Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Seagate jumper settings (I've tried this on my Momentus 7200.3, fingers crossed seems ok)

http://www.seagate.com/images/support/en/us/cudasatablock.gif

Is there any 'real world' difference between Sata 1.5/3.0 when using one drive in a laptop?

No, not much difference when using hard disk, but when using SSD's, that will make a big difference in the speed.
So if you want to update to a SSD, you better wait until EFI 1.8, because the SSD will almost be as slow as a HDD, it will be a tiny tad less power consuming and a little bit faster (I guess about 10% faster at best?)

I've run the AJA Disk Read/Write test. Would you run this test so we can compare results? I have Firmware 1.7 installed and the access to the HD is terrible slow. I got an MBP with the stock HDD 250gb.
You can download the application from http://www.aja.com/ajashare/AJASystem_Testv601.zip

Use these settings:
Test: Disk Read/Write
File Size: 1.0GB
Video Frame Size: 720x486 8-bit
Disable file system cache: checked

My results were,
Write 76.4MB/s
Read 4.7MB/s

I've noticed that the write speed is constant through the whole test, while the read speed is up to 80MB/s for 125 frames and then goes down to 2-4MB/s for another 125 frames and then goes back to 80MB/s.

It would be great if someone with Firmware pre-1.7 can run this test too so we can see the difference.

thanks

I'm from Brazil and me and other 10 friends of mine, who have the newest MacBook Pro with 13" and 15" inches have the same issues (after update to EFI 1.7), that everybody on this post and certain all over the word.

We change the internals HDD's, because in our country almost everything in eletronics (like Apple products) cost too much. So, it's a alternative to have a good product and upgrade the system whithout to sell and buy a new one.

This is the most worst thing that Apple do, in the last 10 years of company history.

I can't belive of that. *Sounds like MICROSOFT and not Apple!!*

Let's spread our dissatisfaction off it all over the places (like Apple: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html) and thousand others more, because it's a ultrageous.

Come on Apple... Don't do it like others do it. This is the answer of why Apple is growing so fast in my country and others more. Because like your new president say: +*Yes we can!*+

Regards and hope for a resolution from Apple.

All we can hope for right now is for Apple to release ANOTHER firmware update taht can fix this issue for all models of hard drives installed in the new MacBook Pros

I just bought a 15" 2.8GHz mbp 2 days ago and did install the 1.7 firmware (wasnt aware of the issues at the time). Anyway with the stock 500gb 5400rpm hitachi hdd that came with the mbp works flawlessly but when I swapped it out to a faster 7200rpm 320gb hitachi with 3.0 Gb/s hdd it would get color wheel issues when I'm transferring files or doing more than 2-3 things at a time.

I hope it can be addressed with a future update (efi or 10.5.8). I really do love everything about this 15" mbp but dont want to return it or exchange it for a 17".

pepparkaka wrote:
Stop calling locking harddrives to the slower SATA I after the update of the firmware to SATA II a fix. It's not and you are just clouding the issue here.

Wow, who put gravel in your corn flakes this morning?

It is a fix for the symptoms that have been causing me such a headache -- system hangs of 20-30 seconds, CRC errors, etc. It does not resolve the base issue that there is a problem with the 1.7 firmware, but until Apple's engineers release a proper fix for the firmware issues, I am perfectly happy popping a jumper on my drive and continuing on my merry little way (and I'm sure many others in here who have drives that allow such a thing, would be happy to do so as well). _Since adding the jumper, my CRC error count has not incremented once._

And, "locking harddrives to the slower SATA I" doesn't matter at all, as the throughput on my drive (and all other non-SSDs) is below that ceiling anyway.

So, before you pop off and accuse people of clouding the issue, perhaps you should check your breakfast cereal.

Are you suggesting that pepparkaka may have a bouncing beach ball that fell from the clouds in his corn flakes? Or are you simple stating that more people prefer Corn Flakes over Rice Krispies?

I have the Seagate ST9500325AS 500GB 3.0Gbps drive. After installling the firmware, I got the spinning ball quite often.

After looking for some potential fixes, I tried setting the jumper to limit the drive to 1.5gbps.

After some testing, I found that it helped by a lot, but unfortunately did not fix the problem entirely. Every now and then, I still get the beach ball for roughly 10 second intervals, every few minutes.

Apple: You seriously have to fix this issue. There is no reason to force us to pay for your extremely overpriced "apple approved" drives. This is the only family of computer products that I know of where a user-upgraded hard drive causes issues. There are no excuses.

Message was edited by: XenoTeK

Message was edited by: XenoTeK

Lets not forget that the stock drives are also being affected. It's not just 3rd party drives with the issue, and Apple is now selling MBP's with the EFI 1.7 update already installed. Even more reason for Apple to "wake-up", Before Windows 7 comes or they will loose business.

XenoTeK wrote:
I have the Seagate ST9500325AS 500GB 3.0Gbps drive. After installling the firmware, I got the spinning ball quite often.
Apple: You seriously have to fix this issue. There are no excuses.

I suggest that you should contact Apple for the issue; the more info they have the more can they do something.

I just tried putting in the 3 Gb/s 320gb hitachi drive back in my 2.8GHz macbook pro and tried to install windows vista.

Vista couldnt complete all the way and I had to reboot but then I did manage to get into windows but then it had some files missing and had some explorer failure issues. I couldnt check the hdd at all under windows to see if it saids SATA-2 or not.

Currently with the stock 500gb hitachi 1.5 Gb/s hdd, under windows it does lable it as SATA-1.

I think these random freezes and color wheel proves that the 1.7 firmware didnt unlock anything and that the hardware is infact SATA-1 and not SATA-2.

I think I'm going to head back to the Apple store to get a refund. This is ridiculous.

Who knows if there will be an 1.8 update regarding this issue. If it is a hardware defect - either a bad controller or a bad cable from the motherboard to the drive - only a repair will do the job. And I seriously doubt Apple would exchange so many expensive parts !

One thing that I'm pondering about is if the controller in these new mbp are indeed SATA-1, wouldnt a SATA-II hdd be backward compatible with the SATA-1 controller in these mbps?

Maybe its just a messed up build of the 10.5.7 (I heard its a different one than the previous gen). Especially with this EFI 1.7 update.

From these shots you seem to have problems, but not as severe as some other people.