Samsung 840 EVO running slow in macbook 2012, how to fix?

Im having problems with the Samsung Evo too.

Installed it last night, booted from USB ML setup tools, signed onto wifi - and restored from Time caspule over ethernet. Took 7 hrs, when I started it up it seemed quicker but certain programs werent loading - they were just freezing / beach balling. Chrome, Airport Utility, iPhoto all would just hang. Only thing that worked was Safari. Figured the TC backup was having issues with the new drive type for certain things. Cleared NVRAM, Did the other thing, removed caches folder. Nothing. Installed Trim corrector program - that configured for a minute after being switched on, then it hung.

Decided on clean install and just restore what i need from backup - ran the Internet recovery, Reformatted the pertition, DL'ed and installed Mountain Lion, and the same stuff is happening! Fresh install of OSX and Chrome wont launch, Airport utility wont launch! If anyone has any suggestions I'd be very grateful! Have seen other discussions around the firmware on other sites, it has been updated recently (tried that too before fresh reinstall and the samsung boot iso said there was no compatible disk in the drive....)

Thinking it could be a dud... Oh, Disk speed app said it was running around 250 MB each way.

I have a stack, now, of Mac users having problems with the Samsung 840 EVO SSDs... you're not the first.

Usually the problems starts with slower-than-expected speeds and can escalate from there. The 'most common' complaint, however, is slowness.

If I were you, I would think about returning your drive and getting one with a Marvell controller (the Samsung EVO uses Sandforce) which seem to simply work better with Macs.

An interesting article to read -> SSD Deathmatch: Crucial's M500 Vs. Samsung's 840 EVO.

Good luck,

Clinton

Hi,

I also swapped my MacBook Pro's (mid 2012, MacBookPro 9.1 - i7 2.3 GHz, 8 GB) HDD to Samsung 840 EVO SSD. First, I wasn't concerned about it's speed and didn't face any problems with it. But I was curious to see what kind of speeds it can manage.

So I installed Blackmagic Disk Speed Test to find out. Now I've become little suspicious what I see. First, when test starts, Blackmagic speedometers goes sky high (~500 MB/s write and ~500 MB/s read).

But when tool goes on and on measuring speeds, the write results drop down to ~270-280 MB/s but Read speeds are still excellent.

So, because I'm not so familiar with understanding these results what I'm getting, I have to ask that is this normal? Or am I suffering also from crappy SSD here like rs88rs? So, any kind of (smart) advise would be nice!

Oh, and by the way: did clean install (10.9.1) and used Trim enabler.

looks normal, the very high write speed at the start is samsung TurboWrite which helps in normal life when you're not writing as much as a benchmark does. Turbowrite is some complicated gobbledygook where they make a bit of the ssd like it's a higher quality/price ssd so it runs much faster, it's basically a fast cache and when it gets overflowed you lose the performance benefit.

I have a Samsung 840 SSD too (DXT06B0Q). I'm not sure if it was called EVO then, but promised speeds were around 330 write and 520 read. I have trim enabler and 86/500GB free space.

I'm getting inconsistent results too. First it might go up to 200/450, but soon drops to under 100/200 -speeds. Maybe a faulty unit?

Hey there,

this is kind of urgent. What capacity is your ssd? I just got Intel 530 120 gb, and I'm not really happy with the write speeds (only 130 mb), so I was thinking about returning it (since I still have a few days to do that), and getting 840 EVO 120 gb. Do you think this is a good idea?

Thanks for your reply.

Flummuxed wrote:

looks normal, the very high write speed at the start is samsung TurboWrite which helps in normal life when you're not writing as much as a benchmark does.

Hi,

Okay, good to know. Basically I'm happy with parformance overall, so I might not to worry these numbers so much after all. So much faster with SSD than orginal HDD.

Flummuxed wrote:

Turbowrite is some complicated gobbledygook where they make a bit of the ssd like it's a higher quality/price ssd so it runs much faster, it's basically a fast cache and when it gets overflowed you lose the performance benefit.

TurboWrite feature (fast cache) affects to disk in Macs also? Though Samsung states that is Windows feature. So it's more mechanical thing than software based feature - I guess... Fine.

pixu wrote:

I have a Samsung 840 SSD too (DXT06B0Q). I'm not sure if it was called EVO then, but promised speeds were around 330 write and 520 read. I have trim enabler and 86/500GB free space. I'm getting inconsistent results too. First it might go up to 200/450, but soon drops to under 100/200 -speeds. Maybe a faulty unit?

Sounds that your disk is well used!🙂 Where those speeds same when disk was fresh? Again, some sort of guessing, as I don't have so much expertice with these SSD speeds by looking those numbers...

Marian234 wrote:

Hey there, this is kind of urgent. What capacity is your ssd? I just got Intel 530 120 gb, and I'm not really happy with the write speeds (only 130 mb), so I was thinking about returning it (since I still have a few days to do that), and getting 840 EVO 120 gb. Do you think this is a good idea? Thanks for your reply.

My SSD is 250 GB. As said before, I don't have so much experience with these read/write speeds that I could say what is fast and what is not. Intel whitepapers promise 540/480 MB (read/write) to your SSD, so maybe your disk should work little faster than 130 MB? By the way: do you have TRIM enabled?

But, as my point of view I can recommend Samsung 840 EVO after being used about month now.

Message was edited by: Veli-Matti - 'Fine tuning and typos'

The EVO probably wouldn't make any difference - or marginal at best. The less capacity a SSD, the slower it's going to be. I'm getting over 400Mb/s writes and 500Mb/s writes on my 960GB Crucial M500 - and the EVO drive has similar results in the larger capacity models.

I'm sure that the drive is faster than a hard drive, so I wouldn't worry about 'slower than expected' speeds.

Clinton

Flummuxed wrote:

Turbowrite is some complicated gobbledygook where they make a bit of the ssd like it's a higher quality/price ssd so it runs much faster, it's basically a fast cache and when it gets overflowed you lose the performance benefit.

TurboWrite feature (fast cache) affects to disk in Macs also? Though Samsung states that is Windows feature. So it's more mechanical thing than software based feature - I guess... Fine.

Marketing people... Rapidcache is the windows feature which is software based, Turbowrite is in the firmware on the ssd itself and platform agnostic

My experience, with installing a samsung 840 evo into my mac mini, was that it's pretty picky of the hard-drive positions. In my mac mini, when I place the SSD on the upper position, it went extremely slow and flaky and when I swapped the two harddrive and put it at the lower position( which is the primary disk), it works like a charm! Also I heard people experiencing similar things with MBP or MBA, in which should avoid the optical drive position.

So I replaced Intel 530 120 GB with Samsung 840 Evo 120 GB, put it in my main HDD tray, and it's working awesome! I get 400 write and 500 read, so thats much more satisfying than 130/450 with the Intel's drive.

Okay people here dont seem to understand anything no offense. Black magic is a company that makes software and cameras for the film industry. This software simulates different types of video to see how your hard drive handles them. Thats why the number fluctuates, usually when it drops down to say like 240 its under heavy strain which is still kicking ***...

Some of you who have it peak over 550 stop complainging you HDD is fine!

Mine never peaks over 256 so consider yourself lucky!

Im dissappointed that samsung doenst have any of its software for mac, and that this SDD blows.

wrong post

Ouch! Those are terrible numbers!

If I were you, I would first get in touch with Samsung - your drive may be faulty. On the other hand, about 20% of the users of the EVO series with MacBook Pro get terrible slowness and lagging - and it could be just a problem with the EVO drive not playing nice with your MacBook Pro.

But contact Samsung first - they may be willing to exchange drives: you may have just purchased a lemon...

Clinton