If you’ve been reading the OWC Blog for the past few months, you’re probably well aware of the problems that 2011 MacBook Pros were having with 6.0Gb/s SATA performance. If you’re not familiar with it, the short form is that in many 17″ 2011 MacBook Pros (and some 15″ and 13″ as well) had problems with SATA 3.0 Revision SSDs such as the Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G—through no fault of the SSD— resulting in spotty performance, beach ball timeout delays, and even complete failure to recognize SATA 3.0 6Gb/s SSDs at all.
Well, if you ran Software Update this morning, MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.2 appears to be the answer. Nearly seven months after these machines first became available, all indications are that we can now reliably count on taking full advantage of the 6Gb/s capability provided.
Apple has somewhat dodged giving any direct response on the issue itself, but this long awaited solution just happens to be there in this update with the official description on Apple’s support site only mentioning the update as addressing Lion Internet Recovery and Thunderbolt. We are very thankful and excited to see the ‘quiet’ fix for 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 main bay drive reliability as a further benefit of this update.
Very important points though concerning the optical bay. #1 – if your MacBook Pro 2011 model currently has SATA 2.0 3Gb/s reported for your optical bay max link speed, this EFI update does not change that to SATA 3.0 6Gb/s. It really makes no difference for the optical drive, but if you wish to add an additional 9.5mm hard drive or SSD with a product such as our Data Doubler, you can continue to do so with pretty much any 3G or 6G drive of your choosing.
#2 – For those with a MacBook Pro 15″ or 17″ model that has SATA 3.0 6Gb/s link capability reported, it is very important to note that this EFI update does not appear to have resolved reliability of using a 6Gb/s drive in the optical bay. If you have a 6Gb/s optical drive bay connnection and are using a product like our Data Doubler, we still recommend only using a SATA 2.0 3Gb/s drive in that bay. MacBook Pro 13″ owners who find 6Gb/s links in their optical bay are not experiencing issues with 6Gb/s drives and this update doesn’t affect that usage.
Our testing has included multiple models of the 2011 MacBook Pro models and using the highest performing OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G and Mercury Electra 6G SSDs. From this testing, we are confident today that Apple has now, by and large, resolved the issues with 6Gb/s drives where issues were being experienced with said drives in the Main Bay/standard drive location. We will continue to review possible solutions for the optical bay, as 15″ and 17″ owners may be rightly jealous of the near 1GB (1000MB/s) data rates currently achievable in MacBook Pro 13″ models with two OWC 6G SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration.
Here are a pair of “before & after” benchmark tests with an OWC SSD in the main drive bay, which show the elimination of the performance inconsistencies after applying the update.
Further testing is being done to confirm this resolution on other 2011 MacBook Pros and we’ll post the result of those findings in an update as well as possible further benefits relating to this under OS 10.7 vs. 10.6.8.
In the meantime, if you’ve been frustrated with how your 2011 MacBook Pro has behaved with a 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 drive to this point, it looks like your system is a “lemon no more”. Now you can enjoy unleashed performance by installing an OWC 6G SSD into the main drive bay of a 2011 MacBook Pro. The SATA 3.0 6Gb/s potential that has been tantalizingly close for so long is denied no longer!
I have the early 2011 17″ MBP
I was wondering if there is any way to force the hardware to only negotiate a link speed of 3gbps to the opti-bay even if a sata 3 drive is intalled in the bay. Maybe a terminal hack or something similar.
This will be a great solution to this problem
Kind Regards
This is a great idea in theory, unfortunately there is no way to force the computer to change the link speed. The drive connected to the bus will determine the negotiated link speed.
In a perfect world this would be something we could control via system/hardware setting on the computer. As I see it – Apple should default that port to 3Gb/s or use the available 3Gb/s port as it is. Not sure why they created this frustrating situation by connecting 6Gb/s in these optical bays to begin with.
All of that said – the solution is still simple – put a 3Gb/s drive into the bay. For these and some other MacBooks with interestng SATA challenges we continue to support and offer our Electra 3G SSDs. Further, we also offer special 3Gb/s firmware set versions of HGST 1TB 5400RPM and 7200RPM 2.5″ hard drives that our development program with HGST enables us on.
the best option would be changing the optical bay to 3Gb/s – but that’s in Apple’s full control and we try to maintain other options.
We have also looked at hardware solutions – but deploying what we have found to the ‘wild’ is not practical unfortunately.
Thank you for your prompt reply Larry.
The unfortunate situation is that I upgraded from my slower Samsung 840 (SATA 3 SSD) Drive to your amazing Vertex 4 500GB because of the much better render speeds it gave me with DaVinci Resolve. I saw a 35% increase in render speeds after I switched to the Vertex 4.
The slower Samsung would be the ideal candidate to throttle to SATA 2 speeds in the optibay (since I already have the thing) But Samsung support just says it’s not something they can do. And I’m definitely not going to put the Vertex 4 in the optibay simply because your firmware setting (and awesome tech support) will allow me throttle it to SATA 2 speed. That would be a sad waste.
I guess I’ll just have to cut my losses, sell the Samsung to a willing buyer and order from your SATA 2 SSD range
Thanx for the help
I have a late 2011 15in MacBook Pro 8,2 running OS X 10.8.3 and would love to be able to use the OWC DataDoubler, but in the following configuration:
• Samsung 840 Pro 512GB (6Gbps) in main bay
• Seagate Barracuda XT 750GB (6Gbps) in optical bay
From all I’ve read my MBP can’t reliably communicate at 6Gbps with a 6Gbps drive in the optical bay – is there anyway to force the optical bay SATA bus to communicate at 3Gbps?
Not reliably. Suggest a 3Gb/s drive instead for the optical bay.
Any release notes on the new 507ABBF0 “March 15th” firmware for 6G Pro?
507ABBF0 contains general updates and fixes, we always recommend updating to the latest revision. Unfortunately, per SandForce we cannot publish release notes.
I have a MBP 8,3 system with a 750GB Toshiba MK7559GSXF drive that I want to make into an SSD/HDD Hybrid system. It is not clear to me when reading all the forums what is possible or not, so a few questions:
Can I put a 6G extreme in the HD bay and the existing drive in the optical bay at make it work reliably?
If I can’t use the existing drive, can I get one that will work in the above scenario?
What is the deal with the EFI firmware update – does it or does it not fix the reliability issues? I have the 2.7 applied on my MBP
Am I just SOL?
Thanks,
Can I put a 6G extreme in the HD bay and the existing drive in the optical bay at make it work reliably? – Yes. Once MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.2 is applied, a 6Gb/s drive (like the OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSD or OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD) can be installed in the main hard drive bay. The existing 750GB Toshiba MK7559GSXF (which is a 3Gb/s drive) can then be installed into the optical drive bay with the use of an OWC Data Doubler.
I currently have a Mercury Electra 6g SSD in the optical drive of my 2009 17in Macbook Pro. I have recently purchased a 2011 17in Macbook (refurbished) and was hoping to move the 6g drive & data doubler into the newer computers optical bay. Are the 6g drives still unstable & unsupported in the optical bay on early 2011 Macbook 17in? I noticed the last comment here was from November 2012 so was hoping there might have been an update…
No – nothing has changed in this respect to use of 6G Drives in optical bay 2011 17″. Recommend you move the stock HDD to the optical bay and use the 6G SSD in the main bay.
Have you stopped working on a fix for this issue?
It isn’t that we’ve stopped working on it, utilizing a 6Gb/s drive in the optical bay is something that would need to be addressed by Apple.
Unfortunately, as there isn’t an actual optical drive that would need to negotiate data that quickly it isn’t very likely that Apple would spend time addressing it since they only offer an optical drive in that bay.
Would I be correct in assuming that yesterday’s SMC 1.7 firmware update is for power management only and unrelated to the SATA interface?
We will be testing that to make sure, but it likely is for power management only.
The optical bay SATA was never built to support 6Gb/s link – as noted by Mike, we’ll be testing – but I think they have done about all they can or will via software work arounds that could have improved this further. Apple should never have connected to the 6Gb/s port for this bay. The 3Gb/s port they could have used (and actually did in many of the first/early 2011 models – not sure exactly why they changed to the other) would have prevented all of this from even being an issue.
Apologies if this is the wrong kind of question to ask (and perhaps the wrong place) – but would the Mac OWC firmware updater work for a non-OWC drive such as the ForceGT series (which I understand to be using the Sandforce 2281 controller)? My understanding is that the updater updates the controller firmware, which in theory means it would work for all drives that share the same controller – irrespective of its maker, is that true?
Many thanks in advance!
Even with the same contoller, there are differences in NAND used and device configuration by manufacturer which we have no control over. The OWC updater is compatible with and supported only for OWC SSD models. In short, no.
I want to install a Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD in my recently purchased Refurbished Early 2011 MacBook Pro 17 (with Apple SSD TS128C).
“About This Mac” shows a Link Speed of 6 GB; and a Negotiated Link Speed of 3GB.
Have researched the OWC Blog re problems with the Early 2011 MBP 17 to the point of finding a “solution” when Apple released the EFI Firmware Update 2.2. However when I click on the link, it brings up EFI Firmware Update 2.3.
Curiously, EFI 2.2 is only compatible with Lion & Mountain Lion; while 2.3 lists Snow Leopard as well (I am using Snow Leopard). I downloaded 2.3 and got a “Not Compatible” message.
Back to “About This Mac” and see that the Boot ROM version is MBP81.0047.B27 (EFI Firmware Update 2.7).
So, I ask – will the Extreme Pro 6G SSD deliver true 6G performance (in the main drive bay)?
With Snow Leopard?
Sorry for the convoluted explanation.
The negotiated link speed shows 3GB/s since the Apple TS128C drive is a 3GB/s SSD.
EFI 2.7 is a later version than the 2.2 that was originally released at the time of this article – so the 6GB/s speeds should be unlocked for the main bay of your machine regardless of which OS you’re running.
Once you install your Extreme Pro 6G SSD the negotiated link speed should show 6GB/s and deliver true 6G performance.
Happy Upgrading!
Michael – Thanks for the help! If this works out maybe I’ll use the existing one in the optical bay?
Appreciate the quick response…
Bill D
Hey Michael – I have just experienced the same thing as the original author of this thread. Same model, same EFI version (I stepped through the EFI versions as they came out), and same negotiated speed issue. I sent my 240gb Electra 6g drive back to you guys after it failed to negotiate 6g speeds in both the main bays of my 2011 MBP 15″ and my 13″ of the same vintage. I thought my issue was a one off and now I’m reading this. Can you shed any light?
I have a 6G SSD drive in my 15″ 2011 MacBook Pro and I got the same issue as some other people. After not using it for a while spinning ball. Then force quit and question mark when res starting. If I press T and let it sit as a external drive doing nothing for a while I can again restart it and it will work until I just let it sit again. If I turn it off it will mostly have the question mark when I try to restart. Only had this problem for about a month I’ve had the hard drive in my computer for about a year without any problems before.
What shall I do?
Håkan
On thing to check is that you have the drive selected as your startup disk under “System Preferences > Startup Disk”
If that doesn’t clear up your issue, please contact our technical support team at 1(800)275-4576, via live chat or email for assistance in troubleshooting.
I have an OWC 6G SSD in the main bay and a 3G OWC SSD with Data Doubler in the optical bay of my 17″ MacBookPro8,3.
It had been running fine for months, and then suddenly about a month ago began to freeze with a spinning beachball within a few seconds of coming back from sleep, and required manually rebooting, only to get the folder with the flashing question mark appearing, and then having it find the optical drive SSD and booting from that. But still no 6G SSD on the desktop or finder.
Only after several reboots and zapping the P RAM several times would it finally recognize the Main Drive and boot normally from that.
I have firmware version 2.7.
Please help!
Please contact our Technical Support team via email, live chat, or phone at 1(800)275-4576 for assistance in troubleshooting.
I have an early 2011 15″ 2Ghz MBP that has 6 Gigabit Link Speed in the optical bay. Despite this OWC does not recommend using 6G drives in the optical bay. (right so far?)
If I were interested in RAID 0 on my MBP, would it make sense to get two 3G (SATA2) drives, putting the 2nd one in the optical bay?
Would that work, or would speeds still be slower due to using 3Gb/s speeds?
Thanks,
JF
Setting up to SATA Revision 2.0 (3Gb/s) drives in a RAID 0 configuration should work just fine and deliver speeds in the neighborhood of 500-540MB/s.
I would add to that – this performance would be across the board in that range with all data types and actually real-world will be a bit faster than a single 6G drive. Most of the heavy lifting is done where it’s about transactional rates vs. raw data rates and as such – a single 3G drive is comparable for many processes to a 6G… A RAID-0 of the two 3G Drives can really be up to twice as fast as a result of this and no less than equal to a single 6G drive in peak data rates.
Short answer – you’ll be pretty impressed with what a dual-3G RAID set will provide. :)
and… correct – Optical bay 6Gb/s reliability is not confirmed for 15″ and 17″ 2011 MacBook Pro models and major issues with use of 6Gb/s drives in said bay.
Is there any hope for 6G/s drives in the optical bay of 15″ MBP? I had originally bought an OCZ 240 Gig SSD drive for my main drive and I had a 750 HDD in the optical bay. Yesterday I picked up a 512 Gig SSD and installed it as my main drive and moved the 240 to the optical bay, sometimes it’s recognized and sometimes it isn’t. That 750 seemed to generate a lot of heat, that rear left corner would get REALLY hot. With this new drive configuration it stays nice and cool, but it’s just not reliable. Would I even be able to find a 3G/s SSD to install anymore, I’m hoping for at least a 240G.
There’s always hope, but it is something that would need to be addressed from Apple (usually in the form of a firmware update.) In the meantime, we do still offer 3Gb/s SSDs: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/SSD/Mercury_Electra_3G_Solid_State
Hi guys.
I’m looking forward to upgrade my MacBookPro (15-inch, Early 2011, I7-2820QM 2.3GHZ, 8gb RAM, OS X ML).
I’ve followed a lot the SATA III optibay problem but i still have doubts about what I can or I can’t do.
I’d like to buy 2x OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240 GB and make a RAID 0 setup.
I want to know if they’ll both work at 6Gb/s, since system information shows:
- for the hard drive Link Speed : 6 Gigabit and Negotiated Link Speed : 3 Gigabit
- for DVD-R unit Link Speed : 6 Gigabit and Negotiated Link Speed : 1.5 Gigabit.
I want to know if somebody have tried it before and which are the results,
or if you could try it just to be sure if it works or not.
The other option would be to buy a OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 480 GB and to keep my optic unit in place.
What are your recommendations and what should I choose?
Thank you!
Regards,
Dorin B.
The EFI Update did not resolve reliability of using a 6Gb/s drive (SATA Revision 3) in the optical bay on the 2011 15″ & 17″ models. Using one in the hard drive bay itself is just fine though.
Greetings everyone,
I have a Macbook Pro 13-inch, Early 2011 – 2.3 i5. I have purchased the upgrade memory and SSD from OWC [8GB and OWC Extreme Pro 6G 240GB].
No issues at all for a few months.. than one day [while I was on vacation] the laptop refused to boot and the strange folder+question mark icon was presented.
I tried several options before getting home [yes, pram/smc/etc - no results] – and I thought everything was lost – and when I returned I tried to diagnose the hdd using a thunderbolt cable – and.. *poof*! – it came back from the dead.
It appears to me that the SSD is left into a somewhat ‘limbo’ state – without being able to properly report back or be identified by the bios.
=====
Two more issues later and I think I have a found an *acceptable* [!??] workaround for this issue that might apply to many of us:
When you get the folder with question mark icon – reboot – press ‘T’ to put the macbook in ‘Target’ mode and wait 1-2 seconds then reboot again. It should solve the issue and the SSD should work properly.
Hope this will eliminate some frustrating and lost times until a final solution is found – and indeed it seems a firmware patch from Apple should/could take care of this :-)
Cheers,
Bogdan [aproape]
Greetings again,
It appears that the ‘T’ – target mode does NOT solve this issue – completely. It’s a hit and miss.
Also, I got to the point where, taking the SSD out of the Macbook and use it in an external enclosure [USB 2.0] – is also not being recognized [took more than 20 tries to be seen/found again]
So.. I went again back on the old ‘net to try and find some more information.. and came across this page:
http://rentzsch.tumblr.com/post/12955002148/death-and-resurrection-of-an-ssd
with more details of what happes – here:
http://storagemojo.com/2011/06/27/de-dup-too-much-of-good-thing/
Solution:
1. Backup your harddrive [either a sparseimage, carbon copy cloner, time machine, anything you want to use or need - IF you want to preserve the data]
2. Go to his github project:
https://github.com/rentzsch/stressdrive
3. Download the stressdrive utility
4. Use this utility on the SSD in question [I used it via USB enclosure - I believe you need to have it unmounted in order to work].
5. WARNING: Pay BIG attention to the device name you give to stressdrive – not to ruin other data.
6. Wait. It took me about 9h to write the data [yes, it overwrites everything] and then another few hours to read/verify [I didn't wait for that any longer].
7. Results [in my case]: the SSD is back like in the 1st day! Perfect boot times, no more beach ball, hibernation wake-up without delays.. basically as expected from this drive.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Bogdan [aproape]
I have the same problem. So I put the SSD in an external enclosure, connect it to the MacBook via usb but the OSX (Mountain Lion) doesn’t recognize it either (I’ve tried it more than 30 times…). How can I use the stressdrive utility if the SSD is not recognized by the system?
Hi Bogdan,
I would love to follow your and rentzsch’s way to resurrect my Mercury Extreme Pro 6G.
After 9 months it started – again – to fall of the bus. When it did so that time I pull it out of my 17″ late 2011 MacBook Pro 8,3 which might have solved the problem by cutting the power as mentioned by rentzsch.
Now it’s falling of the bus again and I would if possible avoid opening my MBP again…
My luck is that the SSD is visible in target mode. I have another Mac to connect it to over fw800.
I am not familiar with c programs or xcode projects. Could you please tell me how to “install the tool”?
I downloaded al files from rentzsch’s github page and am stuck at this very early point not knowing how to access the tool.
Of course Terminal just tells me “command not found”, and even for me it makes kind of sense. Unfortunately theres is no How To Install on rentzsch’s github project page. I hope I don’t have to compile anything, I don’t have the slightest idea of programming. I am a user.
Thanks in advance,
Mat
I’ve got a early 2011 MBP (8,2) running 10.7.4, and I recently swapped the stock 5400 rpm HDD in the optical bay with a Seagate XT 750GB SATA III hybrid. (I already have an SSD in the main bay).
I’d forgotten about the 6G issue with the optical bay when purchasing the XT, but since I’ve got it, I went ahead with the swap (with fingers crossed).
It may be premature (been only 4 days), but there’s only been one beachball incident (which I’m quite certain had nothing to do with the XT hybrid in the optical bay); I’ve been running up to 3 VMs on the XT hybrid.
Keeping my fingers crossed that it stays stable!
I really wish I’d read this thread about a month ago.
I had a scorpo blue 1T in the optical bay. It was a 12.5mm height. It fit?, but not real well. It worked great. I love having an SSD and a 1T drive, quick response and lots of room. So when I saw the Hitachi 1T/6G disk that was only 9.5mm high, I snapped it up.
After 3 RMAs for what I thought was a bad disk, endless hours of cloning, repairing, and being real frustrated, I came to the conclusion that only a 3G disk would work in the optical bay for my 17″ MPB (MacBookPro8,3).
As I am typing, I have the 6G hitachi in the optical bay. It just informed me that I should eject the disk before unplugging it…
Sigh…
So, this morning I bought a 3G HD Scorpio Blue.
If you have a 17″ MBP, don’t believe the system: you don’t really have a 6G sata in the optical bay!
Sad but true.
We have long noted that 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 is not properly supported by Apple in the optical bay of 2011 models and SATA 3.0 6Gb/s drives should not be attempted in 15″ or 17″ 2011 model optical bays. This isn’t just SSDs, this applies to ALL drives with SATA 3.0 6Gb/s. Only the main bay is suitable for 6Gb/s drives for these noted.
That said – we specifically offer this latest HGST/hitachi 1TB notebook drive with 3Gb/s:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J22413S2/
So can get the performance and 3yr warranty this new model has to offer.
Our Data Doubler optical drive kits with this Hitachi 1TB is also 3Gb/s set version:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Samsung/DDMB5KS1.0/
really little if any benefit to hard drive performance between 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s – and this gives our customers the support needed for use in the optical bay.
we also offer it in 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 as a DIY kit:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J22413/
and bare drive as well:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J22413/
for use in main bays or other systems where 6Gb/s isn’t an issue.
We cover these little details. :)
I have one of the 750 XT drives too and am contemplating its use in the optical bay. How have you got on?
the 750 XT is a 6Gb/s drive and it is subject to the same issues as any 6Gb/s SSD or HD as already noted. Recommend you put that in your main bay and, assuming your current main bay drive is 3Gb/s SATA 2.0 – put that into the optical bay location.
Understood Larry, thanks. I’d still be interested to know whether this particular user found he’s been the exception to the rule…
Hi can anyone tell me if this is right? I have a 2011 15″ MBP 8,2. If I move the original 500gb HDD into a data doubler, and use a sataIII SSD in the main drive, will I have any problems? I heard about a sleep issue and also a sudden motion sensor issue?
That setup should be just fine – just don’t want to put a 6Gb/s drive in the optical bay on that machine – 3Gb/s drives are A-OK. Sleep issues are unrelated to the setup itself.
There is a Sudden motion sensor (SMS) located in the main bay – there isn’t one in the optical bay. Most modern hard drives have SMS built right into them – so the only “issues” that we’ve seen are when two SMS systems are active at the same time (one in the drive / the other in the bay) and locking up the platters for no reason. That pretty-much only happened at the dawn of SMS technology, but now multiple SMS systems know how to interact correctly with each other – so it hasn’t been an issue for a while. The flip side to that is installing a hard drive without SMS into the optical bay that doesn’t have SMS to begin with. Now the only issue in that a traditional, platter-based drive is more vulnerable to damage from drops and other rough & tumble situations while the drive is being written to – which most users don’t subject their computers to in the first place.
Thanks for your reply – very helpful info. Just wondering about the optical bay sata issue, I checked the system info under sata, the two devices both say 6 gigabit:
Intel 6 Series Chipset:
Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 1.5 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported
Does that mean a sataIII can be used? Just for my knowledge really, I guess the original HDD that came with the MBP is sataII anyway, or might use a WD 500gb 7200 scorpio black, which is sataII…
That has been the issue all along – the chipset alone should be able to handle 6Gb/s, but it’s not the whole equation for full SATA Revision 3.0 support. From what we’ve found the 15″ MacBook Pro models from 2011 and the 13″ MacBook Pro models from 2012 have problems when any 6Gb/s capable drive is installed in the optical bay. 3Gb/s (SATA revision 2.0) drives are solid though.
Can anyone confirm that the OWC Mercury Electra 3G 480 GB drive will work in either the 2011 MacBook Pro optical drive. I haven’t bought the computer yet so it’s a really important to me. I didn’t think there existed a 480 GB SATA II drive but this seems to be one of them.
Many thanks
100% A-OK and no issues once so ever with use of any Electra 3G SSD, including the 480GB, in the MacBook Pro optical bay using a proper mount such as our Data Doubler. The 2011 MacBook Pros have issues with 6Gb/s drives, but no issues with 3Gb/s SATA 2.0 at all. SATA 3.0 6Gb/s drives may be used in the main bay only on 15″ and 17″ 2011 MacBook Pros. The 2011 MacBook Pro 13″ is also AOK for 6Gb/s in the main bay – and a good number of them also have 6Gb/s reliability in their optical bays – but I just don’t recommend 6Gb/s in the optical bay in general.
Short answer to your question – any of these Electra 3G models up to 960GB are A-OK in your optical bay
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extreme_SSD_Sandforce/Solid_State_Pro
Thanks!
MBP 13″ i5 2012 ISSUES:
I bought the data doubler, a Samsung 830 128 Gb SSD, and a Seagate XT 750Gb Hybrid for my old 2009 MBP. These both worked great on my 2009 MBP 13″ (although I had the SSD in the optical bay). After migrating everything to the new 2012, I’ve had all kind of issues. I put the Seagate hybrid in the optical drive bay and the SSD in the main…. The system kept dropping the Seagate hybrid drive, and I’d have to reboot. I kept getting errors in itunes, blah blahblah. Even thought the System Information says both SATA ports are 6Gigabit, the optical drive port can’t seem to handle the Seagate XT.
At wits end, I swapped HDD bays. The Seagate is now in the main drive. So far no HDD crashes…. we’ll see.
I’m hoping that this is an EFI firmware issue that will get fixed.
Any advice/experience on 13″ 2012 MBPs is appreciated.
The 13″ 2012 model experiences the same issues that affected the 15″ 2011 model MacBook Pros. We do not recommend using 6Gb/s drives in the optical bay. For more details see: Expand the 2012 MacBook Pros with an OWC Data Doubler.
I accidentally ordered a 6GB SSD (KINGSTON SH103S3240G) for use in my data doubler and could not send it back. so I putt in, and it is running as fast as my OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G. I have been running my XP virtual machine from it for the last 3 days with no slow downs or hiccups at all. I have run xbench and black magic, Both show the performance very similar between the Kingston SH103S3240G and the OWC. is there a different way for me to test and see if this is actually working properly or not? Should i expect it to just fail all of a sudden in a week or two? Or since it is working did I just get lucky and have a machine that it seems to work in? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
I too have a 8,2 MBP and am waiting to hear about a resolution to the 6G problem.
I have a 480GB 6G Mercury Extreme Pro SSD that is a RMA unit. The MBP will not recognise the SSD at all and the flashing folder with the question mark shows up.
How did all the other customers with 8,2 and 8,3 solve this problem? Or was a refund the only solution? Please let me know! I already sent one drive back from Australia and the postage fees were unnecessary.
The issue is with the Optical Bay only – the 6Gb/s drives work in the main hard drive bay.
I’ve just been advised to do another RMA today, so I hope the new drive has no issues.
I have been having issues with the main bay and am not using a data doubler at all. It was working for a while and then suddenly became no longer readable.
So does a stock MBP 2011 256GB SSD run at 3gb/s? and if i got a sata3 6gb/s drive from you guys and dropped it in the MAIN bay and moved the stock 256GB SSD to the optibay this would work fine?
Correct.
My data doubler just arrived and I was planning to transfer my WD 1TB Scorpio blue over to it. However I have the MacBook pro 2011 15″ and the optical bay shows a 6GB link speed. From what I’m reading my Scorpio blue won’t work? If that is the case, have you had any updates from Apple about a resolution for this and if there is none, am I able to return this item for a refund?
I think I might be ok
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701278.pdf
Absolutely:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD10JPVT/
Will be no issue once so ever. The WD drive is a SATA 2.0 3Gb/s drive and will so link in the optical bay when installed there. The optical bay of 2011 15/17″ and 2012 13″ is only an issue for 6Gb/s drives. No problem at all with SATA 2.0 3Gb/s.
I got the data doubler for my MBP 17″ Early 2011 which has 6G link in main and optical bay. The 6G Mercury Extreme Pro 480G is mounted in the main bay and the shutdown is slower then before. Using the “Black Magic” disk speed test program the write speed is around 300 Mbps. I have cloned the hard disk using CCC, is there any optimisation I should do?
Also the 1TB Hitachi 6G drive is very unreliable in the optical bay. It disappeared once (after the sleep) and i had to reboot the computer. The write speed is between 10Mbps to 50Mbps in different runs of the test suite.
I bought 1TB 6G Hitachi drive after talking to Rebecca from OWC sales.
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[8:40:22 AM] but for the optical bay, can I use 1 TB hard disk with 6G link?
[8:40:52 AM] Will the 6G mechanical drive work fine in the optical bay?
OWC Rebecca: [8:41:50 AM] That is fine because even though the 1TB has a sataIII connector it is not truly 6G. The transfer rates are limited by the rotational speeds of the drive.
: [8:42:34 AM] But it will be able to negotiate 6G link with the controller.
[8:42:53 AM] The 3G hitachi 1TB drive as per your page has a special firmware
[8:43:25 AM] Anyways, if the 6G drive will work then I will order that one.
OWC Rebecca: [8:44:16 AM] The 1TB will be fine in the optical bay as well.
#########################################################
How can this be resolved?
On a separate note, when attaching the second screw to attach data doubler to the case (video at 5:54), the small philips screw that came with data doubler didn’t work as it was not long enough. I had to use the longer screw.
Finally, the 5 piece toolkit that comes along with the set, does’t hold the screws very well and doesn’t have any clipper to pick up the screws.
I apologize for the information on the 1TB drive from our team member. We are following up on this and the full thread, and apologize for any misunderstanding and/or incorrect information.
We specifically offer both a 3Gb/s SATA 2.0 set hitachi 1TB drive as well as bundle the 3Gb/s 1TB firmware set Hitachi drive in the Data Double there to enable this drive to be used in the optical bay.
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/0J22413
While the representative is correct that hard drives with 6Gb/s link really don’t exceed what SATA 2.0 3Gb/s link provides – they still do link at 6Gb/s and the issue is with the waveform on the SATA 3.0 6Gb/s link. bottom line is that for 2011 MacBook Pros 15″ and 17″ models – only 3Gb/s drives should be used in the optical bay.
We will be happy to advance replace the 1TB 6Gb/s with the 3Gb/s Firmware set ‘version’ we offer at no cost and I apologize for the inconvenience.
The SSD would not be responsible for shut down slow downs.. that’s likely related to something else. I am not a fan of using CCC for boot OS cloning, I always recommend and personally do clean OS installs and migrate data. Cloning after that to and from is fine. The shut down could be related to the 1TB drive or any number of things.
As for Black Magic – it tests incompressible data/worst load type scenarios. Test applications that will give a better realworld result for what the drive is doing in your Mac would include:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Diglloyd/OSXTOOLS/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Intech%20Software/STUPRO/
AJA System Test is another option, however it was made video professionals and is not a general benchmark utility like the two above.
http://www.aja.com/en/products/software/
Hope this helps and have also passed on the other feedback. Thanks!!!
Hello Larry,
Now that I have cloned, is there any way to optimise? The system startup and shutdown, isn’t that fast.
Also I have bought the 1TB 6G disk locally, as I have opened the seal I cannot return it to the local supplier. Is it still possible to swap the 6G drive with OWC’s 3G version?
I can’t advise options for optimizing as I can’t ascertain what the factors are are impacting your shutdown time. On the start up – that is most likely related to one of two things or both –
A> you haven’t selected the new drive in the Apple System Preferences as the Startup Disk. You do need to do this otherwise the system scans for discs before starting up.
B> if you added more memory to the system, the built in system memory test will take longer. That’s normal and you could disable that test, although I recommend otherwise. This also doesn’t affect wake/sleep if that is an option for you vs. total shutdowns and restarts.
===
We would not be able to take a drive bought elsewhere back in here for the firmware change. I do not see a consumer utility available for this to be done from HGST, but the HGST support may be able to assist with you doing this change to the drive you have:
http://www.hgst.com/support/contact-support/
I bought the 1TB disk from local supplier and they won’t accept a return as I have opened the seal. I am using my old 500GB SATA 2 internal disk in the optical bay for now. If OWC finds a way to force the Hitachi 6G disk to stay at 3G or if a firmware update for MBP 2011 is released so that 6G is stable, please let me know.
I did some more speed tests using Xbench. I have uploaded the results at http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=577173&doc2=1&setCookie=true
The summary of the disk results is as follows:-
Sequential
Uncached Write 291.64 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 251.31 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 30.80 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 321.58 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random
Uncached Write 131.67 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 185.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 21.67 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 296.59 MB/sec [256K blocks]
While the 256k read/write results aren’t bad but the 4k performance isn’t right. Is there an issue with Xbench as well?
@ Chris Wilson, mainly
my Mercury Pro 6G literally died in agony after 5 month of trouble free service in my late 2011 MBP (17″ MacBookPro8,3). Suddelny it was not recognized as boot volume any more but still showed up in disk utility as some kind of strangely formatted volume. Then it disappeared completely. Even in an external sata-dock (Firewire and USB) connected to my Mac Pro it did not show up. Today, a minute before it was going to end up in a parcel to be sent back to where it came from (as advised today from OWC tech support today: send it in for RMA) it woke up back from the dead.
I did some testing and stuffed it immediately into my MBP, about an hour ago, updated the firmware from DVD, and everything feels fine now. As I write these lines on my MBP the system runs from the ssd.
Obviously I expect this to be temporary thanks to al lot of the posts in this tread. Very temporary, I hope I will be able to finish this comment, somehow. Please Chris, consider posting back as soon as you get your drive back or any other feedback from OWC – hopefully positive – about whatever happened to your ssd. People in this thread even report to have failures with replacement drives. Isn’t that horrible? Ha, I love the aluminium foil technique. That is desperately funny but sounds as it has to work. It is a pure sata cable insufficiency? I will have to try that if my ssd drive should fail again. But sincerely, why do I get this feeling that this unacceptable behavior of a $1200 drive (by december 2011, it is much too much money for a problem to not be taken care of!) is surely fully analyzed by some technician and that there shall be a clear answer for any of the posted ssd-in-MBP’s-main-drive-bay failures that already occurred and reoccurred even with replacement ssds? Even if it is an Apple-born problem. Come on, spit it out, you, who knows the answer! Please? Switching hibernation off? Do some Terminal trick with the RAM disk settings? I am only brainstorming here and that without any kind of technical education, please interpret as such.
@Matthias Schnabel
I just got off the phone with tech support at OWC. They received the drive that I returned to them for the 2nd time (see earlier post) and they said the drive failed when they tried to boot it up. When I asked for details about what specifically failed, they were unable to give me specifics.
The strange thing is that the first time I shipped the drive back to them, I could not get it to show up in the disk utility under any circumstances. They said it passed all tests and shipped it right back to me. When I received the drive and installed it in my MBP6,2 all I got was the flashing folder icon. However, right before I shipped the drive back to OWC the second time, I was able to get it to boot in the internal bay, and copy my data off the drive. Then I boxed it up, shipped it back to OWC, but when OWC tested the drive the second time, they said that the drive failed. It seems like there is something that caused my first two drives to transiently “die” and then hokus pokus they start working again… I have no clue what is causing this behavior and I don’t think anybody else does either.
OWC is now shipping me my 3rd new replacement drive so hopefully this one works! I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that I just got really unlucky and got two bad drives.
I had recently returned my OWC SSD for RMA because my MBP went into hibernation and when I tried to resume from hibernation, the laptop was unable to see the drive (flashing folder icon). When I called support, the tech indicated that this was due to a flaw in the way the MPB was designed and not a flaw in the drive itself. He said the drive had become “locked” and needed to be “unlocked”, and the only way to fix the issue was to send it back for RMA.
I just received the “unlocked” SSD back from RMA and inserted it into the main drive bay on my Macbook Pro 15” 6,2. When I powered up the laptop, the only thing displayed was a flashing folder icon. Multiple attempts to boot the system all exhibited the same behavior. I tried resetting the PRAM and the SMC, neither of which helped. I took the laptop into the genius bar and the Apple diagnostics came back clean, no hardware problems with the system. Whenever I plugged the original Apple hard drive back into the system, it booted in Lion just fine.
Finally, I tried plugging my original Apple hard drive into the USB port and booting off the external drive with the SSD still in the original slot. When I opened disk utility, the SSD was not displayed in the list of drives. It was as if there was nothing in the internal slot at all. Next, I shutdown the MBP and removed the external drive. When I pressed the power button, it booted off the SSD into Lion. I have no clue why the system booted, but it was only after booting off an external drive that I was able to get the SSD to be recognized in the internal drive bay.
For those that get the flashing folder icon, maybe try booting off an external drive and then attempt to boot off the SSD again? I haven’t tried this repeatedly, but this worked for me once (might have just been random chance).
Called tech support on Saturday and they requested I send the drive back to them. Off to the post office again for me!
Hello,
I will be going for data doubler with a 6G mercury extreme 240GB SSD soon to add to the stock 250 SSD currently present in my mac version 8,2 . I will have to swap the drives as a work around for 6G issue on the optical bay.
But before I do I would like to figure out some things.
Can I span the two drives into one big volume?
Currently I don’ t have bootcamp installed, but the goal is to have it installed. From what I understand, this could be an issue because windows requires an internal CD drive to install to a bootcamp partition.
As you guessed I would like to do that on the new big volume as a separate partition or by keeping both disk separated and install it on the vanilla disk .
To make things a little more complex I’ m actually trying to achieve a triple boot with ubuntu/refit.
Any one got any experience with this kind of setup with a data doubler?
For those asking why. I’ m a developer and need to be able to test software on the three OSes.
Does the warning about not putting 6G devices in the optical bay apply to SSDs only, or also to the 750XT Seagate Hybrid drive which is 6G?
Thanks
It applies to all 6G devices, including hard drives, SSDs, or hybrid drives.
I’m using a Corsair ForceGT 240GB SSD in the Optical bay with no issue’s at all, except for connecting at SATA2 speed instead of SATA3. The Optical bay is working perfectly fine for me!!
Various 2011 MacBook Pros shipped with 3Gb/s SATA 2.0 link in the optical bay vs. 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 link enabled port. There is never an issue with a bay that links at only up to SATA 2.0 3Gb/s or with using a SATA 2.0 3Gb/s drive in a bay that is 6Gb/s capable. SATA 3.0 drives will link down to SATA 2.0 when only SATA 2.0 is presented…. unfortunately, for those with SATA 3.0 6Gb/s in their optical bays – you need to know to install a SATA 2.0 3Gb/s drive because if you install a SATA 3.0 drive – it will link at 6Gb/s even though that bay is not reliable there for. The exception would be 13″ MacBook Pro 2011 systems which, with rare exception, are 6Gb/s reliable in the optical bay as well as the main bay.
I am looking to get either an Early 2011 MBP 17″ or a late 2011 MBP 15″ and plan to use a OWC SATA 3.0 6Gb/s SSD in the main drive bay and move the 750GB HD to the CD bay. Will the performance of the SSD be the same in both of those machines? Or should I rather got with the MBP 15″
The performance should be the same assuming, of course, that you’re comparing the same specs (processor speed, memory, etc.) in each model.
I have a similar issue. I’m running the current gen Mac Pro 5,1 12-Core, and have been using my Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G without any issues. I had the SSD partitioned between “Snow Leopard” and “Lion”,. no issues. Yesterday I attempted to boot into my Windows 7 SATA bay, and I experienced a kernel panic for the first time in years. I rebooted with the option key but the only bootable partition was my Lion recovery partition. I had another SSD from OCZ I installed running “Mountain Lion” DP2 (I’m an Apple Developer), booted and mounted the OWC SSD. Wouldn’t mount, neither in a SATA bay or using en external HDD USB dock. Tried blessing my partitions/drives, nada (note: everything is updated, including the OWC latest firmware). I reinstalled Windows 7 thinking there may be Windows based apps that could further diagnose the OWC SSD. Cannot get it to mount. I’m beginning to suspect there’s an issue with the controller. Time to contact tech support. :(
Exactly the same issues with my Macbook Pro 8.2. I feel surprise this model could be involved in this issues.
I purchase a OWC Mercury Electra Pro 6G SSD on February the 14th, and receive it in March the 27th. I know, it a long time for shipping, but I live near East Africa…
I installed it in the main bay and put my HDD in a data doubler. It’s impossible to make SSD work correctly.
I have a lot of problem:
- The SSD is detected when I launch the computer…and sometimes not
- Spinning beach ball when it is detected, and the SDD is suddenly unmounted
- When I try to mount the drive, it suddenly disappear with an error message
I upgrade the last Apple EFI…but nothing has change. I try to upgrade the SSD firmware, bur it was impossible because it can not find the SSD. And when it find it, a lot of I/O errors appears, and the upgrade is impossible.
Has somebody an ideas before I ask a refund ?
Thanks for your answer.
Please contact our Technical Support Team via live chat, email or phone at 1(815)338-8685 and they can help troubleshoot your system and get you running at full speed again.
Hi Eric Gutierrez , I have the exactly same problems!!! How did they solve this problem for you? Refund yet?
I have a Macbook 5,1 (2.8GHz 2009) and purchased an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G and installed it in the main bay, as the boot device. I have come across identical symptoms to those experienced by others in this thread. ie:
- Spinning beach ball, leading to complete failure of OS X (freeze, not kernel error)
- Random corruption of the HFS partition
- Random failure to detect that the drive is attached / Flashing folder of doom.
Upon these sets of failures, I assumed that the SSD was faulty and returned it to OWC for repair / replacement. This was a painless and swift process, excepting the courier fees (I live in NZ). Unfortunately, 3 reboots post install of Lion (Snow Leopard now also tried as part of troubleshooting), the problems started to appear again. Having performed a hardware test against the host (all clean), zapped PRAM and reset the SMC, I started to look for information associated with OWC SSDs and Apple SATA controllers and hence found this thread.
The Macbook boots fine from a traditional hard disk and has the latest EFI firmware from Apple installed. The OWC SSD has it’s latest firmware installed. Any ideas on how I can make the SSD useful, outside of having to purchase a new mac and installing the SSD in that?!?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Same symptoms here but mine is a MBP 8, 1 and the same SSD (Firmware 501ABBF0). Could be repaired with a firmware update?
Same issue with MBP 8.2 as I posted on March 12… tried everything, even an ifixit cable replacement but none of these solutions seems to work
Absolute identical problem to Chris on a brand new macbook pro 15. Have my second drive from OWC now which arrived today, same folder of death. Living in Australia and now paying for multiple postage is not ideal. I’ve actually begun to wear out the screws holding the macbook together from pulling it apart so often. Bad times. What are our options?
I have a Late 2008 Macbook (unibody). I upgraded to a 480 GB Mercury 3G SSD and have found that it gets corrupted about once a week. It seems to be fine during the day while I’m using it. If I leave it on overnight (lid open), I sometimes find in the morning that the SSD had become corrupted. (I run disk utility after startup, before shutdown and when I’ve left it unattended for a while.) Fortunately I back up to Time Machine every time I do work I don’t want to lose.
The SSD was bought in September and came with the latest firmware. The corruption issues are annoying — and time consuming. I’ve run the Apple Hardware Test and it has detected no hardware or memory errors. (I upgraded memory last year to 8G using OWC memory.) SMART status shows as “verified”.
Any ideas? I’ve even resorted to run smcFanControl, thinking that perhaps the extra memory and SSD were causing the machine to run a little warmer and somehow causing havoc. However, I’ve seen disk corruption since then. Bad SSD?
Just to add my experience to the list here…
I have an early 2011 Macbook Pro (8,3) – I decided to get the Mercury Pro 6G SSD for the main drive after feeling reassured that the array of glitches had been resolved by an EFI update mid-late last year. After installing, things went smoothly for a week or so followed by complete boot failure. Despite multiple restarts a bootable OS couldn’t be located and I got the dreaded “folder of death” flashing. OWC were accommodating and took and exchanged this drive for a new one (the whole process took three weeks or so). When I installed the new drive things were worse from the outset. Took multiple attempts to install Lion as the installation app would hang half way through. After trying a number of different approaches eventually completed the installation and got the computer to re-boot. After a nervous week or so thinking that I might have beaten the SSD gremlins – same problem recurred as with my original SSD. Boot failure, beach balling etc etc. This time I found that if I could dedicate 15-20 minutes constantly rebooting I could usually get the system to relaunch – but this became a real pain and made for lengthy delays at work. Now my approach is that once I get the computer launched I try to keep it fully charged and avoid ever shutting it down. Every now and then it does bizarre things after waking from sleep – freezes/ slows down – so need to go through the whole trauma again! No amount of disk first aid (verifying/fixing permissions), software updating has made a scrap of difference to the SSD unreliability. My take on things therefore is that there remains an issue with early 2011 MBP’s talking to aftermarket SSD’s regardless of their EFI status. This has been a disappointing exercise, and I having experienced the blistering speed of the SSD, I now have to face the prospect of going back to the old platters to achieve some reliability.
Are you freakin kidding me?
After reading all the reviews and blogs on these ssd upgrades, WHY would I spend a grand or so for a product that obviously have’nt been throughly tested or QCed. irregardless of what these ads say, for the amount of money no one should be having these many problems with any product. for me, I’ll Pass.
Just to add to this earlier post. The combination of updating to the newest revision of the 6G SSD firmware and applying the EFI update 2.7 in the hope that I might miraculously cure the SSD instability didn’t work out so well. After an hour of startup-boot fail-restart-bootfail I have sadly accepted that the SSD has for the second time completely failed rendering the computer completely useless. Bitterly disappointed and very frustrated at throwing away $500 on a useless drive.
Feel free to reach out to our tech team. Apple EFI 2.2, so far, is the only Apple firmware update with a change that impacted Macbook Pro early 2011 model SATA 3.0 deficiencies. The ghost is in the machine, so to speak, and in the case where there is a bad cable or other hardware deficiency that the 2.2 update doesn’t overcome – results are very frustrating. Still seeing confirmations of bad SATA cables being an issue with some of the early 2011s where main drive bay still not delivering. Also note that that the Serial ATA connectivity in the optical bay of 15/17″, if it shows 6Gb/s link capability, is absolutely not acceptable today for any SATA 3.0 drive period – no software update is likely to change that, but we are still hoping for a hardware solution that for the late 2011 models which right out of the gate are rock solid in the main bay and far far better in the optical bay too. Anyway – drop us a line and see what we can do one way or other.
I have an early 2011 MBP 13″ upgraded in October with an 480GB EXTREME Pro 6G. All was running fine until a few weeks ago, when intermittent slow downs at runtime and wake-from-sleep freezes started cropping up. Then boot problems emerged, which would correct themselves, until this morning when the machine would not wake from sleep or recognize the SSD on reboot.
Note sure exactly—but there seems to be a pattern with the wake-from-sleep problem manifesting itself when the machine is not fully charged.
If I can get the SSD alive again, I will install the firmware released in February. I had just upgraded to the one released back in Oct/Nov time frame.
At this point, the experience is incredibly frustrating especially given the money involved and downtime for a critical work machine.
Assuming this problem might be related to SATA cabling, can someone at OWC elaborate on this please. Is there a way to determine whether cabling is an issue and, if so, to replace the internal cables for the main drive bay?
By the way, OWC, is there a way to post your firmware ISOs on faster servers, maybe globally distributed? Download speed is about 24.5 KB/sec. For a 700+MB image, that’s pretty darn slow.
Same problem recognising OWC Extreme Pro 6g 480Gb randomly on early 2011 MBP 15″… all updates applied, reinstalled lion, created a windows partition with bootcamp, contacted with OWC who replaced the SSD they sent me at first, but problem persist… APPLE says their drives don’t have problems and don’t recognise the issue
Apple doesn’t recognize the issue as Apple doesn’t make any guarantee for the use of 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 drives in their computers… and the issues are not present on any level that we’ve encountered with SATA 2.0 3Gb/s drives (which is all Apple ships for their SSDs). In our experience here, as well as confirmed over dozens of Macbook Pros.. and confirmed with much larger pool of direct contacts in the field – even MacBook Pros with the worst issues with SATA 3.0 in the main bay saw those issues resolved with EFI 2.2 update back in September. I personally have a MacBook Pro that is used every day that was completely unusable with a SATA 3.0 drive and is now completely stable and performing as expected since the 2.2 update. in cases where the update didn’t completely solve the issue, this is a very small percentage and usually was then found to be a cable issue. That said – in a handful of cases where even cable swapped, the issue appears to be still specific system hardware and just not able to provide reliable 6Gb/s operation. There is nothing we can do for those machines and Apple isn’t doing anything as they don’t specifically support SATA 3.0 operation in these Sandybridge Intel based 2011 models DESPITE enabling the SATA 3.0 6Gb/s link capability…. which, unlike on a PC, the user can change to limit to SATA 2.0 3Gb/s.
All of this said – a SATA 2.0 3Gb/s SSD is certainly an option that will work without issue. Out of the gate Apple’s MacBook Pro systems were fully qualified for SATA 2.0 3Gb/s drives – but the problems started because they still left the switch on for SATA 3.0 6Gb/s.
Also – to re-iterate – doesn’t matter what EFI version, at this point in time there is absolutely NO RELIABILITY for using a SATA 3.0 6Gb/s Drive in the optical bay of 15″ and 17″ 2011 Models where 6Gb/s link is available. SATA 2.0 3Gb/s drives only should be installed when using Data Doubler for 2nd drive – this is a limitation of the Apple hardware as well as not supported by us or Apple (6Gb/s drive into optical bay replacement).
hopefully not over confusing this topic. but the above has been the case since September when EFI 2.2 quietly addressed the main bay 6GB/s reliability issues of MacBook Pro 2011 models via software handling. Prior this Apple update, few systems had any reliability at all with SATA 3.0 drives in the main bay.
I already have all that issues above and I get my macbook pro early 2011 (8.2) working fine with OWC SSD 6G 240GB Extreme Pro in the main bay just using a aluminum foil around sata cable. This works for me.
It’s hard for us to endorse and promote that as a solution, but we have reports that yes – this does seem to work as a solution still today in MacBook Pro 2011 models that still have 6Gb/s signal reliability issues even after EFI 2.2. NOTE – this applies to the MAIN BAY only… not to the optical bay… and use such solution at your own risk, etc. We can make no assurance or support for this solution option other than to say there is no harm to trying this in the MAIN 2.5″ DRIVE bay location.
MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.7 has just been released (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1499). I will be testing tonight to see if the 6GB/s issues have been resolved in the optical bay.
Unfortunately no changes about the beach ball issue when an Sata3 SSD is used in an optibay (on a sata3 port). I made my test on a late 2011 MBP15 and a Crucial M4 with the firmware rev9. What a pity !
My MacBook Pro 8,2 is up to date on the SSD and Apple firmware and I’m still having problems with the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G being recognized in the main drive bay on boot
This particular model of SSD has been nothing but frustration – I have bought 3 other SSD’s from OWC (different models) and all have worked without a problem
What can I do next other than replace this SSD with the original HDD that came with my MBP
Have you applied the SSD firmware update released just yesterday?
Do I need to install the update? The firmware version on my SSD is 501ABBF0, which is the most recent version.
I had to reboot my MBP 7 times for the SSD to be recognized.
Recently purchased drives were sold with the firmware already updated. 501ABBF0 is the current version & if you’re updated already, there is no need to do install it again.
I am experiencing the issues people have been referring to also.
I have a MBP 8,2 just purchased 3 weeks ago. It does have the 6g optical bay and 240GB OWC Electra 3G SSD
Today, I updated the firmware for the SSD with the firmware listed on your site for the Electra 3G, but I’m still experiencing problems.
It has become so unreliable that it tends to freeze within 5 minutes of booting. I’ve tried installing the SSD in the Optical Drive with the Data Doubler, as well as in the main bay with the same results.
These issues did not start right away. I have been lightly using the computer for a few weeks, and have only started experiencing issues about 4 days ago.
At this point, I’m reinstalling OSX Lion on the standard hdd via internet recovery. I have to work with this computer, so I can’t keep risking failure and data loss. Once that is up and running, I will try to troubleshoot with the SSD with your tech support.
Any other advice is greatly appreciated.
Hi,
Fantastic blog! it answers a lot of questions… but I would like Clarification on one thing, TRIM…
I currently have a Early 2011 15″ MBP and it has 6G support for main bay and 3G ONLY for optical bay.
I have an Apple (Toshiba) 128GB SSD in the main bay (running in SATA2 3G)
I have a Samsung SATA2 3G SSD in the 2nd bay using the OWC Data Doubler.
The system is configured as two separate volumes.
I’d like to go to a single volume for ease of management, splitting things is annoying and I find that each update to the core OS seems to wig out the TRIM support on the Samsung and I have to go and reenable it.
Looking at the posts to date, I CANNOT reliably run 2x OWC 6G SSDs in this system because of the different SATA speeds between the main controller and the optical bay controller, makes sense.
So I just want to confirm the following.
- I should buy 2x OWC SATA2 3G SSDs because of the mismatch in controller speeds
- I should run those in SPAN and NOT RAID0 mode as their performance is not better in RAID0 and really, all I want is SPAN
- make sure I’m on EFI 2.2 Firmware, how do I check that currently?
- reinstall from scratch using the Lion DVD
- use the installers disk utility to configure SPAN (or is that done with something else?)
My question is, where does this leave me in terms of TRIM support?
I get the impression that TRIM is NOT a problem for these SSDs?
do I need to worry about the OS reporting No TRIM SUPPORT?
Thank You
Most of your queries were addressed in our blog post “To TRIM or not to TRIM (OWC has the answer)“
I brought the 240gb mercury extreme pro 6G for my early 2011 17″ MacBook pro after hearing that the EFI firmware had resolved the issues users were having with SATA3 disks on these machines.
I’ve had it running for a week and a half and been very happy with just how much faster my machine has been vs stock. When doing some speedtests to see if I was getting full speed I had my mac go unresponsive in the UI for 30 seconds or so. I’ve had this sort of pause a few times and have been a little frustrated with it.
Tonight however it took one far sinister turn. I had downloaded the new Messages beta app and installed it, requiring a reboot. During installation I experienced another one of the system pauses where exposé wasn’t working on my safari browser, istat menus didn’t respond in the toolbar, and the dock wouldn’t animate. I was a bit frustrated, and then it cleared. I rebooted my mac, and it just sat there loading. Since upgrading to the SSD my boot times have been 15 seconds tops, so as I hit 3 minutes plus I got a bit worried. I force rebooted and still no joy. I then rebooted in verbose mode only to discover it crashing in the system bootstrapped almost immediately. I tried verifying via my old hdd boot disk and recovery partition that the files mentioned in the crash weren’t corrupt. They weren’t.
I spoke to someone in OWC live chat, whilst exploring options. In the end I had a brain wave and from my old boot I reinstalled Messages again onto the SSD. It finished much quicker than last time without any pause… Rebooted and the thing booted again.
I’m now in the middle of a time machine backup as I’m paranoid as hell. I worry that I have intermittent system freezes as others report here, but also I worry that if a write is being performed in this frozen state it may get corrupted!!!!
I see a new firmware is due, which I’m hopeful for maybe helping with all this. I’m hopeful I can flash the drive from a boot USB/CDROM as I was dismayed to hear that the firmware update cannot work when you have a data doubler or equivalent installed with a hdd in it, and no optical disk. Rather than mess with this, I think extracting the boot disk from my mac and flashing it in my PC may be much easier than taking the other hdd out etc.
So new firmware is encouraging. We still seem to wonder about the integrity of the cabling in these machines, but you have took your shielding kit off sale. I personally would love to buy such a thing in the hope that it may help the situation. Any scope of me getting hold of one of these?
Any responses to my woes very much appreciated!! cheers!
We removed the shielding kit as it was designed for the optical drive data cable. While we had experienced some improvement initially, we found it wasn’t a reliable solution to the whole 6Gb/s drive installed in the optical drive bay issue. We’re hopeful, yet not optimistic, that Apple will resolve the issues with that port when installing a device capable of the 6Gb/s transfer speeds that the bus itself reports as possible – but Apple doesn’t offer such a device themselves as they use the port for an optical drive only. It’s frustrating to say the least.
Keep an eye out for the new firmware on the drive as we are very close to the official release on that. It should fix most of the stability issues that have been reported.
Michael, thanks for your reply.
I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out on the firmware and will take that as soon as its released. I’m frustrated by the fact that in mac updating isn’t trivial as i have something like the data doubler in my machine, which you said stops booting from USB from working. Does the mac firmware installer work in a PC? Having to boot into windows is going to be a bit of a pain, but much easier than putting my optical disk back in the Mac.
It’s a shame your shielding kit was for the optical disk only. I recall the original blog post when you announced the shield kit showing clearly the normal bay cable and its proximity to the battery LED wire. I still wish for something like this, lets see how the new firmware goes but i’ve definitely got problems :(
Tonight i had a quick go at trying to replicate corruption with the disk.. i was planning to copy a load of video files into a folder and just duplicate them over and over seeing if i could hit the problem.. as soon as i tried to perform the initial duplication i got the system freeze within about 5 seconds of starting the copy. It lasted as always about 20+ seconds.. on completion the copying carried on. I then performed checksum analysis on the files and discovered a single byte corruption
cmp -b file1 file1copy differ: byte 713138177, line 3317358 is 350 ? 34 ^\
I’ve since tried to perform another 30gb copies, at the same time as trying to run the black magic speed test program to stress the system. This didn’t recreate the problem.. when i’ve witnessed it before it does seem to be something that is caused as the system prepares for fast disk accessing when it’s previously been idling.
Still a file corruption is a file corruption. Scary, if infrequent stuff.
The firmware update is expected to be posted tomorrow or Wednesday at latest. There are improvements, especially that benefit 6G challenged MacBook Pros and OS X power modes, which do make a positive difference overall as well as improved performance. Data corruption shouldn’t be a concern even with the current software though unless OS X isn’t reading a ready state right in corner case situation from a standby mode. Even with other challenges from system side, corruption isn’t something that should occur drive side. That’s more typically caused by a non-fatal memory glitch in systems that don’t have ECC memory to correct such.
As for 6G operation in the optical bay when 6G SATA 3.0 link is present in the optical bay – what’s unfortunate is that a simple shielding kit isn’t the solution to make it reliable.. it’s far more off spec than that in terms of what’s required to support a 6G drive in that bay, we’re still working on what may very well be a solution for 15/17″ late 2011 models, but I doubt any likely hood of solution for the earlier 2011 which is far far worse to start with vs. the later 2011 versions.
As for the firmware updater and data doubler. The loader is linux based as Apple doesn’t allow any access to needed port/channels to update via a Mac OS based utility at this device level. Unfortunately – in this case – Apple also doesn’t support boot except from an optical drive or existing drive. There isn’t a practical way to have a partition for the alternate OS other than Windows/Fat32, etc (or giving entire drive to Linux format and pardon any tech term errors in my explanation..) and Apple doesn’t support booting Windows or Linux using Bootcamp off of the USB port or via USB Flash drives and that isn’t because of the data doubler, that just is.
If you have windows already installed on a drive partition or an easier way to drop a drive with Windows already installed that can be booted from – yes – using the Windows updater version is an option. We don’t make the rules in terms of what Apple does and doesn’t allow/support – just try to work as best as possible to make the best with them.
Thanks.
Thanks Larry.
Looking forward to the new firmware. So with the apple firmware being linux based. Does the apple firmware updater work in a normal PC. Freeing me from needing to boot into windows to perform the update?
Data corruption is definitely happening, albeit only when these pauses occur. It’s not close to waking from sleep either, though i did check whether sleeping and re-awakening helped me to recreate the issue, it didn’t seem to sadly. I’ve performed quite lengthy memory tests with prime95 and rember memtest. I’ve also used the machine for nearly a year with no issues. It seems to be more down to whatever’s happening when my system is freezing, and if a write is in progress during this then a byte can get changed.
I’ve no interest in using 6G in an optical bay. My 6G drive is in the normal hdd bay. I’m just a bit desperate at getting to a system i can trust again, and so if trying to use the drive cable insulation trick may or may not help then i’d definitely be up for trying. I was just pointing out that you saying the insulation kit was made for the optical bay didn’t make sense as you originally revealed it in this post
http://blog.macsales.com/9754-owc-offers-fix-for-2011-17-mbp-sata-problems
for the main hdd bay.
I will take the firmware update and see if i can reproduce the freezing/corruption problem.
If i still can, i’d love to try the shielding kit, but you not longer sell it. Otherwise i fear i may have to return the SSD and opt for a 3G variant, not sure which one would be recommended in that case.
It’s sad as i absolutely love the speed difference its brought to my machine! But i can’t live with a random corruption potentially happening and taking down my OS like it already has done. What’s the scope of a firmware upgrade being able to downgrade the SSD to SATAII speeds only allowing it to work albeit in a slower way in these older systems? presumably some of the enhancements of the drive would still be able to come through even over the older SATAII speeds?
I think you guys have done really good in handling all this, but i do think the main heading of this page needs updating, or perhaps another blog post needs to be posted to say that some people are still experiencing SATAIII problems with their macbook pros. I may have been a bit more careful had i known the firmware didn’t magically fix EVERYTHING.
Thanks again, all fingers crossed for the firmware update to fix it all!
I understand that installing the OWC 6G SSD into the primary drive bay if they optical bay is a 6 GB/s one is the suggested workaround. However, if I install my 1 TB hard disk into the optical bay as my secondary drive in the data doubler, won’t there be a risk of hard disk damage given the hard disk parking protection that you get with the primary drive bay isn’t available in the optical bay/data doubler?
The short answer is no – not unless your 1TB drive has no native shock detection (which most have today independent of computer driven monitoring)… and even then, this is the kind of thing that protects in the event of a significant drop while read/write going on. until a few years ago, there was no shock sensor/shutdown-park stuff at all on drives in laptops or in laptops.. today’s drives are far more durable/shock resistant on their own as well as most with built in park/sensor technology. All protection is good.. but short of a significant drop that could even ding/damage your laptop – very little if any risk change.
We are very close to completion of the next firmware release and it should be available within the next few days.
In regards to some of the recent issues that have been reported here… it almost feels like Apple has made a quiet change in some portion of the OS that has impacted something. We’re hopeful that the firmware update will remedy most if not all of these issues as part of the laundry list of things it does clearly affect positively.
Also…while we have observed a high rate of success with use of SATA 3.0 6Gb/s drives in Apple 13” bays where 6Gb/s link is present, Apple does not support use of 6Gb/s drives in the optical bay and some systems may not be capable of proper operation there with. For guaranteed reliability/compatibility, we suggest 6Gb/s drives be used in the main drive bay and a 3Gb/s hard drive or SSD option be used in the optical bay where a two drive configuration is desired as we can not guarantee 6Gb/s drive operation in the Apple MacBook Pro 13” optical bay.
Be firmware updates offered from you for the Mercury 6G series SSD ?
How to find?
Mike from Germany
Our Firmware Updaters for all the OWC SSD models can be found here: http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/OWC/SSD
I have purchased Macbook Pro 13″ Late 2011 and 2 pcs of OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 480GB and Data Doubler. I planned to have ultra-speed Striped RAID set. But it is not working. :( I read though this blog and comments and it looks like it is bad SATA cable issue. Am I right or shall I try anything else?
SSD in main bay is working, although I don’t know how fast. SSD in optical bay seems to be working at first sight but when I try to copy some data on it, it ceases to respond and disconnects itself after several megabytes been copied.
Then I must turn off the machine and on again and disc is connected again. Both discs show negotiated speed of 6GBps in System profiler.
So I have recieved SATA cable replacement from local Apple Service Provider. But the outcome is the same… I ran several tests and disc in main bay is working good and reliable at full speed. But disc in optical bay seems to be working just until something try to copy on it. Then it either disconnects itself or R/W error is displayed and operation cancelled.
I read through web and even try to cover both SATA cables with aluminium foil but the result is the same… no measurable difference.
When I tried Blackmagic Disk Speed Test the main bay disc is performing great, but optical bay disc runs for 1-2 seconds and then says “Error writing the test file”, but does not disconnects.
Any idea what is wrong and how to be repaired? Thx.
The short story is that your system is simply not stable for 6Gb/s via the optical bay. Apple will do nothing to resolve that as they don’t support the alternative use of that bay and have no requirement for their approved use (optical drive) make 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 good under warranty, etc as no optical drive they use today links at higher than 1.5Gb/s and that bay is reliably solid for 3Gb/s. Sorry – but based on the information provided, I don’t think there is any solution currently to attain SATA 3.0 6Gb/s in the optical.
The indication is that you have a 13″ that is not going to be reliable for 6Gb/s in the optical bay and may not be a solution to said as it is on the Apple hardware side and not something we can fix per say.
Ok and since Macbook Pro 13″ (2011) is supposed to work with “double 6G setup” are you suggesting that my actual piece is somewhat wrong? Shall I then try to return it to Apple and get replacement which I hope will be working well like those you mentioned here?
Apple makes no warranty at all for the operational capability of the optical bay SATA port. Unless it’s not working with the optical drive, they don’t have any interest in addressing. We have not encountered any 13″ early or late 2011 units which haven’t been 6G capable in the optical bay and seems like you have one that isn’t. We would be happy to work with you in terms of the return of the 2nd 6G drive or even bring your entire MacBook Pro 13″ in to check out here and see if something we can see different that has it in the no go category currently. It’s hard to get any Apple action on this as they have zero support for the bay application other than for their own optical.
Thank you for return offer but I hope we would use the second drive in another machine. Anyway I am considering to take advantage of your offer to send you entire machine for examination. Can you tell me approximately what would you do with it and how much it would cost to me? We are residing in Czech republic (EU) so transportation costs are also matter for us.
We did several additional tests since last time and conclusion of our technical team is that there are two SATA chips on the notebook board and one of them is not capable of SATA III. To be more precise optical bay one is not capable to exceed SATA II speed even it is able to properly recognize SATA III drive and negotiate full speed at the first time. So we think problem is not cable (changed several times, tried to shield it) but controller itself. Which is rather bad news unless we were unlucky and got bad piece of hardware.
It isn’t likely practical to ship in from overseas – especially with the customs department to deal with. Our intent would be to review the specific 13″ system and see if there is a reason why it is an exception to all those we have here and seen reported that are 6G stable in the optical bay. It shouldn’t make a difference for this issue, but we will be posting a new Firmware update for our full line of 6G drives – and recommended for all to update to – within the next couple days.
I have Early 2011 15” Macbook Pro with i7 2.0 Ghz Quad-Core Processor. I still use it with stock 5400 Rpm hdd. I’m having massive troubles with my mac. While my mac is idling, I hear strange stutter noises from my headphones. Like it stucks milliseconds. Safari browser kills my internet also. While surfing with safari, it kills the internet and I have to restart the modem. I’m thinking about getting a new HDD but I wonder can I use 6G SSD with my Early 2011 Mac ? If yes, what products should I purchase ? Thanks.
Before replacing the drive – I’d have it checked under warranty. If the stock hard drive is bad, Apple will replace under warranty. If it isn’t the hard drive, you really need the other issue resolved before adding a new variable. Any of the 6Gb/s Mercury SSDs will make an excellent upgrade for your laptop (main bay installed replacing the hard drive there now) – but – you really shouldn’t pursue this until the issues you’re experiencing now are resolved in case more than just HD or software related issue.
I’ve purchased and installed the 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD for my MPB 15″ early 2011. I know learned that I have to transfer the drive to the main bay, would my TOSHIBA 750gb drive fit into the data doubler in the optical bay.
As much as I want the speed of the SSD I must have the storage capacity. As many others here, I wish this was more visible at the point of sale.
The Data Doubler accepts any 2.5″ SATA hard drive up to 9.5mm in height.
Please consider putting some kind of explanation on your product page or somewhere prominent so buyers can be informed. I just bought a 6G Electra for my brand new MBP 15 thinking I could just swap out the optical drive and then run Mac OSX.7 from the SSD. Two failed installs and one failed clone later, I have to go back in to the machine and shuffle the main drive with the SSD.
I’m not going to send my drive back, but I wish I had known that putting the SSD in the optical drive bay via the data doubler would not work at all.
While we do have a substantial call out on all Data doubler product pages in the default shown compatibility information section specifically noting the issue Apple has with 6Gb/s SATA Revision 3.0 drives not supportable in the optical bay, we will add additional call out with respect to this feedback. At this time, and as noted in this blog, it is absolutely not recommended to attempt use of any SATA Revision 3.0 hard drive or Solid State Drive in a 2011 or later model MacBook Pro 15″/17″ (this may change with a 2012 new model update/but as of the latest ‘late’ 2011 model versions) by means of our Data Doubler or any product that allows a drive to be placed in the Optical bay – if a 6Gb/s link is shown in profiler to this bay. The 13″ is ok – and if you have a model where Apple connected SATA Revision 2.0 3Gb/s port to that bay, that’s good too. Apple only uses the bay for optical drives. Today’s optical drives still use SATA 1.5Gb/s or SATA Revision 2.0 3.0Gb/s. So while it has no impact on Apple’s defined, supported use for the bay – it’s a real aggravation to say the least that 6Gb/s is often the connected port in that bay when it can’t properly support it and thus disappoints when users try to so use with our product. The main bay is stable now with EFI 2.2 or later for 6Gb/s – that much we’re thankful for as Apple doesn’t officially support any use of SATA Revision 3.0 drives in that bay either. Thank you for the understanding, comment/feedback. We have no benefit in anyone 2011 15/17″ Macbook Pro owners attempting to put a 6Gb/s SSD into a 6Gb/s enabled optical bay where currently it will only disappoint.
Larry,
Thanks for this post. It would be nice to know how it would be remotely possible that I was able to buy a 6g 120gb OWC SSD last week after this post. Partly my fault that I installed it during a final stretch of a rails class and it is now costing me 3 days in running. I will demanding a full refund. This is absolutely terrible as I have heard nothing but good about you guys in the mac and rails community but there is no reason that I could click on MBP links for my lapton and be able to get this product. To say I am upset is a massive understatement.
@JaretManuel
We offer a hassle free money back, so if the solution isn’t going to work for you, refund is not a problem.
Clear call outs are in all of our Data Doubler bundles with 6Gb/s SSDs that use of 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 drive is NOT recommended in the MacBook Pro 2011 model 15/17″ optical bays due Apple’s hardware not being 6Gb/s reliable for SATA 3.0 via optical bay.
That said – this bundle is still suitable for these 2011 models with intent of moving the factory hard drive to the optical bay and installing the SSD into the Main 2.5″ Drive bay – that is 6Gb/s capable.
As a side note – we are close to testing a prototype of what we hope will be a solution to enable 6Gb/s reliability in the optical bay. There is a very high demand for such a solution and further enabling of these 2011 MacBook Pros. We’ll see.
We’re here to help, not make things difficult.
Thanks Larry,
Appreciate the quick response although I didn’t get an email. Just happened to be reading this blog again. I have the 8.2 early 2011 15″ MBP. So you are saying if I swap the SSD, put it in the main bay and put the factory seagate in the optical drive then I should be fine? Would I have to make any setting changes on the mac or adjustments? It runs well (fast…. really fast) but I got a kernal panic tonight which is not good. It was bad timing on my part and now (hindsight being 20/20) I see the call outs but there are far from apparent when ordering. A friend recommended this who is quite technical, however it is hard to keep up with all of the hardware nuances.
I would much rather make it work as opposed to having to reinstall etc.
The hard drive will work A-OK in the optical bay. The Seagates Apple has used have been SATA 2.0 3Gb/s drives and the optical bay has no issues there with. You can switch the drives out – re-select startup disk just to make sure all followed (when startup drive isn’t fully set/matched up – doesn’t hurt other than will add time to startup).
I’ll send you an email with additional detail too. :)
Just checking in to see if you have made any progress in enabling SATA 3 speeds in the Optibay? You mentioned that you were working on a prototype!
Nothing concrete yet. If we do make any forward progress on this, rest assured there will be another OWC Blog post outlining all the details.
Larry, currently I use a Mercury 3G 120GB, can I combine my Mercury 3G with a Mercury 6G 120GB and make it run RAID 0?
As long as you have drives installed that are the same and are stable (like two 3G drives) – RAID is fine. Or a 13″ MBP that has 6G stable in both bays, etc.
Also – software RAID 1 between two different drives can work just fine although will limit the performance of a faster drive during writes… RAID 0 between two different is less recommended as it has far more impact to performance (and can result in that which is slower than either drive alone) when the performance variance is more significant between the two drives.
I’m about to buy a new MacBook Pro 15′ and want to add a 128GB SSD drive in the optical bay. After reading the blog it seems you still recommend using a 3G instead of the faster 6G SSD drive. So assume this bundle is what I need:
Data Doubler + 120GB OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 3G SSD Drive Bundle.
What’s the performance difference between the 3G and 6G drive?
Thanks
Bottom line, if you are getting a new MBP, then get a 6G SSD and put it in your MAIN drive bay. Then move the factory hard drive to the optical bay via the Data Doubler. Speed and Capacity…best of both worlds. AND…don’t forget to get an OWC SuperSlim enclosure to retask that optical drive.
As an example of the performance and why you should go the 6G, check out the transfer rates:
Any advice as to the best / easiest way to clone a new SSD prior to swapping it into the main drive bay, and the existing drive into the optical bay using a data doubler? Is external cabling required? This is specific for a late 2011 13″ MBP with 6Gb/3Gb SATA configuration.
Thanks
I’ve got a late-2011 (version 8,2) MacBook Pro into which I just installed the OWC Extreme Pro 6G SSD. I’m still having *massive* problems with black screens and beachballs on wake. It looks to me like the MBP just can’t pull the sleepimage off the disk so the beachball spins while it looks for the image.
Top that off with intermittent issues where the startup disk isn’t even found and a broken folder image pops up. Clearly there’s some significant issues here.
I’m wasting very valuable billable time on this and getting more frustrated by the moment. Without a resolution in the next day or so I’ll be exercising that 30 day money back guarantee.
Have you set the SSD as the startup disk in System Preferences > Startup Disk ? The broken folder image usually indicates that the system is searching for the operating system in a specified location and can’t find it. It then starts looking for any OS to boot from across the other drive or network options available.
Yeah, it’s only intermittent. Usually it finds the startup disk just fine.
Our Technical Support team would be happy to help troubleshoot. By phone 1-800-275-4576, via live chat, or through email. Suggest the phone or live chat options to get the issue resolved quickest.
Not to flog a dead horse or alarm anyone, but I experienced the same problems as Matt described – with what currently looks like a pretty fatal outcome! I will, of course, post back here and hopefully can resolve the warning, but as I see it right now, it looks like my OWC Extreme Pro 6G SSD died on me. within 3 days of the symptoms appearing, so this is mainly a warning to immediately back your stuff up as soon as you hit these symptoms!
My system is a MacBook Pro 15″ mid 2011, the drive bought around the same time. OS is Lion with current firmware and system updates.
As I said, what happened resembles Matt’s description: first, occasional beach balls when woken up from sleep (connected to power), then, after not being able to recover from this state, hard power down from my part (more than 4 seconds power button) and fresh boot, then the folder with question mark.
The first time around, I was able of connecting the mercury to an external SATA housing, and through that (usb) to another computer – and hooray, the drive responded. I put it back into the MBP, and it worked again. This was three days ago. Since then, several beach balls (which I thought to be software related) until today, the same thing happened for the second time – up until the question mark folder, except I couldn’t get the drive to work externally anymore!
So yes, of course I will contact support once the weekend is over, but I have this strong feeling that the drive is gone, and wanted to get out the word of warning if you hit similar issues to back up straight away (something I didn’t have time to/I know wish I had made a priority).
Just poking in the dark here, but is it conceivable, that something in the MBPs actually has the potential to _destroy_ the drive? I mean, since there are no mechanical parts involved, wear and tear after just about half a year seems a concerning thought, but could the interface somehow deteriorate the state of the drive? I mean, the thing that amayes me that it worked for half a year, than started to fail, recovered, failed again and (potentially) died. I was under the impression, that solid state drives either work or die. Also, any experiences of chances of recovering data from an unresponsive SSD?
I hope to be able to come back with better news soon, but until then – be aware!
Cheers,
Freddy
The 2011 Macbook Pros have been a nightmare, but mostly resolved following the Apple EFI 2.2 update and the October 18th or so SSD firmware update that do much to accommodate a signal integrity issue in these systems and ending said nightmare. Now that said – still seeing some corner cases which may fit what you describe. Additional accommodations of the MBP issue are in the works and I believe we will be sending notification of a new firmware update in the next 3-5 days which may close corner cases of this like.
The late 2011 MacBook Pro models are much better for 6Gb/s signal than the earlier models… I hope there is a 2012 update soon that isn’t just better but simply rock solid 1000%. FWIW, no issues ever encountered in the Mac mini or the iMac 2011 models with 6G signal.
Anyway – thank you for the feedback and sharing.
I am experiencing a similar problem to Freddy Komp with my 2011 Mac Mini (Macmini5,2, 2.7Ghz i7). It began after waking the machine from sleep caused it to beach ball. Immediately thereafter and since on cold boots I see the folder with the question mark. So far, after turning the machine off and on again (1-2 times) seems to solve the issue and the machine boots up straight away. This is not my main machine, so I haven’t spent a great deal of time with this drive but it appears to be behaving normally otherwise.
A soon to be released firmware update may address this issue that recently has been reported on a small number of Macs. We’re investigating this further here as now, but appears corner and specific to certain systems and, based on what we understand, the soon expected (today or tomorrow in fact expecting) update likely will address these corner cases. Sorry for any inconvenience!
Hi, here I am experiencing the same / similar problem with my early MacBook PRO 15 i7 2.2Ghz. It has been already the second 240GB OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD (replacement) and I am getting the same problem as before, i.e. flashing folder with question mark. I have looked into my System Information and as far as I can understand I have two “true” 6G Intel 6 Series Chipset connections (both link speed 6G).
It is really nice to hear that you are working on a new update to fix this issue but how can I load the update, if my machine cannot find the SSD at all? I have switched my Mac on and off several times and I also took the SSD out and placed it back several times but the drive would not appear at all.
I do not really know what to do. Shall I try to switch on the Mac over and over again and hope that the SSD appears or shall I send the drive back and hope that everything will be fine with the new updated SSD?
The funny thing is that all works fine with the original Apple / Toshiba 3G SSD.
P.S. I have bought the drive by Macfixit in Australia (nice guys).
I have this problem with my Macbook Pro early 2011 and my solution was do not install windows (bootcamp) on a second partition in my SSD 6G Extreme Pro 240 GB (I don’t know why!) and turn off sleep (never sleeo) in energy preferences. I’m waiting for firmware update that solve this issue.
I have exactly the same issues as described above.
However I have a late 2011 MacBook Pro 2.5Ghz bought a few weeks ago. I put in a Mercury Extreme Pro 480GB unit and within a week I started getting odd beachballing, and then started getting the question mark folder on boot. Numerous reboots got it detected again.
However on a second serious episode I had to swap it out to an external enclosure to get it detected. However it regularly disconnected / reconnected from finder which led me to think the drive rather than the Apple cable was at fault. I put it back in the main bay, and it required a few restarts to be identified. I actually used it successfully for 2 weeks, but avoided rebooting or shutting the machine.
As it’s still in the warranty period I’m returning the unit for replacement, but I’m also discussing the issue with Apple Support this week.
I’m glad to have stumbled onto this blog entry, but I really wish OWC had made this problem (which it looks like you’ve been aware of for over six months) more visible at the point of sale.
I bought from you two weeks ago, and have since spent an awful lot of otherwise billable time bug testing my rig and combing the internet for clues, all the while afeared that I’d somehow accidentally zapped my motherboard (in addition to voiding my warranty!) when I first cracked my 2011 15” MBP open to install more RAM and a fancy new SSD in the optical bay. Now at least I know the source of the wonky data transfer times, beach balls, and blue screens I’ve been experiencing.
So thanks for posting here; I now know to check this blog before buying. But if I’d known two weeks ago that all I had to do was swap the new drive in for the old one, and put the old one in the bay, it would have saved me a lot of grief. :/
Hi, I’m contemplating a Data Doubler for my late 2008 unibody MacBook 13″. I want to get a 6Gb/sec SSD for it to use as a boot drive from the optical connection. I want to get a 6G drive because I will likely retire this machine in about 12-18 months and want to transfer the 6G drive to a newer machine.
Do you know if my MacBook will run the SSD at SATA II speeds 3Gb/sec? Or will it run it at SATA I speeds 1.5G?
Thanks kindly,
John
While a 6G SSD does function in a 2008 MacBook Pro 15″ and 13″ Macbook, it will only do so at SATA Revision 1.0 (1.5Gb/s) speeds rather that the SATA Revision 2.0 (3.0Gb/s) speed the machine can deliver.
i have the
macbook pro 13 2011 i7 2.7ghz
500gb hd and 4gbram
will the owc extreme 6g ssd 2.5 serial ata 9.5mm will fit and work at highest speed?
i want extreme 6g for bootup and a second extreme 6g for optical bay
As long as your 13-inch machine shows 6 Gigabit Link speeds in both bays, there shouldn’t be any issues in installing an OWC Extreme 6G in each bay and accessing each at full speed.
if you run dual boot with bootcamp can you partition the ssd to run windows as well and then use the second drive (in the place of the optical drive) for data? or even can you partiion the second drive as well. I could install 1T drive in the second bay. If it works it sounds very promising since my Mac is the best windows machine I can buy and unfortunately I need win for work..
I have just purchased an OWC Extreme 480 gig drive for my 2011 Macbook pro (early)…. the SSD drive will not work with this computer. Guaranteed. It starts up, works for an hour then freezes….. no solution I can find anywhere. Any help would be appreciated.
Michael
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Hi….
I have a late 2010 MBP 2.66 i7 with stock 500GB, 5400 HHD. I want to upgrade to one of your SSD’s but not sure which one would be better for my Mac, the 3G or 6G. I have been reading the comments and I am a little confused on where to install the SSD, In the optical bay or in place of the HHD and move the HHD to the optical bay. Also, what is your suggestion of upgrading my 4GB of ram to 8GB? Please advise….
Jim
The 2010 MacBook Pros have a SATA Revision 2.0 system bus (3Gb/s max transfer speeds), as such our 3G line of SSDs would be most appropriate for your model. The memory you’re looking for is located here.
Hi, I have the similar MBP 15″ (Mid-2010 MBP 2.66 i7 with stock 500GB, 5400 HHD, MacBookPro6,2). In some of OWC’s comparability charts, the MBP 15″ MacBookPro6,2 is shown as, Mid 2010 and Late 2010. I haven’t found any Late 2010 MBP 15″ on the Apple site. This could this just be an innocent error but makes things confusing though.
I wanted to increase my storage so I recently ordered OWC DIY KIT: DATA DOUBLER (OWCDDMBS6E480). This is where the MBP 15″ Early 2010 MacBookPro6,2 266GHz in the comparability chart comes in. At the bottom of the Descriptions page, in the (Special compatibility notes related to use of this product with 6Gb/s SSDs), I read this again more closely along with rest:
*Testing has demonstrated that the 6Gb/s optical bay interface in 15″ & 17″ models is not consistently reliable. If your 15″ or 17″ model’s optical bay has the 6Gb/s interface, we do not recommend the use of any OWC Mercury 6G SSD or other brand 6G SSD in the optical bay at this time. We only recommend the use of a 3Gb/s SATA 2.0 drive into 15″ & 17″ 2011 MacBook Pro optical bays.
Even though the Mid 2010 MBP 15″ isn’t mentioned here, would it still be more advisable to use the Mercury Electra 3G SSD vice the 6G that I ordered?
There is absolutely no issue with the 2010 and prior models in terms of installing a SATA 3.0 6Gb/s drive in to the optical bay. The issue is only with the 2011 models which report in System Profiler a 6Gb/s link for the optical bay. The problem is that while Apple has made use of a 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 port for 2011 models which report this, the actual Apple hardware/cabling itself is not rated/reliable for anything beyond 3Gb/s SATA 2.0. When you connect up a SATA 3.0 drive though – it sees the 6Gb/s link and that’s what it attempts to operate at and the results are unstable at best for anything 6Gb/s in the Apple MacBook Pro 15/17″ optical bays.
To be clear – there is no issue ever with using 6Gb/s drives in the MacBook/MacBook Pro optical bays that report 3Gb/s link for that bay (which all pre-2011 models with SATA optical do/are). This is an issue only with the 2011 models that have 6Gb/s link to the optical bay.
That said – you really don’t get a benefit with a 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 drive on a SATA 2.0 3Gb/s bus other than the future ready… The Electra 3G and 6G models perform identically on a SATA 2.0 3Gb/s port connection. The 6G model though, is about twice as fast top end, when connected to a SATA 3.0 6Gb/s link port.
Hope this helps – sorry for the long reply.
Can you validate 100% that (2) 480GB Mercury Electra 3G SSD’s would work in RAID0 (software raid) in an Early 2011 MacBook Pro 15″ (2.3GHz i7)?
I want to run this setup to maximize speed and space but not run into the SATA 3 issues in the optibay using the 6G drives.
I would assume (if this works) the speeds could resemble (1) 6G drive?
Please let me know as I am very interested in this setup and the spec list on the Mercury Electra 3G does not show RAID0 as being supported (although, in another post OWC is stated as saying “As long as you have drives installed that are the same and are stable (like two 3G drives) – RAID is fine.”
Can you please validate this for me before I place such an order?
Thanks!
While there is no reason why it shouldn’t work hardware wise – we do not officially support RAID configurations other than RAID-1 mirroring and SPAN mode with the Electra SSD models. Software RAID places an I/O overhead on the processor since the OS/Processor is used to maintain the RAID. Bigger load with RAID-0 than RAID-1 FWIW… and that said – why not use a 6Gb/s drive in the main bay native non-RAIDed for peak data performance off the single drive? if need more SSD storage/ 3G in the optical bay?
I really wanted to keep it to a 1 volume system. I’m not a big fan of multiple volumes from an administrative perspective. I just wanted to maximize the speed and get as close to 1TB in a single volume.
Reading into all the posts here it looks like the 6G drives are still a real pain in the 2011 series of MacBook Pros.
I initially jumped on your 6G drive months ago and had all kinds of issues with beach balls etc…..
I returned it waiting to see how things panned out with EFI update or your firmware updates.
I thought maybe using (2) 3G in a RAID stripe setup would maximize my speed, keep me in a single volume system, and protect the stability of my laptop. I can’t deal with a bunch of stability issues when spending this kind of money.
I need to start web designing, video editing, and aperture usage soon for a new job. So I am trying to get this laptop up to an acceptable speed boost.
Why are your 6G Extreme drives supported for RAID stripe? Is it because of the type of memory used (sync, compared to async)?
Combination of the PE write rating of the Sync Flash as well as our own internal qualification and testing behind us supporting the Pro 6G model.
Any of our 3G or 6G SSDs you put in your MacBook Pro are going to blow the lid off vs. HD and even vs. Apple’s current factory SSD models.
The Electra 3G has the same performance limited to SATA 2.0 3Gb/s as the Electra 6G models do on 3Gb/s bus. And in addition to other things, the new firmware that should go live/release tomorrow or Friday nicely boosts some of that performance as well where it counts.
My recommendation – based on wanting simplicity and reliability – and only one volume… SPAN two of the 3G electras. You’re giving up less than you think in a net net and will have the reliability sought if two separate volumes isn’t the ideal. That’s my opinion….
Or wait till Apple actually has the hardware/qualified connectivity for the 6Gb they have connect for in the optical bay. Apple doesn’t support anything other than an optical drive in the optical bay, so can’t blame them… but can be frustrated none the less that the support isn’t there.
Are you stating that the firmware coming will enhance the performance of the 3G models? Or are you just referring to a firmware specific to the 6G?
The next firmware update is for all of our 2141, 2181, 2281, and 2282 SF Driven models currently shipping. That includes all of our 6G models as well as the recently introduced Electra 3G models.
Thanks, that does clearify things and negates the doubts, that I placed the wrong order item..
Greetings. I just purchased a 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD. I own a 15″ Macbook Pro (early 2011). Based on the information I read in this forum. I’m going to install the SSD in my main bay and take the stock 5400rpm Hard Drive and install that in the Optical Bay (using the Data Doubler). My goal is to run all my apps (Adobe, Final Cut Pro X, Ableton Live, etc) on my SSD and use that as my start up disc. My question is this, do I need to install Mac OS X on both the SSD and the Hard Drive? Ideally I’d like to use the hard drive as storage for movie files, projects I’ve completed, all my sound libraries/plug ins for my music and final cut software along with my iPhoto gallery & iTunes. Would love to know what you would recommend.
No, the OS need only be installed on one drive. We recommend what you’d like to do ideally – install the OS and your applications on the SSD, then use the hard drive as storage.
Michael, thank you for your quick response! So I can keep my iPhoto and iTunes on the regular hard drive and don’t need the max os x on it to be able to use them? Is it bad to have the OS on both drives even if I am using the SSD as my main drive?
I currently run a dual-drive setup similar to what you’re planning on. I have a partition on the hard drive with the OS installed just for the purpose of being able to startup and run utilities that need to do things that can only be done from a drive other than the startup.
so – to the point – no problem at all having the OS on the other drive other than space taken up. You don’t need to have the OS a drive except if you want to be able to boot from it. But having it there doesn’t hurt anything. If your itunes and iphoto libraries are aliased correctly for the SSD boot volume – you’ll also have essentially the same accessibility to them whether booting from the SSD or the HD.