 6G drive you buy, they are all freaking fast! If I had to choose one now, I would probably go with 830 from Samsung.
Click to expand...

Any idea when the Samsung 830 release? I can't find any on the web.
 
I have a Mid-2009 2.26ghz C2D 13in Macbook Pro. About a month ago, I upgraded it with 8GB of RAM and I'm running a 120GB Patriot Pyro SATA III SSD. I haven't had any problems whatsoever. My MBP runs stupid fast. My buddy is bummed that his new 2011 MBP is slower than my MBP that's over 2 years old and I spent less in total on mine.
 
Thanks for all the help and information.

I placed an order for the Crucial M4, since it has better stability.
I also ordered a 8GB RAM to upgrade, i will have the SSD and RAM install and post some result here.
 
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