2012 MBP Optical Bay SATA Issues

It occurred to me (maybe you mentioned it) that this is more likely an Intel issue as Intel probably actually designs the chipset. Its a system limitation when the port runs at half speed (eg 2009 MBP), it's a BUG when it crashes the system (2012 MBP)! The port is rated at 6 Gps, it connects at 6 Gps and crashes or causes major problems. It would be better if it connected at 3 Gps a and worked without issues (other than slow speed). Regardless, it needs a firmware fix.

Sorry , I mistakenly marked this as solved my problem, no way to reverse. If anyone gets a SATA III drive to work on the optical bay, please share your experience.

I finally got a Crucial M4 256Gb SSD to work! This was the 3rd SSD I tried. The Samsung 830 & OCZ V4 are basically unusable with the current version of OSX firmware. There's definitely a firmware issue as of this writing. Everytime the machine wakes up from Sleep it ejects the SSD causing the machine to lock up, forcing a manual reboot. It took 2 visits and 4 hours at the Genius Bar to figure this out (I'll have to hand it to the Geniuses, this model has only been out for a month and they hadn't seen this problem before, the were very helpful). The only way the machine would work was with the original hard drive. Refusing to give up and being a glutton for punishment, I decided to try a 3rd model, I knew there must be some SSD out there that must work, Apple gets their SSD from some supplier. The Crucial M4 has been around for awhile, I figure maybe Apple had tested it, and the price on the 256 Gb is really good vs. competition ($180 at MicroCenter). So far, works like a champ (1 day). I get 502 MB/sec READS, but only 242 MB/sec Writes on Blackmagic DiskSpeed tests. My MBP boots as fast as 6 seconds!!! Woo Hooo! Just hope it lasts!

Yep, my Samsung 830 and OCZ V4 both crashed the main bay. The SATA III Momentus XT Hybrid crashes the optical bay. Currently, I'm using the 5400 rpm apple drive on the optical bay with no issues. I'm waiting for a SATA II 7200 rpm WD Scorpio Black to try next.

I think I must have just got a bad Samsung, like yours, it should have worked. But the Crucial M4 works, so one half of my problem is fixed.

Cool, thanks... If you want bragging rights, RAID them together to get 800+ MB/s

SSD's - The crack cocaine of personal computing!

After failures / incompatibility on 3 different drives, I've landed on Crucial M4's. There's some SATA III firmware issue that just makes the new Mac very finicky. Maybe a future firmware update will fix the problem, dunno, but here's what I've found to work.

re: Crack .... After I got the 256 Gb Crucial to work in the main bay I had to have more, your post inspired me to put a 512 Gb SSD in the optical bay as the 2nd drive (took the DVD player out) as my data drive.

FYI, people may find this pretty useful.... I've been using the USB3 to SATA III adapter (its a detachable pigtail) off the Seagate GoFlex to hook up bare harddrives, its awesome (see below, USB3 is faster than SATA II on the tests I did)

Anyway here's my NERD log of observed drive speeds using Blackmagic Disk Speed Test.