MBP 2011 and Intel SSD 510

Okay, so just to clear up:

Has anyone actually gotten a 2011 MBP to work smoothly with the Intel 510 SSD under Mac OS X? (Nevermind optibay solutions and the like.) Has Apple successfully fixed this for anybody?

I have a client with a 17" 2011 MBP and a 120GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD drive. So far I haven't found a solution and Apple hasn't even responded to the issue, much less released a fix.

Edit: I realize you were wondering specifically about the Intel 510s, but the issue affects virtually all SATA 3 SSDs available at this time.

zaxtech wrote:

I have a client with a 17" 2011 MBP and a 120GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD drive. So far I haven't found a solution and Apple hasn't even responded to the issue, much less released a fix.

Edit: I realize you were wondering specifically about the Intel 510s, but the issue affects virtually all SATA 3 SSDs available at this time.

If it server as a consolation.

I've had the same problems, beach balling, freezing and system hesitation on my 2011 mbp 15", my ssd is a Crucial M4 512gb ... A few days ago Crucial released a new Firmware and all the issues are gone. So I guess it may not be Apples fault since Crucial managed to fix it somehow.

72 hours after the firmware update and not a single beachball!

One thing tho... My ssd performance seems to be a little lower than some other guys are getting. I don't know if my drive is of an earlier revision, or if I need to format it for a fresh instal... nonetheless I am pretty happy the issues are gone!

@zaxtech - I have an OCZ Vertex 3 (SATA III in main bay) in my 2011 MBP and have no issues at all.

I realize this is a thread based on the Intel, but I am having some interesting experiences that I want to share and get any insight on that you all might have, seeing as this is one of the hottest threads on the topic.

Brand new 2011 15" MBP, btw mine is one that shows 6gb on both bays in case anyone thinks that matters.

Here is the story, bought an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 120GB. Installed in the main bay, was able to clone the factory drive and boot up, installed apps, everything was screaming fast. Shortly after finishing my installs started getting BBOD, only for 10-20 secs, then froze. Upon hard reset the drive was toast. Didn't show up anywhere, including when put into an external SATA dock on a different machine. This lead me to believe the drive was just a lemon, swapped, brand new drive, same exact situation. Worked like a dream for about an hour or so, then BBOD and frozen. Again, drive=toast.

This is confusing the crap out of me that this issues can be literally rendering drives useless.

To compound this, I took a 3gb SSD I had in a previous generation MBP running for a long time without issues, popped it into the main drive bay on the 2011 MBP and this is where it gets fun. The computer sees the drive, when booted from another drive I can read and write and whatever, but for some reason this machine will not boot from this drive. Reminder I am speaking of a 3gb SSD that works perfectly in another MBP.

Just for kicks I put the stock 5400 rpm HDD in the bay and boots without issue.

Whatever the actual issue is, wether its EMI with the cables, or some software/firmware issue with this Gen MBP and SSD's I am getting weird results.

Any thoughts?

I tried clearing PRAM and all that throughout this whole ordeal. I have not dealt with disabling the SMC or other tweaks, but honestly I dont want to have to do that. I want this to work. I have not tried using the optical bay yet, that is going to be my next round.

To compound this, I took a 3gb SSD I had in a previous generation MBP running for a long time without issues, popped it into the main drive bay on the 2011 MBP and this is where it gets fun. The computer sees the drive, when booted from another drive I can read and write and whatever, but for some reason this machine will not boot from this drive. Reminder I am speaking of a 3gb SSD that works perfectly in another MBP.

Try running the install disc that came with your MBP over this drive. It should add any files needed to make it bootable.

Do you by chance have a 13" or 15" MBP? If so, that would explain why it's working for you. It seems this bug is limited to the 17" MBP manufactured between 3/11 and 5/11 IIRC. I realize some folks with the 13 or 15" are also having issues, but not nearly as prevalent as the 17s.

@zaxtech - I have an early 2011 17" with the 3G/s optical bay bus. I bought it in April.

I am running a 2011 Macbook Pro 15 inch, 2.3 GHz Quad-Core. It has the 6 Gb SATA III for the SSD and the 3 Gb optical.

I installed my Intel 510 250 GB last night, and have been running/using it since with not a single beach ball or loading error.

Thanks for the info! It seems like the issue is more common on the 17", though.

Has anyone else bought a 17" MacBook Pro in the last month and not had issues with installing a sata3 drive?Im looking to install the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G

I installed an OWC Mercury pro 6GB/s ssd drive in my new (June 2011) MBP 17". In SnowLeopard it had random beach balls which lasted between 10 and 30 seconds. I installed Lion today (which has Trim support) to find out it only support apple ssd drives so my owc drive still can't use trim.

The beach balls at random intervals have now been substituted by continuous beach balls! In short, I can't use the sata3 disk until apple fixes the hardware (cable) and software (trim support) issue.

Tomorrow morning it's back to the hdd that came with the machine. Frustrating to have a super fast machine with a (relatively) very slow drive. It's like buying a sports car to then only be allowed to drive it in a residential neighbourhood full of school (i.e. walking speed).

But the most frustrating part comes from my dad's sata3 intel ssd enhanced windows 7 notebook being just about as fast as my mbp!! Me and my big mouth on apple being technically advanced...not perse that is!

FYI Trim enabler 1.1 still works in LION. Go download it and use it! It may help a little.

I used it to get my C300 back on TRIM after upgrading to 10.7. I'm on a 13" though so I don't have the problems your having. Sorry. 😟

Trim is built into the latest OWC SSDs under the guise of Garbage Collection.. Trim enabler just conflicts with the new drives. I believe carbage collection is on all the new sandforce controllers including the vertex 3.

Don't install it or you will have more problems, it's for older SSDs. My OWC 6G has worked flawlessly for months now with no degredation so carbage collection is obviously working just fine.

Are you 100% certain this is true for SSD's beyond the OWC? My guess is you never did any research beyond your own and now your making a recomendation to everyone. =p