MacBook Pro early 2011 with Seagate sshd gets I/O errors

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MacBook Pro early 2011 with Seagate sshd gets I/O errors

Hello!

I've mounted a 1TB Seagate SSHD in my son's early 2011 MacBook Pro and unfortunately it does not work quite as expected. We get a lot of I/O errors, sometimes so many that it's not even possible to log in. Here's what we've found out:

1) The 320GB ordinary HD that came with the mac seems to work perfectly

2) The 750 GB ordinary HD that was in the mac before worked fine

3) When mounted in an external enclosure via USB, the 1 TB SSHD seems to work without errors at all (the mac boots fine from the disk and logs no I/O errors)

So there seems there might be a problem with high speed SATA on this machine. I forgot to check the negotiated speed when the 320GB disk was mounted internally, but the speed for the SSHD is 6 Gigabit/s.

So my questions are:

- are there known problems with this mac and high speed SATA?

- if not, what is the most likely problem - cable?

regards,

Espen

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Aug 28, 2013 2:02 PM

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Answer 1

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Kappy

Level 10

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Aug 28, 2013 2:13 PM in response to Espen Vestre

The optical drive SATA port only supports 3.0 GB/s. The HDD port is 6.0 Gb/s. But there are potential issues with the higher capacity hybrids from Seagate that have been reported elsewhere.

Yes, there can be a possible issue with the ribbon cable. It could not hurt to replace it.

I found the OWC piece a few moments ago, but see that nbar has already linked it for you.

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Answer 2

nbar

Level 5

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Aug 28, 2013 2:10 PM in response to Espen Vestre

Read this:

2011 MacBook Pro SATA Problems Resolved! | Other World ...

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Answer 3

Espen Vestre Author

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Aug 28, 2013 9:49 PM in response to nbar

Thanks, but that article is from 2011 and referst to this EFI update which upgrades to Boot ROM version MBP81.0047.B24. This machine is already on version .B27.

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Answer 4

Espen Vestre Author

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Aug 28, 2013 9:51 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks, we'll consider replacing the cable.

Do you know if it's possible to configure the machine to limit SATA speed to 3Gbit/s?

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Answer 5

nbar

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Aug 28, 2013 10:02 PM in response to Espen Vestre

Kappy clarified the issue. When you get the I/O errors installing the SSHD, are you using the optical drive bay or the main drive bay? I assume the latter based on your initial description of the issue.

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Answer 6

nbar

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Aug 28, 2013 10:09 PM in response to Espen Vestre

The 6 GB/S SATA cable is still backwards compatible, and so the drive itself will provide this limitation.

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Answer 7

Espen Vestre Author

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Aug 28, 2013 10:12 PM in response to nbar

Yes, it's mounted in the regular HDD bay.

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Answer 8

Espen Vestre Author

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Aug 29, 2013 3:59 AM in response to nbar

nbar wrote:

The 6 GB/S SATA cable is still backwards compatible, and so the drive itself will provide this limitation.

I'm not 100% sure what you meant by this, could you please explain?

I don't think there would be much of a performance difference between 6Gb/s and 3Gb/s for this disk on this machine. So I thought it could be worth a try if I could tell either the disk or the machine to not negotiate higher speeds than 3Gb/s.

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Answer 9

Espen Vestre Author

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Aug 30, 2013 2:04 AM in response to Espen Vestre

I'm pretty sure it's the cable. I've delivered it for service now and will report back here when it's fixed.

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Answer 10

Lexiepex

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Aug 30, 2013 2:50 AM in response to Kappy

The early 2011 MBP's: some are 3GB/s in the DvD bay, some are 6GB/s, you have to read the System Information to see what is in it.

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Answer 11

Lexiepex

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Aug 30, 2013 2:55 AM in response to Espen Vestre

It is probably the cable: not fitted well, but maybe damaged, the connectors are very delicate.

But it may also be that the controller is different: if you have the Seagate "pulsar" MLC model its controller is different than for the ssd's that are most used like Crucial and others.

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Answer 12

Espen Vestre Author

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Aug 30, 2013 3:12 AM in response to Lexiepex

LexSchellings wrote:

It is probably the cable: not fitted well, but maybe damaged, the connectors are very delicate.

The connectors look fine, and the cable seems to work flawlessly with a slower disk (original 320GB plain HD). There seems to be a lot of trouble with these cables. Just yesterday a guy visiting our office asked me if I knew something about bad SATA cables in early 2011 MacBook Pro 13" - I'm sure that wasn't just a strange coincidence 🙂

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Answer 13

Lexiepex

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Aug 30, 2013 4:18 AM in response to Espen Vestre

I don't know about bad cables in the early 2011 MBP. But it is possible. If that really is the problem, go to Apple and have them check out the problem, a bad cable is quickly replaced.

But I know that the ssd controller is different, but I have never heard of a problem there, but they can check that out at the same time. Make an appointment to avoid long waiting time.

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