SSD Invalid node structure on MBP 4,1

I'm having the same problems here. Its looking like I'm about to have to reload this thing again. I'm seriously thinking about going back to the standard spinning disks but man am I going to hate that. The SSD really puts an extra punch in the older MBP 2008 model that I've gotten used to.

I tried to go back to it a month or so ago and was really hating my computer. Has anyone found any solution or found an SSD that actually works long term? I've got another notebook I use that I run debian linux on and it works great and have never had any issue with it so it has to be something with OSX or the hardware in this computer causing the problem.

I've also had serious problems with TimeMachine not restoring all my files. Like this last time it restored all my programs and information perfectly but I had lost all my personal settings such as book marks and defaults for applications I use all the time. Even my wireless access points that were stored were all gone.

Point is, between TimeMachine screwing up and having to reload so many times just to keep the system running, its getting very frustrating. I love my MAC, but seriously.

About 1 month ago I loaded an update and rebooted the system and it never came back up. Didn't even see the disk in the computer at all. I had to totally wipe out the drive and recreate the partitians and reformat, then reload and it started working again. For about 3 weeks and now I'm back to square one again.

If anyone has any information please share.

I have another prove that this is not an SSD problem. For last 2 weeks I used my MBP only with power adapter, when I put laptop to hibernate I did not unplug the power adapter. I didn't have any problem, checked my SSD everyday. Than yesterday my wife unplugged the power adapter when laptop was in hibernate mode (but still with battery inside). After that I found an invalid node structure error. Needed to reinstall OS. So the problem is in switching the power adapter while it was in hibernate mode. This particular Kingston SSD is very power consuming and therefore very sensitive to power failures. My battery is pretty old, but in the some I do not have same problem with stock HDD which came with MBP andI think the reason is that HDD in hibernate mode is sleeping (and consume zero energy), but for SSD I turned off the sleep function following many advices. This is a potential solution and I'm gonna check this soon since it is cheaper than buying new battery.

Confirmed!!!! If I turn on the "Put Hard disk to sleep when possible" in energy saving settings, put comp to hibernate mode by closing the laptop, unplug power adapter, plug it back and opend the lead - there is no ERROR!!!! No invalid node structure anymore.

To everybody: KINGSTON SV100S2 are very power consuming(comparing to other SSD) and if you turn the option "Put Hard disk to sleep when possible" off this SSD is still ON when in hibernate mode and probably there is some problem with power controller when switching power sources and this SSD fails in this moment. DONT TURN THIS OPTION OFF! I am not sure about newer MBP models, mine is the last model before unibody came out.

Sorry but I'm totally confused here. I have always turn ON ( checked ) the "Put Hard disk to sleep when possible" setting, and yet I had all these problems in my previous posts. How can you explain that? Mine is first unibody MB and I suspect my old bloated battery is causing the problems when switching power source. I'm running on power alone now ( without the battery ) and its been ok for the past 2 weeks.

For my next MBP, I'll just order the stock SSD from apple. At least I know I can bring my MBP back to them if there's any problem.

Do you have is option checked for both power sources (battery and power adapter). The thing is that lots of tutorials on how to optimize Mac OS X for SSD is to turn this option off, and this is what I did everytime. Yesterday, after I set this option ON again and tried to unplug laptop when in hibernate mode (checked it about 10 times) I'm not getting the Invalid Node Structure error anymore. But I tried plugging and unplugging when MBP is in hibernate mode without waking it up inbetween. This at least gives me the possibility to not shut down laptop completely if I need to carry it from one place to another.

I also turned the hibernate mode to 0 - so my MBP doesnt dump my RAM to SSD every time I close the lead.

And the last but may be the most important, my battery is old but still alive and I can use it for about 30-45 minutes to work, may be yours is just in a worse condition. I'll keep posting if anything changes.

One more update.

Today I woke up my MBP from hibernate mode without power supply connected (using only old battery). Actually, I have done it accidentally, I did not see that power cable is unplugged. I was afraid I will get Invalid Node Structure error again, since I put my laptop to sleep with power supply attached. Nope! No error. Returning to normal work model. Even without power cable attached it worksusing only old battery. I want to remind that I just turned on the option "Put hard disk to sleep when possible" in energy saving settings, ususally I turned this option off for SSD following many recommendations, and SSD was still on when in hibernate mode and if the power was interupting by some reason the SSD got Invalid Node Structure error.

No error so far.

Sorry lads, new battery also makes this problem happen.

I have a White MacBook 5,1 (late 2009) with a Kingston SV100S2 SSD. Man, this machine FLIES with this SSD. No stock MBP with an HDD can beat it.

I've got my whole filesystem crashed twice already. First time I got Invalid Key Length, Now I got Invalid Node Structure. Good thing I have my Time Machine on an external HDD.

My SSD already's updated with Kingston's firmware update. I've noticed that this SSD mainly crashes when I close the MacBook lid to make it sleep and it takes a while to get to sleep (like, 5 minutes). The next boot will not happen. It can, however, recover itself from sleep, but when you reboot it, no go.

This SSD runs very hot, hotter than the stock Hitachi HDD. I'll scrap my entire SSD today and reinstall OS X 10.7 and restore it from time machine. But I really don't think this is the SSD's fault. It's some power management issue that happens either on the machine or on the OS.

Bottom line: the world is not ready for the SSD. 🙂

Cheers from Brazil,

Tiago

Found a solution: Don't put your mac to sleep. But if by mistake you do, crash!

You sure this is the case? I only have issues when my MBP is turned off. I have a Kingston SV100S2 SSD 256GB....

Has anyone tried to enable TRIM and see if it helps? I will enable this on mine and see what happens.

SSDs don't need to sleep; no moving parts.

I enable TRIM - it does not help in our problem. Last time I got Invalid Node Structure after almost 2.5 weeks of normal work with TRIM enabled and "put ssd to sleep" option checked. I start copying 28GB of different data to SSD and after that it got me an error.

Noondaywitch,

So you shutdown your mac every day? I prefer to put it to sleep. It's more practical.

Trim won't help or cause this issue.

If we were experiencing delays while writing, then yes, trim could be held responsible. However, it appears that when I put my macbook to sleep, some vital filesystem information is lost, causing this problem.

Apple doesn't want us using third-party ssd's, that's the truth.

I'll try to find a way to make my mac hibernate instead of sleeping when I close the lid. Or, like it can be done on unix boxes, put the filesystem into sync mode.

tiagoaviz wrote:

Noondaywitch,

So you shutdown your mac every day? I prefer to put it to sleep. It's more practical.

No, I sleep the Mac overnight. Usually - we've been getting random outages lately.

But then I have a HDD not a SSD.

The point is that the "Put Hard Disk to Sleep when possible" function is redundant when you don't have HDD.