Skip to main content
X

Send us a Topic or Tip

Have a suggestion for the blog? Perhaps a topic you'd like us to write about? If so, we'd love to hear from you! Fancy yourself a writer and have a tech tip, handy computer trick, or "how to" to share? Let us know what you'd like to contribute!

Thanks for reaching out!

OWC SSD Firmware Updated

Good news! After nearly two months of testing, we’re pleased to announce we’ve approved a new updated SandForce firmware version for our SSDs.

Now every drive that ships from OWC as of last Friday will have that new firmware which 100% resolves any hibernation issue you may have experienced.

While this issue only affected around 10% of all our SSD customers, we’re 100% committed to everyone’s satisfaction.

So, you can get this new firmware update in one of two ways:

Visit our firmware update page

or you can contact us to arrange sending your drive to us and we’ll flash update the drive for you.

Now, let me head you off at the pass….we do not have a Mac based firmware updater yet. While SandForce initially indicated they were going to create a universal updater, we feel you have waited patiently long enough and have taken up the baton on this ourselves. We’re working diligently on this and will let you know when we have something ready.

OWC Note: As there has been some confusion between Sleep & Hibernation…

There have been two SandForce-related issues with some of these drives, both of which can be corrected at this time.

For those with hibernation issues, this firmware corrects those issues.
For those with sleep issues there is a physical parameter change that OWC can do in-house to correct.

Please call our Technical Support team at 1 (800) 275-4576 for further assistance with either issue.
—————————————

UPDATE 4/1/11: The firmware UPDATER TOOL itself has been determined to be incompatible with Mac Pro model ID MacPro1,1; MacPro 2,1; MacPro 3,1

To determine your Model ID visit:
https://eshop.macsales.com/Customized_Pages/memory/macpromem/model_id_screen.gif

If you do not have access to another machine, you have the option of having us update the firmware on your drive OR choosing not to update the firmware. Please note that the primary update to this latest firmware revision corrected a hibernation issue for MacBook and MacBook Pro owners. Hibernation is not an Apple supported mode with Mac Pro/iMac/mini machines and therefore the firmware update is not an absolute requirement for Mac Pro, iMac, and/or mini owners. Should you wish for us to update the firmware, please contact our Customer Service department at 800-275-4576

Guest Blogger
Would you like to contribute? If you have a tip, trick, or piece of knowledge that you would like to share with other readers, send your submissions to rocketyard@macsales.com!
Be Sociable, Share This Post!

Leave a Reply

185 Comments

  • OWC Mercury Extreme can not be accessed from one to the next moment – a software issue ?

  • Since few days I experience strange problem with my Macbook pro. The computer won’t start after not using for the night (in disk utility no hard drive detection) but after several boot suddenly the had hard drive is recognized. Have you got any info about this problem?

    Disponible : 121,67 Go (121 667 792 896 octets)
    Capacité : 479,24 Go (479 244 222 464 octets)
    Point de montage : /
    Système de fichiers : HFS+ journalisé
    Inscriptible : Oui
    Ignorer les autorisations : Non
    Nom BSD : disk0s2
    UUID du volume : 22730EF9-FE81-38A7-BD04-6F439AB17C69
    Lecteur physique :
    Nom du support : OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD Media
    Type de média : SSD
    Protocole : SATA
    Interne : Oui
    Type de carte de partition : GPT (Tableau de partition GUID)
    État S.M.A.R.T. : Vérifié

  • Hm, guess that I should have found these comments before buying the Extreme Pro 6G for my MBP 8,2. Now installed it and get the infamous folder of death and it’s not recognized during lion install. So I guess i have to downgrade, quick question for OWC larry, can i run two Electra 3G 240 GB in raid 0 config in the main bay / data double on my MBP without running into problems? thx!

    • Running two Electra 3G 240 GB in RAID 0 config should pose no issues, however you would probably get better overall speeds by utilizing the 6G SSD in the main bay as a boot and load app drive with a 3G drive in the optical bay with Data Doubler as additional storage. For how to set that up, see our latest TechKNOWlogy video.

  • FInally…

    …after 10 months of waiting, I could solve the hibernation issue of my MBP/SSD combo! Download of the iso took 1 hour, the firmware update itself only a couple of minutes. And the best thing – it worked (contrary to all my prior attempts with hooking up the ssd to my old and dusted pc tower…)!

    Thank you very much.
    Patience is a virtue, I guess.

  • I’m having a similar issue trying to update my OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD 240G Drive. I currently have firmware 320A13F0.

    It is installed in a Black MacBook CoreDuo and I’m using the Bootcamp method with Windows Vista Home Premium with SP2.

    Copied the install files to the root, and running the update in “safe mode”. Even though I have Admin privs, it has trouble detecting that.

    Once booted in Safe Mode and the drive is detected, when downloading the firmware to the drive, the progress bar stops at “downloading 64 sectors”.

    After it sits for a minute, a blue screen/stop error shows up and it reboots, yet the firmware version remains unchanged–ugh.

    Any other solutions? I don’t have a desktop PC or Windows Machine to do this update.

    Thanks!

  • I have a MBP6,2 with an OWC Mercury Pro 3G SSD (FW: 360A13F0).
    I did a clean install of Lion and I now how sleep/hibernation issues even with the latest firmware.
    When I wake up the MBP the screen is blank and never comes up. This happens 60% of the time.
    I disable “Put drives to sleep when possible” in Preferences and the problem was resolved.

    Any ideas?

  • So I have an early 2011 15-inch MBP and I do not have a PC. Since my MBP does not qualify for the Mac update, I tried using Bootcamp. When using the updater in Bootcamp, it shows a check mark on the drive, but the firmware still shows 320ABBF0.

    So I am pretty much screwed? Why can’t a 2011 MBP update a $500+ SSD in either OS?

      • I have the exact same issue, haven’t had any specific issues with the drive so I’ll hold off for now but I want to be able to update just in case.

  • I have just installed my new Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD on my MacBook Pro 6,2 (Mid 2010).
    It’s firmware was successfully updated to 332ABBF0.
    Despite that, I am having serious issues with it.

    Before the SSD was installed on my Mac, I was using it inside an On-The-Go Pro Case.
    My Mac was not recognizing the SSD.
    I had to connect and disconnect several times to work.

    Finally I installed the SSD on my Mac.
    Now when I turn on my Mac, it does not boot.
    I can hear the chime (sound) and there is just a white screen.
    After turning off and turning on several times, it works.

  • I can confirm that the mac iso file running on a pc is the only way i could get my 240gb 6g drive to update to the new firmware. I tried every combination to no avail. After finding this post suggesting that using the mac iso file on pc was the trick – i gave it a try and it worked. I put the iso file on a bootable usbkey. Hope this saves someone hours of frustration!!

  • I wanted to post an update about my experience getting my EXTREME™ Pro 6G 240GB updated from 320ABBF0 to 332ABBF0.

    Background:
    I have a 15″ MacBookPro6,2 with an EXTREME™ Pro 6G 240GB installed in the default SATA bay. I have the original Apple HDD installed in the optical bay using the OWC Data Doubler and the original Apple optical drive installed in an OWC Slim USB2 Portable adapter. I have Lion installed on the SSD (SSD has bootcamp partition), and I have Snow Leopard installed on the original Apple HDD (this drive also has bootcamp partition). When I purchased the SSD, it shipped with 320ABBF0.

    Problems:
    Earlier this week I tried to resume my laptop from sleep (was put to sleep with Lion running off the SSD). When I opened the laptop I had a spinning beach ball and black screen. I hard rebooted the laptop and when the computer restarted, the SSD had disappeared from list of bootable drives. Instead, I booted into Snow Leopard (on the Apple HDD in the optical bay) and started the Disk Utility. The SSD did not show up as a drive in the system. I rebooted the laptop, and reset the PRAM. After rebooting a couple times, the SSD appeared again, and I was able to boot into Lion.

    Thinking that there might be a fix in a later firmware update for the SSD, I downloaded the OWC Mac firmware updater and attempted to boot the laptop from the external CD-ROM drive. However, my MacBookPro6,2 is unable to boot off the external CD-Rom drive. I tried 2 OWC updater discs, a Windows 7 32-Bit install CD, and a Windows 7 64-Bit install disc and each time I tried to boot, the only thing that showed up was an alternating Apple icon and a folder icon with a “?” in it. When I attempted to boot off the official apple install disc that came with my Mac, the laptop boots fine off the disc in the external drive. I also tried a Lion installation disc and I was able to boot off that also. It appears that this model laptop will ONLY boot from an Apple Installation disc.

    Realizing I wasn’t going to get the updater to boot, I decided to try updating the firmware from with bootcamp (Windows 7 64-Bit) using the OWC Windows updater. I downloaded the OWC 6G SSD Firmware Updater (3.3.2) and ran the firmware updater from within bootcamp. The updater appeared to run fine (the arrow moved up and down across the disc icon for a min or two, and then a checkmark appeared over the disc icon). However, the firmware version still showed “320ABBF0” (instead of updating to the latest “332ABBF0”).

    I called OWC tonight and they said that some Mac models are incompatible with the Mac Firmware Updater disc.

    Solution:
    The tech I talked with recommended that I remove the SSD and install it into my Dell laptop. Then I used the Mac Firmware updater disc (installed in the CD-Rom drive of the Dell Laptop) to boot into the Mac Firmware updater and update the firmware on the SSD. Using this workaround, the SSD finally reports firmware “332ABBF0”!

    However, this means that whenever I want to upgrade the firmware on my SSD in the future, I have to take apart my MBP and my Dell laptop, swap the drives, update the firmware, and then put everything back together… less than ideal, but it seems to be the only thing I’ve tried all week that actually works.

    Hope this helps somebody else experiencing the same issues.

    • I did it! The first thing I did I activated AHCI in Windows. You can find how to do that in Google. Just type Enabling AHCI for Windows on MBP 2011. Then I ran firmware updater. And that’s it. I have new firmware on my SSD.
      FYI: I have 2 OS on my Mercury Electra 6G 120GB: Mac OS X Lion & Windows via Boot Camp.
      You can deactivate AHCI after firmware update procedure. Just make a copy of MBR during AHCI enabling process, but then you lose all the advantages of running Windows in AHCI mode.

  • Hello
    I’m trying to update the firmware FW 3.3.2 via bootcamp and the process ends fine, no errors, but the version of firmware does not change. I have a mac mini server 2011. What is the matter?

  • Sorry, what is the last firmware revision forMercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD ?
    Help me please

  • when will there be a mac firmware update out? i have a owc ssd and a data doubler in. and i do not have windows on my mac…? i had to take out the ssd put my stock hdd and put back in my optical drive. extremely frustrated. don’t understand why there is not a mac version. thats like my ford dealer telling me i have to go to chevy to get my car fixed. have a 300 dollar paperweight. please help me.

      • Hi! When will there be a update for the 6G Mercury Extreme pro 240 GB? I just purchased it, and installed it on my Mac Pro 5,1 I made a Carbon Clone Copy of my OS to it and it worked fine for a day, then I left it over night and now it won’t boot from the SSD, the computer won’t even recognize it, but some other times all of a sudden it appears on a boot from my original HD and I am able to boot from it, I can even shot the computer down and wait a few minutes and boot from it again, but if I leave the computer shutdown over night then the same thing the computer won’t even see the drive and it won’t boot from it. The firmware is the 830ABBF0 that the drive came with.

        • We don’t currently have a “schedule” for firmware updates to the drive, as these are mostly determined by updates to the SandForce processor firmware.

          However, from the sounds of it, the problem you’re describing has very little, if anything to do with Firmware. It sounds like there’s the possibility that something happened with the clone, and the OS on that drive isn’t “blessed.”

          I will suggest you take the following actions to try and resolve this problem

          1.) Boot to your original drive and Erase the SSD using Disk Utility.
          2.) Perform a clean installation of OSX on your SSD.
          3.) Use Migration Assistant, rather than a clone, to bring your data from your original drive over to your SSD.

          If, you are still having trouble getting your Mac Pro to boot to your SSD, you’ll want to contact our Technical Support center. One of our representatives will be glad to help you.

      • @OWC Grant

        I think the reason Daniel Ryan is frustrated is because “i had to take out the ssd put my stock hdd and put back in my optical drive.”

        The current Mac updater requires that the optical drive be installed in the computer to run the firmware update. However, many of us have removed the optical drives and purchased the data doubler.

        Are Mac customers without Bootcamp installed expected to swap the optical and hard drives in and out every time a new firmware update comes out?

        • Seems as though newer machines will not boot to USB anything other then OSX disc’s…working on addressing that with the updater.

  • I am deeply, deeply frustrated with OWC at this point, and judging by the good deal of chatter on the internet about the sleep issues with the SSDs, I am not alone. Customers have had these drives installed at real expense, only to find that they cripple their computers. I feel pretty sure that there are many other people as angered as I am that OWC did not proactively contact them to let them know this might be an issue for their machine, thus letting them waste huge amounts of time wondering what the heck is going on with their machines in the hope that there wouldn’t be a problem. There is a problem.

    I wrote to technical support in real exasperation, having clean-installed, looked for externals causing the sleep-hang issue, and wasted many hours doing so. When I enquired why OWC had not proactively contacted customers who _might_ be experiencing this issue, to save them all the wasted time, I was told “if we had any idea that these issues were occurring, of course we would have contacted you.” When I pointed out this very page with its long list of customer comments, which reveal that such a response was—at the least—disingenuous, and OWC had long known it was a potential issue for my computer, the response was: “I apologize.” Hmmm.

    The proposed solution? To send in the computer, at my substantial expense and with a narrow window for this return to happen, to fix a problem that OWC created in my brand new computer by installing hardware that crippled the machine. This is not acceptable, asking me to pay much more money to get what I should have received in the first place. Can you imagine buying a new car that has a recall issue, and having it handled in the way OWC is handling this? Don’t let potentially affected customers know, wait till the problem causes real issues, then soft-soap it, and have the customers pay for bringing in the machine to get it fixed?

    OWC should be offering free shipping both ways to fix this problem, and they should also be offering a very serious apology to their customers, so that they do not become former customers, or still worse and more likely, angered former customers who spread the word. Do they or do they not stand behind their work? Look at this list of people who are waiting for OWC to get serious. The way things stand now, there are real credibility problems that are not going to go away.

    • Even though the Blog team members are not directly in the Customer Service or Tech Support departments here at OWC, this comment certainly caught our eye and we made sure a variety of appropriate staff members were notified.

      As it turns out, the problem you describe with your iMac Turnkey Upgrade service from us is *not* due to the firmware. Rather, there is another setting that needs to be adjusted on the drive itself. There were very few systems this setting affected and again, it was an oversight on our behalf that you weren’t contacted proactively. We do apologize for this situation as we truly do exist to serve the customer here.

      A Customer Service representative should be reaching out to you to help get things resolved to your complete satisfaction.

      • @OWC Chris S.

        “Rather, there is another setting that needs to be adjusted on the drive itself.”

        Chris, can you elaborate on what this setting is that needs to be adjusted?

        • As I understood the explanation from our development team, there was a parameter outside the SandForce firmware that needed to be adjusted in-house. I can’t comment any further on it, and it’s a moot point now – it was a small run of iMac upgrades where the setting needed changing on the drives. At this point in time, all new drives work normally.

  • Hi
    I’ve been having a problem with my SSD 6g 240 GB on macbook pro 6,2 since my upgrade to Lion. The problem consists of haphazard hang ups that occur up to 3 times per hour rendering my macbook unusuable. The apple store checked the system and said that the problem is most probably occuring from the SSD drive and advised me to update the hard disk’s firmware.
    Therefore, i downloaded the mac firmware update tool and burned it to a DVD. It shows a couple of errors while loading but ends up loading fine. The problem is that after searching the system the updater does not find any attached SSD drives. The SSD drive is installed in the old hard disks place internally and is normally deteced in mac os lion.
    I tried a PRAM reset by holding command+option+P+R but to no avail the problem still exists.

    I am stuck and dont know what to do .. my system is unusuable in this state and i’m really regretting having bought this SSD drive.

    Hope anyone could help find a solution to help the updater find the SSD drive

    • Please contact our Technical Support Team and they would be happy to assist in troubleshooting the firmware update. In the meantime, I’d suggest trying the download again from scratch – if you got errors while loading, it may be that the original download was corrupted or incomplete.

      • Hi Christopher

        Unfortunately i haven’t yet found a way to update my drive. I kinda gave up on it ! I installed Windows 7 on Bootcamp and tried to update the drive from there. The updater finally detects the drive and actually succeeds in updating it. The strange part is that after i restart into mac and check the firmware version on the drive, i find the same version as before therefore nothing has been done.

        So, i decided to give up until OWC do a better job with their updater.

        Hope that can help in some way

        • I noticed you said you had a 6G drive. There hasn’t been a newer firmware revision for the 6G drives since we’ve introduced them. We have the utility available for when the next revision comes out. Your results with the 6G updater would have been normal then, as it only shows drives with an older version of the firmware. As for the Windows updater – I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t just install the same version of the firmware over the old one – after all, it’s the latest revision.

          But I’d like to go back further a little, to your original problem. While I can’t say for sure what’s causing the problems you’re having, I’m seriously doubting that it’s a firmware problem with the SSD – we’d have heard a lot more about this if it were a firmware problem.

          The Apple Store has long had the habit of blaming all sorts of problems on third-party upgrades. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is so; one of my favorite customer stories from my Tech Support days is the one where Apple claimed that third party memory was responsible for the hinges on a PowerBook G4 breaking. Them recommending you “update the firmware on the SSD,” seems more to me a case of throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks.

          My gut instinct says to erase the hard drive and perform a fresh install of your OS (aka “Nuke & Pave”) to see if the problem continues. SInce you mentioned you’re running Lion, this may be a little more involved, as you’ll first want to create a bootable installer disk. There are plenty of instructions how to do this – a quick Google search of “InstallESD.dmg” should bring up a number of how-tos.

          Once you’ve done this, clone your SSD to an external drive, erase the SSD and Install Lion using the disc you created, then use Migration Assistant to bring your data back over from your external drive.

          Outside that, I will echo OWC Michael’s sentiments; contact our Technical Support staff by phone (800.275.4576; International: 815.338.8685), via email or through Live Chat and they will be happy to help you.

  • Hi everybody…

    I just installed my brand new Owc Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 120GB to my Macbook Pro and it works 3 days without problem and then freeze after sleep.

    I forced shut down and then MBP won’t recognise my hdd anymore. After that i download Owc July 25, 2011 firmware update and i did everything same as instructions but also firmware update program didn’t recognise my hdd.

    After that i replaced Owc Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 120GB with my old HDD and my MBP recognise old one.

    I need help urgently…

    Best regards,

    • @Rasiha this sounds like similar behavior I’m experiencing on a 2010 Macbook Pro 15″. I originally purchased an EXTREME™ Pro 6G 240GB drive and installed it into my Macbook Pro. I tried a bunch of things and was unable to get the system to recognize the drive. I even put it into my windows PC laptop and windows was unable to see the drive. Thinking the drive was bad, I RMA’d the drive and got a replacement.

      After installing the replacement, I saw the same behavior: my MBP was unable to recognize the drive. On a whim, I tried booting off an external drive with Snow Leopard installed. Magically, the drive appeared and continued to appear acrosss reboots! I figured I’d fixed it, and I formatted the drive and installed Lion using the Lion install CD I burned myself. Lion seemed to work fine for a few days.

      A couple days later, I had to install bootcamp on the Apple Seagate internal drive in the MBP, which required me to reinstall my optical drive (thus temporarily removing the SSD while bootcamp installed off the optical drive). After a flawless bootcamp install, I removed the optical drive and reinstalled the SSD. The SSD drive was unable to be recognized by the MBP again! After rebooting a couple times and booting off a couple different sources (external drive and install CD rom), the SSD magically appeared again.

      I have no idea why the drive is not visible to the MBP after physically installing it, but it seems like a random combination of rebooting and booting off other media made it reappear both times for me.

      However, not all is well. I’m now getting the spinning beach ball when I try to resume from sleep in Lion (on the SSD) and I’m trying to figure out how to fix that issue…

      • Hi Christopher,

        Do you find any solution about MBP doesn’t recognise Owc Mercury Extreme Pro 6G?

        Thanks…

        Rasiha

  • I did the install on a MacBook Pro i7

    Worked flawlessly … very happy, the hibernation bug is gone (i tried it)

    Thx !!

    D

  • I’ve just updated firmware in my drive, using OS X
    it took me a while and I want to share my experience so maybe OWC can update instructions:

    I’ve tried to make a bootable SD card with the image but it doesnt work
    the same with bootable external disk partitions
    only actually burning a DVD I was able to boot the firmware update system.

    Hope this update fixes the issues on drive
    Cheers

  • how to know if I should upgrade the firmware ?

    My OWC is :

    Modell: OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD
    Revision: 320ABBF0
    S/N: MX6G24011E29E0251

    I can update from windows 7 booted from USB stick ?

    thanks

  • Since many have been asking, we are VERY close to completing the Mac version of the firmware updater. Stay tuned to the OWC Blog as an announcement regarding such should be made within the next two weeks.

  • How far is the Mac based firmware updater development and is it true, that for the sleep problem (in Mac mini), a coming firmware update will solve this and hence a SSD purchased mid January will not need to be returned for a physical parameter change ?

  • Well, it has been over a year since OWC promised a Mac version of the installer. I know they write “we’re working diligently on this and will let you know when we have something ready” but after so long and several PC updates … hope for a Mac updater seems about gone. No ETA, no Mac updater even on the horizon, no timeline from OWC … by the time the updater is out, most likely SSD drives will have been replaced by the next drive technology and OWC will drop support (as they mostly have for PATA). So OWC, tell me different … no vague promises of future glory … where’s the Mac updater release at really?

  • Where is the answer to the several reports of “Download firmware Failed.”? You only mention about MacPro versions, but what about MacBook Pro?

  • Just recently got a MBP 17″ and the 240GB Extreme SSD.
    Installed it today on OS X 10.6.8, and run the AJA System test.
    What I first notice is that running this is the write tests pause very frequently, and are bursty.
    Read tests are around 490 MB/s.

    Pretty disappointed in the write tests, not sure if it is the MBP or the SSD.

    Where does one find the firmware version of the SSD ? Is that the revision under the
    OWC Mercury EXTREME PRO 6G SSD, which it says 319ABBF0 ?
    If it’s not the latest firmware, why would OWC ship the current EXTREME SSD’s with older firmware ?

    • The firmware identifier for the 6G line of OWC SSDs is 319ABBF0. This post that you’re commenting on was written before the 6G models were even released. There has been no updates to firmware for the 6G SSDs since their release so you do have the current firmware.

      It sounds as if you’re running into the issues due to installing a 6G drive into a 2011 17″ MacBook Pro. This has been an issue with that machine itself – for more information please read our blog post MacBook Pro 2011 Models and SATA 3.0 (6.0Gb/s) – Update – 5/27/2011

  • Argh!The updater will not recognize the SSD drive on my laptop, under Windows 7!!! I followed your tech’s suggestion, and I moved the SSD from the Drive Doubler to the main drive bay. I HATE it when such advice is spurious and a waste of time!

    Meanwhile, I cannot find any suggestions to solve this problem. Surely, there are others who find the update does not see the SSD drive?

    Yes, I’m running Windows from the second internal hard drive.

    Help!

    • We were looking into this with the engineers and it still must come back to the machine and/or OS install procedure. I’m forwarding your name to our TS dept and a senior technician will contact you directly to walk you thru the firmware update.
      To answer your one question though, no, we have not had users experience the update not “seeing” the SSD…

  • Hi there,

    I just purchased 2 Mercury Pro SSD. On the label of the drive, it shows that Firmware Rev: 3.6.1. Is that the latest firmware up to date? Or I have to run the firmware update to 360A13F0?

      • so there is an even newer version out now? what’s that fix and why haven’t everyone else gotten it? :(

        • I should clarify, depending on the particular drive you have there are two versions of the firmware update – both are the latest for specific drive models. They are 360A13F0 and 361A13F0 (listed on the drive labels as 3.6.0 or 3.6.1). There are no compatibility or functionality changes between the two versions.

      • I have own a Mercury Extreme Pro with FW 360A13F0. It shows the well known issue of the never ending turning beachball after a wake up out of sleep mode.

        Today, I installed Mac OS 10.7 (Lion), and hoped anything would change. Unfortunately this is not the case.
        Is OWC still seriously investigating in this issue? An availability date for the fix would be much appreciated.

        • I have the same problem and have had since I bought the drive in November of 2010. revision 340A13F0. I was hoping the issue had been fixed with Lion, but no. I can put the drive to sleep manually with no issue, but if I use the energy saver to put it to sleep the finder freezes on waking and the spinning beach ball of boring crash hell happens with a need for a hard restart. Beyond that the drive works great, but who wants to have to do workarounds? The drive is in my MacPro 3,1

  • Any news on a Mac version of the updater? I can’t won’t format my SSD to Windows to update it.

      • Is there an eta for this? As what looks to be your target audience, it’s sure a shame that there isn’t a mac version to update the firmware.

      • yes please hurry up with the mac firmware updater.. I’ve had my ssd for over 3 months … the windows option is a bit too complicated for a average user like myself… and now my SSD has died…. and needs a fresh install yet I cant connect to it for more than 2 mins.. grr…

        • I agree. i had to take my ssd out of my laptop because i can’t wake back up from sleep. tired of having to hard boot 15 times a day. i feel like i wasted 300 dollars on this drive and data doubler. disappointed.

      • It’s been a while since this update is available for windows … I have this annoying hibernation problem …

        I’ve always like OWC support, but right now I feel left in the dark

        What is going on ?

  • Does the firmware update allow hibernation to resume when the ssd is in the optibay?

  • I have a Macbook Pro 2011 15″. I have the 240 SSD Extreme. It was having problems with sleep (beechball) when I had it in the OPTIBAY and a regular drive in the standard bay. I swapped the position and the problem continues. I am trying to determine if there is still a problem/solution to this and as I order the drive less than 1 month ago can I test for this parameter check and then send in the drive? Also has anyone with a Macbook Pro 2011 done this and solved the sleep problems?

    Thanks, Russ

    • i have a 15 inch 2011 macbook pro, im having the same issue. when it come up from sleep i have no wireless connection then i get the beachball freezeup

  • when will there be a mac firmware update out? i have a owc ssd and a data doubler in. and i do not have windows on my mac.

    • Hi Daniel…we’re still working on that and I don’t have a firm date as to when it will be completed.

      • ok thank you, as long as its being worked on i’m happy. i just didnt want to buy an external drive just to install windows (yuck) thank you for great customer service

      • any mac firmware update coming? im tired of having a useless macbook pro.

  • I upgraded to firmware 360 but still have problems with SLEEP.

    what else can be done? Return the ssd and if yes how, I live in Mexico.

    • Hola Carlos yo estoy en la misma situación, tengo una MacBookPro6,2 y simplemente desactivé el sleep automático y ya no he tenido broncas, lo unico molesto es que tendrás que poner a dormir a tu MBP manualmente…

      Saludos

      Editor’s rough translation: Hello Carlos I am in the same situation, have a MacBookPro6,2 and I simply deactivated automatic sleep and no longer I have had any problems. The only annoying thing is that you will have to put to manually sleep your MBP…

  • Trying in BootCamp Win7 64-bits but after cliking update the computer freezes.

    It is a MBP 13″ 8.1 (2011)

    Frustating, Can we expect something soon?

    Agree with those comments about not putting this in the firmware page and hiding them here.

    Saludos.

      • Please add this model iMac to the incompatible list:

        – 27″ iMac, 2.66GHz i5 CPU, 8 megs RAM, 120 gig Mercury Pro Extreme SSD, firmware version 320A13F0.

        Running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 under Boot Camp. I get the same exact results as Carmatana. The updater works fine until I get to the final dialog box about backing up the system,. As soon as I hit “OK”, the entire machine locks up. I have rebooted, made sure I was running the program in Admin mode, reset the PRAM and SMC.

        Please let us know if/when an new Updater that works will be released.

        Tim

  • Hi everybody

    For all those Apple-Users how are not able to update the firmware on a OWC Mercury Extreme PRO / PRO RE SSD I have found a “solution”, unfortunately you need a PC.

    Requirements: OWC SSD, PC (no OS required), Win7 install DVD (32bit), USB-Stick (FAT32).

    1. Download the firmware zip-file and copy the content directly in the volume of the usb-stick
    2. Remove the SSD from your Mac
    3. Connect the SSD to the internal SATA adapter on the PC
    4. Connect the USB-Stick on a free USB-Port on the PC
    5. Put the Win7 Install DVD in the DVD drive on the PC
    6. Power on your PC and boot from DVD
    7. Chose “Repair your computer”.
    8. Navigate to “Command prompt”
    9. Type “diskpart”
    10. Type “list volumes” and verify which letter is assigned to your USB-Stick, after that, type “exit”
    11. Type the “Letter from your usb-stick:”
    12. Type “ssdupdate” and the application will start.
    13. Navigate to the pkg-file and select your drive (it will takes some seconds)
    14. Download the firmware to the drive
    15. Reboot and verify again.

    I hope this will help (for my part, it did).

    Best regards’

    Marc

  • I was having sleep issues with my MacBook Pro following a Lion installation and thought it was related to the SSD drive. Turns out it was the result of a kernel extension left behind by DisplayPad. Thought I’d pass it along in case it helped anyone. Here’s the info from the developers:

    There is no way to uninstall automatically. You can manually uninstall by doing the following:
    1) Disable DisplayPad from launching on Startup
    2) Delete /System/Library/Extensions/SSFramebuffer.kext/
    3) Reboot

  • My drive have no sleep issue and is using the 360 version. Only recommendation is to go to “energy” settings and uncheck “power hdd down when ever possible” in both battery and power adaptor and see if it fixes it.

  • I WILL POST AGAIN THE SOLUTION THAT WORKS FOR MY 2011 MBP. NO PROLEM SINCE.
    I did many test yesterday night because of the sleep problems. I found a solution for now. In Energy Saving, UnCheck Put the hardDisk to Sleep when possible and also install PLEASESLEEP (take controls over the OS X Energy Saver and force a Menu Click Sleep). I have version 343 and could not udpate to 360 (Crashing while Downloading sectors). So far , no more sleep hang(beachball)!

    • I updated to 360 after much trouble and almost bricked my SSD… Dismayed to find that with new firmware and 2011 MBP, waking up from sleep is beach balling need to shutdown forcefully.

    • Dear Eric, I can confirm that your solution to the SLEEP problem works correctly. While OWC works on solving the problem for us not being able to upgrade the SSD firmware, I will use PLEASESLEEP. Thank you for the tip.

  • Grant,

    Thanks for the update on the Mac Pro. I am an early 2008 (3,1) owner and as I stated earlier in the comments could not update the firmware. I am happy to see that you have indeed recreated the issue in house and acknowledged it. I am not having any issues with the drive so can not justify the down-time to ship back for an update, but would like to have the option to update at home as I’m sure you can understand.

    So my question to you: now that you have discovered the incompatibility issue with the updater on our machines, has a fix been identified and/or planned for a future update? Or.. are we stuck needing to send the drive in for updates indefinitely?

    • Hi Dale…never say never. We’re looking into solutions and workarounds…but do not have a timeframe for that right now. As you say, not experiencing any issues with your drive….and not meaning to be glib here…but the old adage “if it aint’ broke” kinda applies here then.

  • hybernate is primary of 360, but if you have 310 or 320 you are also missing 343 enhancements as well. cumlative i’m sure there is a lot more reason to update from something really old to 360 no?

    • Depends on machine you have Adam….but there’s no current solution for the updater tool itself with the Mac Pro 1,1-3,1 machines.

  • UPDATE 4/1/11

    The firmware UPDATER TOOL itself has been determined to be incompatible with Mac Pro model ID MacPro1,1; MacPro 2,1; MacPro 3,1

    To determine your Model ID visit:

    http://eshop.macsales.com/Customized_Pages/memory/macpromem/model_id_screen.gif

    You have the option of having us update the firmware on your drive OR choosing not to update the firmware. Please note that the primary update to this latest firmware revision corrected a hibernation issue for MacBook and MacBook Pro owners. Hibernation is not an Apple supported mode with Mac Pros and therefore the firmware update is not an absolute requirement for Mac Pro owners. Should you wish for us to update the firmware, please contact our Customer Service department at 800-275-4576

  • My comments did not survive moderation (Written when I was frustrated as others in this blog comments).

    This is how I get it done:
    1) Erase the drive and use security option to write 0s
    2) Install a fresh OSX
    3) Install a fresh Win7 Bootcamp option
    4) Upgrade the drive, The drive need to be in main bay not optibay.

    Tried with PC, 4 different types of Thinkpad Laptops – Win XP, all fails.

  • “There have been two SandForce-related issues with some of these drives, both of which can be corrected at this time.

    For those with hibernation issues, this firmware corrects those issues.

    For those with sleep issues there is a physical parameter change that OWC can do in-house to correct.

    Please call our Technical Support team at 1 (800) 275-4576 for assistance with either issue.”

    If I brought the drive after march 20th did OWC fix the SLEEP problem (physical prarmeter change) before shipping my mercury extreme out? I think the comments needs dates on them so we can get an idea of when the issues people reported has happened.

  • I also tried in vein to get this installed. I have a 2011 i7 15″ MBP with the OWC 120gb as the primary disk. I have the sleep problem – drive hangs if the machine tries to sleep – every time.

    I also wasted several hours installing BootCamp and Win7 only to have the same reboot problem as mentioned by several users above.

    All in all a really frustrating experience. I’m in Europe for the next couple months so getting a replacement drive will be a big pain.

    I realize this is not directly and OWC problem, but rather with their supplier – and they are trying hard to communicate with users and get it fixed. But what a fiasco. And why tell your users to update the firmware when it is the problematic? You have a defective product in the field and angry users, please get it fixed soon!

  • So, I tried this on Win 7, ran as Administrator, saw the drive, then selected the package and gave it the OK.

    It locks the machine up — hard. I left it on for about 20 minutes in case it was doing something in the background but nothing. It didn’t do any damage either, thankfully. (It’s all backed up anyway.)

    Win 7 is on a NTFS partition, machine’s a 12 core MacPro5,1. Connected to a motherboard SATA port (but not in a bay, in the extra DVD slot.)

  • Ok, i am officialy frustrated!
    I’ve spent the last 5 hours of my life trying to make this work…
    First, i installed the ssd on a z800 HP workstation.
    The firmware updater did not see the ssd at all!!!!
    After trying and trying several different things, i finally gave up and i installed the ssd to a second HP workstation (model: xw8400).
    The firmware updater saw the ssd there!
    I ran the updater everything went smoothly, pc rebooted and after the restart i opened the firmware updater, just to find out that i am still on firmware 343.
    I can’t even remember how many times i formatted the ssd,
    how many times i ran the updater and performed the procedure again and again…
    Finally i am giving up.
    Can you please provide us with a damn tool that works?
    Seriously i could do something useful instead of trying to upgrade a damn firmware for 5 hours…
    And maybe it’s not OWC’s fault, but i paid 3000$ to get these 2 SSDs i have, so please don’t find me demanding for expecting them to work properly and not freeze the damn Mac every time it wakes from sleep…
    Thank you.

  • I did many test yesterday night because of the sleep problems. I found a solution for now. In Energy Saving, UnCheck Put the hardDisk to Sleep when possible and also install PleaseSleep (take controls over the OS X Energy Saver and force a Menu Click Sleep). I have version 343 and could not udpate to 360 (Crashing while Downloading sectors). So far , no more sleep hang(beachball)!

    • It appears that I got a bum download.
      On advice from the vendor, I downloaded it again, and it installs OK now on 10.6.7
      Cheers.

  • btw, just curious, does this firmware support trim, when OS X does officlaly enable it? or if user hack enables it now heh (which based on what i’m reading i’ll probalby wait since some are noticing performance loss instead of gain).

  • Add another Mac Pro user to the list of troubles. Mine is a 1.1. I have 4x OWC SSDs running in a striped RAID 0 in a DX4 housing off a dedicated RAID card. Had to basically disassemble the whole machine so I could remove my 4 Velociraptors from the main bays and plug the SSDs into them to run off the motherboard connectors instead of the card they usually run from. All to no avail as the update would not actually change anything. (Using Windows 7 BTW, formatted to MBR, running admin). Wasted probably about 6 hours if not more pulling everything apart and running it over and over, to then have to reassemble everything when it didn’t work and I gave up. On top of this was running a backup then having to load it all back onto the RAID once I gave up. Please keep us up to date with info! Cheers.

  • Cant update mine eather.
    MacBook pro 6.1 – i5 17″
    Windows 7 Ult 64bits
    Ssd on data dobler

  • My experience is similar to Brian and Dale’s, except I’m trying to perform the update on a mid-2010 Core i7 MacBook Pro 6,2. My 240 GB Mercury Extreme Pro installed in the DVD bay.

    I also spent most of the weekend trying to get the firmware update to work but I admit complete and utter defeat despite scouring the posts here for suggestions. Admittedly, much of that time was spent getting Windows installed on a machine that doesn’t have an internal DVD drive.

    I tried many times to run the update under both XP and Win 7. Here are my results:

    – Win XP SP3: The updater would report progress through ‘Downloading 128 sectors’ and then I would get an ‘Update Failed’ message. No reboot, just a failure message.

    – Win 7: The updater would show ‘Downloading xxx sectors’ and soon would reboot the machine, but after reboot the firmware was still the original version.

  • I am having the same problem as Adam.
    My machine it’s a MacBook Pro 6,2 (mid 2010) i7.
    I run the updater but my Mercury Extreme Pro 480Gb never goes to the new firmware version.
    I live in Brazil and for me it is very complicated to send the SSD back to you in US.
    I am trying to update via BootCamp.
    What can I do?
    Please Help.

  • Hi Grant/Everyone, greetings from Australia,

    I have the wake from sleep issue on my 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD fitted to the optical bay on my MacPro (MacPro 4,1).
    I have not tried updating to the new firmware because a. I don’t have windows on my drive and b. I now understand that the firmware does not fix this issue.

    I purchased my SSD from you on the 10th of March, so it should have the updated parameter setting, is this correct?

    I have not tried resetting the PRAM as suggested in an earlier post as the drive is currently sitting in a box waiting to be shipped back to you, should I need to.

    I have sent a help request to your tech people and am waiting for a response, I just wanted to let you all know that I have the sleep issue on my SSD that was purchased after the 1/31/11.

    I don’t know if this is related but I have also noticed that when I boot up sometimes my bluetooth is active and other times it isn’t, I normally don’t have bluetooth switched on.

    When I originally fitted the SSD I used my Time Machine backup to format the drive, I think I am going to start from scratch next time and install from the original discs, although this is going to be a mega pain in the arse.

  • Failed to upgrade on my MacBook Pro late 2006.

    I have 120GB SSD and it has 343 firmware. Drive is partitioned with Boot Camp and WinXP installed on 33GB partition. Boot into WinXP, start firmware update utility, drive detects fine, lists 343 firmware. Select drive, open the 360 package. Package loads OK. Click download to drive. Nothing happens for a good 60-120 seconds.

    Then it starts giving progress reports
    Downloading 64 sectors

    stays on that for 15-25 minutes and then reports firmware upgrade failed.

  • I also have a 120gb OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD with firmware 320A13F0 currently on it. As several others have reported, I too am unable to update the firmware through bootcamp (Win7 ultimate 64bit) on my early 2008 Mac Pro (3,1). I follow directions exact by creating a fat32 partition, rebooting into bootcamp, opening the flasher as admin, it finds the drive, I chose the drive and the firmware and tell it to update. Then it goes through the process of counting up slowly but surely. It quickly flashes on the screen that it is complete then reboots. After reboot, loading the updater again to verify the version reveals it is still at 320 and not 360. Also, just to note I have the drive mounted in one of the main 4 bays and not to any type of external card.

    This is frustrating to say the least, but I am not experiencing issues that would dictate the need to send it in so I am going to wait for another solution. I don’t have another computer to flash it from. It is crazy that there are so many issues with trying to simply flash the firmware on these drives.

    OWC, please acknowledge that you are aware of the specific issues with flashing drives on Mac Pro’s, because I have not seen that acknowledgement yet. I have seen several others in the comments describing the exact issues I am having on a Mac Pro so this can’t be just a one off thing. I specifically request that you test flashing your drives on a Mac Pro (several models if possible) for the next update you release…I’m really hoping you get this figured out next go around, because having to ship a drive back just to get it updated crazy.

    Also, please contact me if you need any additional info to help correct these issues with Mac Pro’s on future releases.

    • We’re aware of the reports from some customers of the problems they’re having with running the firmware updater on some Mac Pro models, and we are currently in the process of investigating this. We’ll post our findings when we can duplicate the issue, isolate it, and confirm a resolution.

  • OWC Grant/Michael,

    This needs to be publicized on Firmware Update page, not buried in comments – “You may have read or seen references to MacBook Pro model identifiers 5,1 – 5,4. These are the models specifically affected by sleep related issues, NOT hibernation issues. If you purchased your SSD BEFORE 1/31/11 AND YOU OWN one of these Model ID machines, we need you to send your SSD in to us so we can apply the parameter update (for sleep issues) and at the same time we can update it to MP4 (to address any potential hibernation issue) if you have not already done so.”

  • Has anyone tested the SSD in the optibay and still have the same problem with sleep when they have a known working hard drive or known working ssd (like an intel x25) in the primary/HD bay?

    Pre and post of OWCs fix? thanks

  • There have been two SandForce-related issues with some of these drives, both of which can be corrected at this time.

    For those with hibernation issues, this firmware corrects those issues.

    For those with sleep issues there is a physical parameter change that OWC can do in-house to correct.

    Please call our Technical Support team at 1 (800) 275-4576 for assistance with either issue.

  • it seems no one with a mac pro is able to update the firmware in the mac pros internal SATA controler, besides myself i’ve now seen 2 others with mac pros also confirm they couldn’t update it whlie still in the mac pro. i hope this can be resolved in future updates so i don’t have to send it back every update.

  • After successfully updating to the 3.60 firmware, I’m still experiencing sleep issues with my MX480 in my MacPro1,1. I’ve confirmed that hibernate is off. I suspect that I might have the “incorrect settings”. Is there a way to confirm this before arranging to send it in to have the settings fixed? My MX480 was from order L2675930, which I received well before 1/31/2011.

  • Hi everybody,

    I’m writing to throw some light on the sleep issues we all have experienced when using an SSD.

    I own a Macbook Pro 13″ early 2011 with an OWC 120Gb SSD I bought last February (revision: 343A13F0) which, as OWC states, has the updated parameters for sleep.

    I have not updated the firmware to the 360 revision and I don’t plan to do it. I’ll explain you why later.

    Many of you are reporting this SSD related sleep issues so I’ll try to give you an answer/solution that works since I’ve experienced these too:

    1. “I set my Mac to sleep after n minutes but when the time passes my Mac never goes to sleep completely (symptom: sleep indicator light NOT blinking)”.

    Well, this one is easy, all MacBooks with an SSD as the main drive show the same behaviour even those with an Apple SSD, it’s normal and may be corrected in MAC OS X Lion.

    You can read this post on this matter: http://www.richardsnotes.org/archives/2011/03/24/macbook-pro-ssd-sleep-issue/

    Note: A friend’s Macbook which has an Apple SSD in it shows the same behaviour so that blog post is 100% right.

    2. “When my Mac wakes from sleep it gets frozen, hangs, shows the beach ball etc…and I need to restart or force a shut down.”

    You need to reset the PRAM and that will fix it (I had the same problem).
    You can learn how to reset the PRAM here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/26871.html

    Final note:

    OWC has published and updated firmware, the 360, to solve the hibernation issue. Let’s clarify what “hibernation” is:

    Apple developed 3 different behaviours for sleep:

    – hibernatemode = 0 (normal sleep)
    By default on supported desktops (iMac, Mac Pro, Mac Mini…)
    The system must wake from the contents of memory.
    The system will not back memory up to persistent storage.
    The system will lose context on power loss.
    This is, historically, plain old sleep.

    – hibernatemode = 3 (safe sleep -> hibernation in case of power loss)
    By default on supported portables (MacBooks).
    The system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will power memory during sleep.
    The system will wake from memory, unless a power loss forces it to restore from disk image.

    – hibernatemode = 25 (“pure” hibernation)
    Only settable via pmset.
    The system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will remove power to memory.
    The system will restore from disk image.
    If you want “hibernation” – slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery life, you should use this setting.

    OWC is trying to solve the hibernation issue, that is, hibernatemode is set to 25 (not by default on any mac) OR it is set to 3 and the mac runs out of power/battery while sleeping (this is the typical scenario).

    Although I haven’t tested if the new firmware solves the hibernation issue (because I set hibernatemode to 0 and thus hibernation is disabled even if my MacBook runs out of battery while sleeping) I’d bet OWC has actually solved it.

    To those of you having issues, reset the PRAM and test again.

    Hope this helps some of you ;)

    Good luck!!

  • Well, after several failed attempts to upgrade the firmware for my MX480 and MXE120 on my MacPro1,1, I almost gave up. Then, I managed to install Windows 7 on my MacBook5,1 without a DVD drive (I have an OWC data doubler). After spending a day getting Windows 7 installed, the firmware worked without a hitch to upgrade both drives. Now both my SSD are running 3.60. I’ll need to do more testing to see if my sleep and hibernate problems are resolved.

  • I forgot to mention that I had the same problems with the latest firmware version as mentioned in posts #64 and #65 (the SSD was unrecognized after a boot to the OS X DVD). I reverted back to FW version 310 and my computer’s still not fully going to sleep (the sleep light stays lit instead of blinking) but it’s no longer freezing up either. I think there’s an issue between the 6Gbps ports in the new MacBook Pros and this SSD that’s preventing proper sleep — so here’s hoping for yet another firmware update to solve all of these issues once and for all.

  • I’ve tried several times to update to 3.60 firmware using my MacPro1,1 and Windows 7. I’ve tried reformatting the drive, GUID, MBR, w/ NTFS and FAT for each. After the firmware machine reboots the update still shows the old firmware rev, 343A13F0.

  • I successfully upgraded to the v360 firmware and reset my PRAM, but still have the dead Finder issue everyone else has been experiencing. My drive shipped from OWC on 2/25/11, so it should have the updated parameters for sleep (per post 63 above). My MacBook Pro is the new early 2011 model. Maybe the hibernation problem is fixed, but the sleep problem is definitely (and disappointingly) still there.

    MacBook Pro 8,3
    8 GB RAM
    2.3 GHz Core i7 (Sandy Bridge)
    OS 10.6.7

  • hi… please help me, i have owc ssd 240 gb in a macbookpro middle 2010 and after update the firmware the disk is not recognised by utility disk in a boot from osx dvd…. why? thanks for help

  • I put bootcamp on my drive then flashed as per instructions from within windows xp as an admin user. The firmware upgrade went without a hitch.

    I then tried to reinstall OS X from my installation disk and the drive was no longer recognised by the mac, it did not show in system profiler or disk utility.

    I installed Windows 7 on it which ran fine, just to see if the windows installer would see the disk, this worked with no issues but the mac still could not see the drive from the OS X installation media.

    I then removed the SSD and put it in an external USB enclosure and this worked fine and I was able to reinstall OS X back on to the SSD and put it back in the mac.

    The firmware upgrade was successful but when the mac goes to sleep on it’s own I still get the spinning beach ball and need to hold the power button to restart the mac, just the same as before the firmware upgrade…

    MacBook Pro 5,3
    8GB RAM
    2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo
    OS 10.6.7

  • I did manage to revert by SSD to firmware version 310 and, although the computer still never quite manages to go to sleep fully (the sleep indicator stays lit and doesn’t blink), the computer also doesn’t freeze.

  • I’m still having sleep issues with my 240GB OWC SSD with the latest firmware in a brand-new 2011 MacBook Pro. In fact, I’m having EXACTLY the same issue that Carlin Smith posted above (I’ll quote since I couldn’t say it any better myself):

    “Now with 3.60 what is strange is seems like machine never fully goes to sleep. I set the screen to go off at 1 minute and machine to sleep at 2 minutes. Screen goes off an a little bit later white light comes on but doesn’t start flashing. Hit trackpad and type in password and machine will be okay for a few seconds before essentially becoming frozen again. Very strange. This will happen even if I book off a mechanical hard drive externally if the SSD is still connected internally.”

    The common denominator for both of us seems to be the fact that we both have new MacBook Pros so I wonder if there’s an issue with this drive, the new firmware, and the new SATA3 port in the MBP.

  • Adam,
    A silly question perhaps,
    Have you processed the update in Administrator mode in Windows? UAC in vista and windows 7 may require you to “right-click” on the executable icon and use open as admin…

    It worked fine to me that way, in a 2nd partition, formated to ntfs, with windows 7 bootcamp on it.

    (btw: what was really hard to me was to installed windows 7 in this secondary partition… it wouldn’t boot from it once installed…)

  • Hi OWC Michael!
    I want to mention that following your advise on Post 41:
    ——————————–
    OWC Michael said:
    There seems to be a bit of confusion here on sleep vs. hibernation regarding the SSD drives.
    This firmware update corrects the hibernation issue.
    If you are experiencing sleep issues with your SSD, please contact our Technical Support department at 1(800) 275-4576 for troubleshooting and research into your particular drive as it may have had an incorrect setting. No drives shipped since January 2011 have exhibited any sleep issues.
    ————————–

    I was able to install new firmware 360 (via a 2nd bootcamp partition in NTFS).. but the sleeping issue was still present…

    So I did exactly what you suggested, and jsaucedo from the chat support, suggested me to do a PRAM reset, and it worked!
    I no longer have Sleeping issues.
    You may want to clearly mention that if we already have the latest firmware installed, a PRAM Reset will do the trick in terms of activating the fix on sleep issue!

    Thanks again, it now works great!

    Fully satisfied!
    Regards
    Luciano

  • Does this mean that SSDs purchased after 1/31/11 have the updated parameters and do not require the drive be sent in for firmware updating as someone had mentioned previously? In otherwords I can update the firmware on my own on a drive purchased this month even if I have a MacBook Pro 5,1 model?

  • Some additional information for thread followers to consider that may clear up any potential confusion between sleep and hibernation issues you may have experienced.

    SLEEP INFO:

    In a sleep state, the machine is still getting power and data remains in the memory (which is temporary). You know a machine is sleeping when you see the slow pulse of the sleep indicator. When you close the lid of a laptop or you have a period of inactivity, the machine goes to sleep. Wake from sleep is nearly instant.

    On 1/31/11, we made a parameter change (which was and is completely independent of any firmware update) to address some sleep issues that persisted with specific Mac notebook models. This change must be done on our premises.

    You may have read or seen references to MacBook Pro model identifiers 5,1 – 5,4. These are the models specifically affected by sleep related issues, NOT hibernation issues. If you purchased your SSD BEFORE 1/31/11 AND YOU OWN one of these Model ID machines, we need you to send your SSD in to us so we can apply the parameter update (for sleep issues) and at the same time we can update it to MP4 (to address any potential hibernation issue) if you have not already done so. Please note this will destroy any data on the SSD so make sure you back up that data before sending.

    HIBERNATION INFO:

    In hibernation, all contents of the RAM are written to the drive (which is permanent) and the machine is completely powered off so there is no pulsing light. When a machine in hibernation is woken, you see a gray screen with a status bar as it resumes the activity that was taking place when it went into hibernation. It takes longer to wake from hibernation than from sleep.

    On 3/18/11, SandForce released firmware update MP4 that fixed known hibernation issues. You can update your drive’s firmware as long as you have access to a PC or have Bootcamp on your Mac. Please see our firmware page for specific instructions and information: http://eshop.macsales.com/Customized_Pages/Framework.cfm?page=sf_firmware.html.

    As always, please contact our knowledgeable customer support or technical support staff if you would like additional assistance.

  • Adam: I had precisely the same experience as you using a MacPro 1,1 and one of the internal SATA bays.

    Very frustrating…possibly an issue with this MacPro?

    Good luck.

  • I was just noting the differences from original pages instructions i followed at first. EIther way, i sent the drive back. it simply wouldnt take firmware, in GUID, MBR, windows safe mode, normal boot, new firmware, old firmware. Even updated the intel drivers for the sata controler and pulled extra hard drives out of bays except for the windows boot drive and the SSD…

    no amount of steps allowed it to update despite no real reason it shouldn’t have. Was plugged into internal sata controler of a mac pro tower, formated properly, the tool did in fact see the drive and attempt to download firmware to it when run as admin. even claimed it was successful and rebooted every time, but the drive just would not take it. hopefully your techs can figure out why that is when they look at it, and hopefully i won’t have to send it in every time theer is a firmware update after it’s resolved this time. I really want them to reproduce the issue when they get it so they can come up with a solution, so if htey need a system profiler report from windows and OS X on my system configuration and specs i’d be happy to help out.

    • Hey Adam….for sure we’ll be taking a very close look at that drive and will let you know what we find out.

  • i noticed faq/instructions were updated and removed all mention of MBR partition sceme, so is it ok to restore drive to GUID partition sceme?

    • Hi Adam…as our firmware update page notes, the updater requires that the drive contain an NTFS or FAT32-formatted partition. You don’t actually need to partition the drive for MBR, you simply need to format a partition on the drive for NTFS or FAT32.

      What this means is that you can create the appropriate partition without erasing your drive by using the Boot Camp Assistant. You don’t need to install Windows on the SSD if you’re already running the updater from another drive. Then, once the firmware update has been applied, you can run the Boot Camp Assistant again to remove the Windows partition.

      In other words, as long as you have at least one NTFS or FAT32 partition on the drive, the updater will recognize the drive and accept the update. After the update is complete, you can remove the NTFS/FAT32 partition as per the instructions on the firmware update page.

    • Hi Adam….at this point we’ve forwarded your situation to be addressed by one of our lead technical support representatives. You should be expecting direct contact via email within 24 business hours.

  • Update

    Tried installing SP1 for windows 7 to see if that helped. nothings changed. update process still goes like this

    Run as admin. drive detects fine, lists 320 firmware.
    Select drive, then open the 360 package. Package loads OK
    Click download to drive. Nothing happens for a good 60 seconds.
    Then it starts giving progress reports
    Downloading 64 sectors, 128 sectors, 192 sectors, 256, 320, 384, 448, 512, complete (reboots)

    it stays on 64 for a long time, it zips through 128-512 very fast, then you can very briefly catch “complete” message as it reboots system. After reboot, i verify and find i still have firmware 320. So what is this tool even doing? is it downloading firmware to drive but not actually running it after download is complete? most firmware updates first copy firmware to device before running/flashing, to prevent corrupt firmware. seems to me like it copies to drive, then just reboots without actually doing flash process. makes me wonder if all these copied packages are saved on drive in the firmware ready to be run. :\ Honestly this flasher they gave you to work with is worst piece of crap software i’ve ever seen, and i’ve used MANY flashers. poorly coded and bad GUI. It should have a progress bar, and prevent clicking buttons while process is under way, this one is actually dumb enough to let you click download while it’s already downloading, or refresh, or heck even let you load a new package, all in middle of an update (not that’s what i’ve been doing, but just saying). Is there anything else i should try? or should i just say screw it, and put my OS back on drive and give up. Cause i’m not sending it in. I cannot afford the down time.

  • Hmm someone else successfully updated firmware i see. But they updated from a later firmware to begin with, 347 instead of 320. maybe related?

    I’m gonna try (despite recomendations of having programs open), having a program open that i know will make the system think twice about auto rebooting to more or less try to get firmware updater to finish without pre mature reboot. as that’s only theory i have left at this point.

  • Wanted to share with you all some additional info. There was an issue with hibernation that was known and documented on our site. Prior to its official release, we tested with this latest firmware version for several weeks, including testing on the hibernation issue. SandForce made that firmware an official release version on March 16, 2011. To insure there were no changes, we spent two additional days testing the officially approved release on our fleet of MacBook and MacBook Pros to insure the performance and reliability was the same and that the hibernation issue was still resolved since, for our customers, it was an issue we actively engaged in correcting.

    If you have successfully run the firmware updater and are still experiencing a hibernation issue, please contact our technical support: http://eshop.macsales.com/Service/contact/

    You can verify that you have successfully updated your SSD by going back into the firmware update tool, after your machine restarts, and verifying that it shows firmware revision 360A13F0. If it does not show that version, the firmware update was not installed.

    Please note, we have not tested hibernation on systems that Apple does not support hibernation on. If you are having issues with an unsupported configuration, we welcome any feedback and we can see if there is any additional help or information we can provide.

    While not a frequent occurrence, we have heard and experienced the following issue, which is unrelated to our firmware or SSDs in general, but one that could be causing an issue for some. When migrating data from a laptop to a desktop, it is possible for hibernation to be incorrectly activated on the desktop. Apple did not intend for desktop machines to hibernate like laptops, which is why some may see the hibernation issue even though on a machine that does not traditionally use hibernation mode. Hibernation mode is different than sleep mode and will present itself by displaying a grayed our screen with a status bar. If you feel that this is the case with your machine, first try the Firmware update and if hibernation issues still exist, you can try disabling hibernation via terminal. Please follow the directions below:

    You can access terminal by typing terminal in your Spotlight search bar.

    Enter command:

    sudo -s

    Enter your password and type command:

    pmset -a hibernatemode 0

    rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage

  • Something changed Grant, now it went up to updating 480 sectors before rebooting. before it’d only make it to 256 then say complete and reboot. this time it didn’t even say complete, it literally rebooted the computer in middle of downloading til 480 sectors.

    maybe the script is just pre maturely rebooting before update actually finishes?

  • I can confirm that running the updater from the download page via Windows 7 on Bootcamp on a MacBookPro6,2 took my 1 month old 120GB Mercury Extreme from firmware 343A13F0 to firmware 360A13F0 (found via System Profiler SATA section). I did have to format my drive to MBR and FAT for the installer to see it in windows 7.

    Over the last 10 hours I have tested allowing “Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible” checked and it seems to be working correctly. After around 10 minutes I can hear my second internal hard drive spin down and everything continues to work after. This is an improvement over the prior firmware which would put me into beach ball if I ever checked that box and let 10 minutes pass.

    However, when my machines goes to sleep by itself…waking it brings me to beach ball (zero IO to drive). I was able to successfully put it to sleep at least once by closing the lid, but it took about 50 seconds to go to sleep (writing 8GB RAM to disk?). [note that I did a clean install of 10.6.7 after firmware update]

    I have now switched hybernatemode to 0 to see if that fixes that problem. It had been in mode 3 by default.

    So far this firmware is an improvement, but the drive is still not performing as it should.

  • Well, that confusion also seems to exist at OWC support staff.
    I have the sleep (not hibernate) issue on an iMac and was told this firmware update would solve this issue
    My drive was boiught in february my support call (#GLD-57813-542) is open since.
    I was waiting for the OSX updater to arrive bit it now seems this still doesn’t reslove my issue.
    Now what OWC ??

    John
    The Netherlands

  • Has anyone else actually verified their new version as 360 after using download off firmware page? The file here is not nessesarily same file that OWC techs have used locally, someone still could have uploaded wrong firmware. I cannot think of any other plausable explanation. I am by no means a dummy and I have done everything perfectly. This tool isn’t failing to flash firmware, it is repeatedly replacing the firmware, with same old version for some reason. I even have the drive ackwardly placed in the tower now without even a 3.5 mount. I want some more tests done. Maybe a fresh firmware zip to work with. At least one other person on blog to confirm they actually ended up with a newer firmware after update. Or if most of them simply ran update, saw” successful” after and assumed all was dandy and never bothered to verify they just reinstalled an old version. After all one of the blog posters did say they didn’t notice hybernate issue fixed, that’d make sense if firmware didn’t actually update. I just want to verify everything is being checked and it’s not being assumed i don’t know what i’m doing. I’m not going to send my drive in, pay shipping, then wait 2 weeks for ship there and back for someone else to udpate it when there is apsolutely no reason it shouldn’t be working on my end other then something is wrong with update tool currently in download. If it’s right firmware then tool itself has some kind of defect, possibly with 64 bit version of windows 7 or something else. The tool is poorly designed to begin with. It’s slow, has no sane progress indicator, you don’t even know it’s working if you don’t wait at least a minute after clicking update, for the indicator to say anything at all. I’ve updated dozens of hardware in windows fine with better tools. Phones, other drives, video cards, professional radios/scanners. This is only tool that has not worked right.

    • Hey Adam….we just posted a newly rebuilt firmware package on the site…pls try that and see if it resolves your issue.

  • Ok so, this firmware basically fixes just the HIBERNATION issue, but NOT the SLEEP issue? Is OWC aware of this new issue? Also, does this sleep issue affect only certain macs? I just brought one and hope it doesn’t affect mine.

    • There seems to be a bit of confusion here on sleep vs. hibernation regarding the SSD drives.
      This firmware update corrects the hibernation issue.
      If you are experiencing sleep issues with your SSD, please contact our Technical Support department at 1(800) 275-4576 for troubleshooting and research into your particular drive as it may have had an incorrect setting. No drives shipped since January 2011 have exhibited any sleep issues.

  • Hi All- I know I’m an OWC-Fanboy and I’m proud of it, baby! ha

    Anyways, @ Tiago Freire coment #27: To supplement the comment from Grant, this whole firmware issue has nothing to do with OWC, Macs and Pcs, OWC supposedly being a Mac-based e-tailer, etc….

    The reason there is no OS X firmware updater is because Intel did not release one. The only released the windows version.

    So, OWC has stated that rather than making their customers wait, they are working on making a firmware fix for OS X themselves.

    To me, that sounds like pretty darn good dedication and service.

    Anyways, no big deal, just thought I’d clear up the confusion.

    Thanks,

    O-Dub Scott

  • Ok i tried it again as a GUID partition map. same thing. I select package, it says package loaded successfully. Select drive, click download. It does nothing for about a minute, then it starts printing messages that it’s updating 64, 128, 192 and 256 sectors. then it says “complete” then it reboots windows. after reboot, it’s still firmware 320.

    I’ve tried having the drive formated fat32 MBR partition and GUID partition. Every update says it’s successful but the drive reboots with same old 320 version. Updater is run in windows 7 ultimate 64 bit, run as administrator.

    Drive is in a 3rd generation Mac Pro 2008 with machine ID 3, 1 plugged directly into built in SATA controller. no cables, no card, directly in one of the 4 disk bays. Hmm actually now that i think about it, since it’s a 2.5 disk it is in a plastic pass through 3.5 enclosure. In event that’s causing it i’m gonna see about taking that off for a second. But i don’t see how, it’s not an actual enclosure, it’s just a pass through that’s only purpose is to act as a mount for a 3.5 slot. I don’t really want to send drive in cause i need it up and running by tomorrow night.

  • Wait, you only had to make it MBR if doing it in an ACTUAL PC? could that be why i’m having problems doing it from a macas an MBR formated disk? should i try changing it back to GUID if doing it from boot camp?

  • While the hibernation issue doesn’t even affect 90% of those that have an OWC SSD (and doesn’t come into play for even fewer), it still is something that has been a high priority for us.

    As mentioned in the original post, the Mac version of the firmware updater is being worked on. When available, we will be announcing here on the blog first, as well as contacting via email those that have requested the update through our Customer Service department.

    We appreciate your frustration and desire to have a Mac-based firmware updater, and we are developing a Mac solution as quickly as we are able.

    In the meantime, for those customers that do not have access to (or are unwilling to use) Windows, we are happy to perform the update for them. Please give our Customer Service department at call at 1(800) 275-4576 and they can set that up for you.

  • Grant,

    I went through the process over the weekend of updating from 3.43 to 3.60 but thus far it doesn’t seem to resolve the issue for me although the behavior is somewhat different than before.

    Originally on 3.43 machine would go sleep (blinking white light) then I could not enter my password once I would wake up machine.

    Now with 3.60 what is strange is seems like machine never fully goes to sleep. I set the screen to go off at 1 minute and machine to sleep at 2 minutes. Screen goes off an a little bit later white light comes on but doesn’t start flashing. Hit trackpad and type in password and machine will be okay for a few seconds before essentially becoming frozen again. Very strange. This will happen even if I book off a mechanical hard drive externally if the SSD is still connected internally.

    Would really be nice to get this issue resolved once and for all and would be glad to work you guys if there is information from my system etc that you might want to see. This is on one of the newest MacBook 2011 models btw.

    Thanks

  • I’m having a different problem than others here.
    I have a Mercury Extreme Pro SSD 60GB of fairly recent origin.
    It exhibited the won’t-wake-from-timed-autosleep problem in a macbook 2,2.
    A Windows 7 PC can see and use the “disk” but the firmware
    update program doesn’t find it.

    Model: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
    Rev: 343A13F0
    S/N: MXE06010E52B2896

    The Windows 7 PC is some random Gateway with an AMD CPU.
    The disk is hooked up to an internal SATA port (changing ports doesn’t change things), running from an administrator account, right-clicking and running with admin privileges — blanks the display then pops up the window saying “No drives found!”.
    I’ve repartitioned and formatted the disk on both the PC and on the Mac. None of that has made any difference.

    Any ideas? I can send this back, but I have two other SSDs that also need updating, so I’d like to be able to do it here.

  • Hi Grant,

    I’ve installed the 360 firmware using windows 7 bootcamp. Now I see it as:
    Capacity: 240.06 GB (240,057,409,536 bytes)
    Model: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
    Revision: 360A13F0

    But I still see the rolling beach ball after I come back from auto sleep. I tried it easily by setting the auto sleep to 3 minutes and waited.

    What is this thing about a new firmware 400? Matt told me about via chat, but I still see saturdays firmware 360 on the website..

    BTW… The speed is amazing! I combined 8GB of 1066 ram with the above OCW drive and my macbook pro 2.6ghz 13″ mid 2010 is amazingly fast!

    Thanks!
    Luciano

  • I have read the instructions and I would like some clarification.

    The upgrade instructions state that the drive must be MBR formatted, but later it states that the upgrade is non-destructive.

    Of course I will do a full partition backup before flashing, but:

    My drive is using GPT, partitioned by Mac OS X. This means it has a MBR compatibility partition scheme, so that MBR-only OSes can recognize the partitions and preserve the data.

    Is this enough for the safe application of the upgrade, or I will have to backup my data, wipeout everything, repartition using pure MBR, apply the firmware update, then repartition one more time back to GPT and finally restore my partitions?

    • Hi Tiago:

      Whenever updating any hardware firmware, one should always backup their data. Just makes good safety sense.

      If you’re using Bootcamp, it will be non destructive, and your data SHOULD remain intact.

      If updating directly in a PC, the drive should be formatted with the MBR partitioning scheme.

  • I’m frustrated. I appreciate that you guys have posted this update, but the way it’s all being handled could be a lot better. It would be great if you emailed those of us that have been reporting constant problems — as I have with my MacBook Pro 6,2 — when the new update is released.

    It would also be great if you would update the web page the new firmware is downloaded from. It says, “While this update is non-destructive in nature and OWC has updated several drives with no data loss, we recommended backing up all data on the SSD before performing this update. “. But you have to format the drive to FAT before ssdupdate.exe software will even see the drive, so obviously it IS destructive to my Mac install. I had to find that out via some forums elsewhere, so now finally have the new firmware applied.

    I almost feel as if this drive is primarily being sold to Windows users the way it’s being supported…but this is OWC, right?

    I’m sorry if this is harsh, but I expect a lot from you guys; and you have always delivered in the past. I’ve spent over $3000 on Mercury Extreme SSD’s from OWC, and expect a lot from this premium product.

  • It is plugged direclty into the mac pros internal thing. What seems to be the issue is that the firmware upgrade compeltes successfully, but all it’s installing is an obsolete firmware version over an obsolete firmware version. You sure the zip actually has new firmware in it? All instructions were followed perfectly, trust me. The drive is plugged directly into the built in SATA controler. Mac pros are essencially cableless, they just have a 4 bay rack built in you pop it into and it’s good to go. As i said, I compelted all steps

    Reformated and pre partitioned into an MBR partition sceme as article said (since it was GUID before). Then, i rebooted into windows 7 off a different internal disk. Ran the updater as admin, it detected the drive and displayed it’s firmware as 320A13F0 (which is what it’s been since i got it). I opened package file, it verified package and said package was good to go. I selected the drive, clicked download and it started flashing the drive with messages it was updating 64, 128 and 256 byte sectors. After it was done it automatically rebooted windows. Upon boot back into windows i verified if update went through to find firmware was still 320A13F0.

    I suspect 1 of 2 issues. one, the download actually contains 320A13F0 instead of a newer version. OR, it does contain new firmware, BUT the new flash doesn’t have a new version. So even though firmware is newer, it’s still 320A13F0 cause someone forgot to update the version string within the firmware file.

    I know i’ve completed the update properly. What i need to do is, did i update firmware to same version. or did i update it to a mis labeled new version and i should ignore the version string reported by drive after the update? Is this something you can verify and check Grant?

    • Hi Adam…after a successful firmware update, the version you should see is 360A13F0….so something didn’t take. Best course of action for you to take at this point is contacting Tech Support on how to proceed.

  • I know this is slightly off topic but Grant, do you know if SMS is enabled in the optical bay or not? This is a concern for me if I get a SATA 6 Gbps drive with a Data Doubler seeing that the SATA 3Gbps HDD must go into the optical bay.

    According to this thread it does work but has OWC done any testing themselves?
    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1117836

    • KJ….SMS is drive recognized dependent….SSDs ignore the command to park heads as they have no moving parts like a traditional drive. Not sure if the optical bay supports that command or not.

  • It is absolutely vital that the firmware updater run under CrossOver Mac (the Wine libraries). Our company policy expressly prohibits use of virus-ridden, malware-infested Windows. It’s the least you can do in lieu of a native Mac OS X utility. (And more generally, Wine-compatibility should be an industry standard for all PC apps nationwide, to break free from the stranglehold of Microsoft. If they don’t run under Wine, you’re doing something dubious programmatically, anyway!)

  • Yeah i didn’t have any hybernate issues, then again i’ve never actually tried to put it to sleep, all my other disks go to sleep where my documents are, the SSD just has OS and Apps.

    “Along with general improvements and fixes, this update will solve all known sleep and hibernation issues associated with prior firmware revisions.
    This firmware is current as of March 18, 2011. If you received your drive prior to this date, the firmware update is highly recommended. ”

    But the update also lists other things, which is why i wanted to do update. But all it did was overwrote firmware with same old version i’ve had the last few months so I dunno. All steps done perfectly. Just waiting on a reply on here to figure out what the deal is and why i’m still on 320A13F0 after updating twice. I’m stuck on a cloned boot right now with my SSD formated as a MBR partition map and blank volume til i can get it to update properly to an actual newer version of firmware.

  • By the way- I don’t know if this makes a difference but they’re (the 4 X SSD RE) being used in a 2011 (well that’s when it shipped to me) Mac Pro 12 Core 2.93Ghz.

    Thanks,

    O-Dub Scott

    • Hey Scott…yes….when we do release that Mac based firmware updater, we’ll certainly make sure its fully compatible with all Pro and Pro RE models.

  • Hey Grant-

    So the four I have ( 2 X 100GB OWC SSD RE) and ( 2 X 200GB SSD RE) were purchased around November of 2010.

    When you guys release the OS X firmware update, will it work for these particular SSD’s that I purchased?

    Thanks man,

    O-Dub Scott

  • I’ve been using the drive in my Mac Pro with no issues as far as sleep or with anything else for that matter.
    I see from a lot of posts that it seem to point mainly to laptops, and not desktops.
    So I might pass on this one, being that if isn’t broken, why fixit.

  • Dear OWC,

    Could you expand on the testing that you’ve done with this firmware re: sleep and/or hibernation? I have heard conflicting reports online about whether this firmware fixes their problems (two people say it does not solve their sleep problems on a MBP; I obviously can’t verify this is true), others claim that it is best to use an OLDER version (version 310 is the one they claim works) of the firmware to avoid problems, still others say it is necessary to disable the sudden motion sensor. Looking for a little guidance here. Thanks in advance.

    • Hi Tim and thanks for stopping by.

      This is all dependent upon what MBP you have. MBPs with Model ID’s 5,1-5,4, drive will need to come back to us for updating. This cannot be changed in the field.

      We have fully tested and qualified all current MacBook/MacBook Pro/Mac Pro/iMac/Mac mini’s with the new MP4 firmware. Sleep and Hibernation (where supported) modes are all 100% functional with this new Firmware.

      Disabling the Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS) will not have any effect. SMS is a command sent by the OS to the drive which in the event of a drop or sudden impact will park the HD heads immediately for protection. If a drive does not support SMS, the command will be flat out ignored. Solid State Drives have no moving parts and as such are designed to ignore this completely.

  • “I’ve run it twice now, but the firmware itself is still showing 320A13F0

    what’s being done wrong? I formated the drive, even switched it to MBR partition sceme (annoying but i did it)

    Ran app as admin, it found drive, lists 320A13F0 in list for firmware revision. I select the 360 package, it downloads it, sayin downloading 64 secotors, then 128 sectors then 256 sectors, then it reboots windows, after reboot i rerun it just to see the firmware version is still at 320A13F0”

    Additional to last

    it’s in a mac pro 3,1 2008 plugged directly into a SATA rack. windows version is windows 7 ultimate.

    Model is 240gig model 7% provisioning model.

    • Hey Adam…not sure what you mean by “plugged directly into a SATA rack” …..This has to be run with the drive installed inside the Mac Pro, connected directly to the internal SATA bus…it will not work correctly if connected to a SATA card.

  • I have a MacBookPro5,2 with the following SSD:

    Capacity: 120.03 GB (120,034,123,776 bytes)
    Model: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
    Revision: 320A13F0

    Do I need to send this SSD to OWC to upgrade the firmware? I would like to know before I go through the hazzle of converting my Parallels drive into a Bootcamp drive just to find out that I cannot update the drive.

  • I still have issues too…. I was told by OWC It’s highly recommended. to do a fresh install after… would have not bothered if i new this would anybody…

  • This firmware does not work with first-generation SSD drives (like the one I have: Mercury Extreme SSD-E 200Gb). When I try to download the firmware it just says “Firmware for this drive not found in package”.

  • Windows as requirement – it is a joke? Why no released mac version of updater?

    I bought ssd for my mbp from the company which made stuff for macs.

    • The firmware updater we have currently is indeed PC based for now and the Mac updater is in the works. In the meantime, for those customers that do not have access to Windows (or aren’t running Bootcamp on their Mac), we are happy to perform the update for them. Give our customer Service department at call at 1(800)275-4576 and they can set that up for you.

    • Hi Neil…we don’t at this time….nor does any other SandForce based SSD manufacturer. We are, however, working on one.

  • Hi,

    I tested this new version, and it still has the wake from sleep bug.
    (beachball upon wake from sleep, after automatic sleep)

    Regards,
    fdeldongo

    • Are you using a MacBook Pro 5,1-5,4? Using our SSD in those Model ID MBPs needs an update that cannot be done at the user level. Pls contact our CS/TS departments to arrange shipping your drive back to us.

  • Wow this is great!

    Will you guys be doing a blog post later on about your switch to 25nm chips and a possible eta on SATA 6Gbps drives?