I/O errors with Seagate SSHD in Macbook Pro (late 2008)

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I/O errors with Seagate SSHD in Macbook Pro (late 2008)

Here is a strange one:

I upgraded to a Seagate 1 TB SSHD (ST1000LM014) a few days ago on my Macbook Pro (late 2008). Unfortunately I get I/O errors quite regularly now on a freshly installed system (10.8.3).

First thought: Faulty disk! But when I boot the drive in an external USB enclosure everything looks fine with no I/O errors.

Second thought: Cable or mainboard! But when I reinstall the old drive everything works like it should and no I/O errors in the log.

Anyone any idea what could be wrong? Maybe a SATA incompatibility issue?

Posted on Apr 23, 2013 10:14 AM

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Answer 1

bjoern! Author

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Apr 23, 2013 11:43 AM in response to bjoern!

There's a similar issue with the same NVIDIA MCP79 chipset: http://forums.ncix.com/forums/?mode=showthread&forum=103&threadid=2601737

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Answer 2

bjoern! Author

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May 3, 2013 12:23 AM in response to bjoern!

Well, here's my conclusion for anyone who might suffer from the same problem:

It seems that Nvidia SATA controllers (in my case MCP79 used in late 2008 models) have certain incompatibility issues with 6 Gbit/s harddisks which causes random i/o errors.

One rather difficult option (I have not tried) that might 'fix' the problem is to revert the EFI update that enabled 3 Gbit/s mode. But that leaves you with 1,5 Gbit/s which is a bit slow for modern drives.

My solution was to return my SATA3 harddrive and replace it with an older SATA2 only model. All works fine and no i/o errors for several days now.

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Answer 3

Jan 4, 2015 9:57 AM in response to bjoern!

Hai there Bjoern and others,

our problem is it that the Macbook Pro late 2008 is not compatible with more than 6GB / s. The maximum that the chipset of the Macbook Pro late 2008 and earlier can handle 3gb / s.

The moment you have a hard drive internally supported so 6Gb / s, as a SSHD, the Macbook it stops. You can Flashy or install mac osx, but after some time the system stops working.

Possibly, this gives a better and clear explanations.

Kind regard,

Raymond

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Answer 4

gravmac

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Mar 11, 2015 12:18 AM in response to bjoern!

I have the same problem with my MBP Late 08 and Seagate Laptop SSHD ST1000LM014.

Is there any Chipset Driver Update to fix this out there?

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