Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Gregory Mcintire wrote:
Has anyone found that an SSD, or other non-compliant EFI 1.7 hard drive, works better or worse, if it is partitioned into more than a single volume when using the EFI 1.6 roll back?

I felt that my SSD worked better, and in fact maybe perfectly with EFI 1.6 before I partitioned it into 3 volumes.

a) "non-complaint EFI 1.7 hard drive" is a misnomer... what is 'non-compliant' is Apple's SATA II interface.

b) You should start your own thread for this question, as partition schemes are completely unrelated to what we are discussing here.

Saharis wrote:
Do you think that this result of an "+Aja System Test+" is a good performance with EFI 1.7 :

Write : 61.8 MB/s
Read : 74.6 MB/s
(File size 128 MB)

Will I get a better performance if I rollback to EFI 1.6 and use a 7200rpm Drive (which actually doesn't run with EFI 1.7)

This question is rather off-topic as well, but here goes...

A spinning laptop hard drive will not be limited by a 1.5 Gb/s SATA interface. So (ignoring the issues with EFI 1.7), which interface you have not make any performance difference with either drive.

Your question boils down to 5400rpm vs. 7200rpm, which isn't enough information to answer the question properly. The maximum bit rate you will see between the two is equally dependent upon the bit density of the platters. If you have a platter spinning 33% faster, but each bit is 33% further away on the platter, then it is a wash and the theoretical performance is the same. In general, a faster spinning drive will give a faster bit rate, but this is certainly not always true.

And, that being said... if you have a faster spinning hard drive, your battery life performance will likely suffer. So, the answer also depends on which aspect of "performance" you care about.

Your numbers are 'acceptable'. Were it me, I would stick with what you have in order to avoid being stuck with outdated firmware - if a version 1.8 does come along without addressing the SATA II issue, you'd likely be stuck with 1.6 firmware.

Just tried this out from this other thread in regards to beach ball lagging, http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2077220&start=75&tstart=60 and it's seemed to work so far.

iamsilou wrote:
FIX!!! i was doing some searching for days to fix this problem and i finally found one, been a few days without a hitch.

so what you will have to do is:
-Open finder> Macintosh HD> System>libary>cache...
or you could use the finder/search bar to get there.

Then Drag the cache folder to the trash can(or just select to send to trash).
after this RESTART.
After the restart the Osx should create a new cache folder that is infact uncorrupted by whatever is creating this issue, either after the start up or when you open safari.
Whatever the issue with this firmware update is, it seems to be flash based and i hope they fix it so tohers wont have to go through ** because it seems to get worse with time.

It's been about 2 hours and no hangups. The apple store said they could replace the hard drive on monday but if just clearing the cache fixes things then I'll just leave things be. They couldn't find a firmware downgrade at the genius bar so I'm still using 1.7.

@ fishbert, you stated "Were it me, I would stick with what you have in order to avoid being stuck with outdated firmware - if a version 1.8 does come along without addressing the SATA II issue, you'd likely be stuck with 1.6 firmware."

That statement implies that there would be no upgrade path from EFI firmware 1.6 to 1.8 if it were available. If that is what you meant to say, then I disagree. Firmware is like BIOS in that every new version contains what the previous versions had and you can skip versions upgrading...not so with downgrading though. Even if it were true, anyone can freely download 1.7 now and not install it, but rather keep it for later use.

fishbert wrote:

Saharis wrote:
if a version 1.8 does come along without addressing the SATA II issue, you'd likely be stuck with 1.6 firmware.

Thanks Fishbert. You're right. I didn't think about that detail.

Harry Carlyle wrote:
@ fishbert, you stated "Were it me, I would stick with what you have in order to avoid being stuck with outdated firmware - if a version 1.8 does come along without addressing the SATA II issue, you'd likely be stuck with 1.6 firmware."

That statement implies that there would be no upgrade path from EFI firmware 1.6 to 1.8 if it were available.

No, it doesn't imply that.

What I was saying was that if one were to get a SATA II drive and have to downgrade the firmware to 1.6 to get it to work properly, you are then frozen in time regarding firmware updates until Apple addresses the issue we see today in 1.7 … and there is no guarantee that a version 1.8 or 1.9 or whatever is going to do that, in which case upgrading would break things.

We can clearly determine that if apple doesn't address this issue publicly by october, im pretty sure they never will.

really?
that sounds like a rather arbitrary deadline to me.

Apple released an OS X update today to 10.6.1. After I've done this one, everything seems to be smooth again... At least I've got the feeling it is...
I'll tell you if the beachball comes back.

Sorry guys... The beachball is back.

A couple of days ago i upgraded the HD of my Macbook Pro unibody with a Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s. And i stared to have the same problem as everybody. The MBP works fine most of the time but something triggers a pause in the hard drive, monitoring with the Active Monitor when copying a 34 Gb file, the hard drive does to 0 for about 15 to 20 sec. every 1.8 to 2 Gb copied.

Apple really needs to do something with this bug.

Re: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive--Sept 11, 2009 6:12 AM



I posted a note to this discussion regarding my successful "roll back" of EFI 1.7 Firmware update performed by the Genius at the Apple Store.

This was required as my 3rd party dealer installed Seagate 500 GB Sata II HD would lock up whenever the EFI 1.7 FW update was installed. This happened two times as the dealer had to replace the Logic board the first time. Upon restarting with the new Logic board installed, the software installed and the MB Pro locked up again.

We finally got the 15 inch Mac Book Pro to work by removing this 500 GB 3rd party drive and replacing it with the factory supplied 250 GB Hitachi HD.

After the successful "roll back" by the Apple Genius, I tried to see if the roll back was recorded in the Systems Profiler when I got home.

I could not find any mention which Firm Ware version is now in effect.

Can anyone post where I can confirm the "roll back" is recorded?

In the software listing of the system profiler it shows the EFI 1.7 FW updater.

At the Apple Store, the Genius unchecked that box so it would not reinstall again--and I do not intend to touch that "bad guy" again.

All I want to do now is confirm which Firm Ware version in now in effect.

BTW--the MB Pro is working well now!

bobg

+A couple of days ago i upgraded the HD of my Macbook Pro unibody with a Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s.+

Your post is strange. Your issue is with a 500 GB HD 5400 RPM SATA 3rd party drive on your Unibody MB Pro.

My issue was with a 3rd party Seagate 500 GB SATA II 7200 RPM HD on my July, 2009 Unibody MB Pro. I had to roll back the EFI 1.7 Firmware updater at the Apple Store.

After I receive a replacement Power Supply for my LaCie 3/4 GB d2 Quadra Time Machine Back up external HD, I will have my Apple dealer re-install the larger 3rd Party internal HD.

I am doing all of this prior to installing Snow Leopard.

bobg

On my 15" mid 09 MBP the difference is found in System Profiler.

The 1.6 version says Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B02
The 1.7 version says Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B03

The difference is the 2 or the 3 on the end. I have verified this to be the case by switching from 1.7 to 1.6 to 1.7 and finally back to 1.6.

Hi Gregory,

That is extremly interesting!

In fact the only versions I have seen so far were: MBP53.00AC.B00 and MBP53.00AC.B03.

Can you confirm that you have MBP53.00AC.B02 and where you got it installed from ?

How about other people. Please post your version along with any new posts.
Can be found under "About this MAC"/"More Info".

Would be nice to know the version people have who
1) had the rollback done by Apple.
2) Used the MacRumours tool

Ollie.

Message was edited by: Oliver F