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Best COMPATIBLE ssd for NVidia MCP79 chipset?

I'm having a **** of a time searching for an answer.


I recently purchased a Toshiba Q Series SATA3 SSD, only to discover my MBP will negotiate it at 1.5 Gigabits only. That's when my crusade began.


I've read that SATA3 is backwards compatible with SATA2. I've proven that false, at least with mine.


I've read that some SATA3 SSDs will indeed work with MCP79, but I've only found hearsay, not real people who have done it and guarantee it.


I've been looking at SATA2 SSDs, but the ones I've seen benchmark well below 3 Gigabits... so what's the point?

Posted on Feb 23, 2014 8:44 PM

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117 replies

Nov 20, 2015 3:38 PM in response to TP33

TRIM is required insofar as your SSD will slow down over time without it. TRIM deals will deleted files and garbage collection. Keep in mind only some newer versions of Yosemite allow the "trimforce" Terminal command to be used. Update to El Capitan right away, then perform the trimforce command, then you're finished.


I actually bough a second 500GB Samsung EVO 850 for our 2009 MacBook Pro 5,5 at the office. Trim is now enabled on it, but I didn't have time to run the BLACK MAGIC speed test on it. I will do that on Monday and report back here on the results.

Nov 21, 2015 1:22 AM in response to JDW1

Thanks.

It was a close call between the Samsung 850 EVO and Crucial MX200. But I chose the Samsung SSD because it is supposedly faster and more energy efficient than the Crucial. Samsung warranty is 5 years vs. 3 years for Crucial. And also because others had confirmed they were getting 3Gbps SATA 2 speed when pairing the Samsung 850 EVO with the NVidia MCP79 chipset.

Nov 21, 2015 1:39 AM in response to TP33

For the looks of it I see that you are using 3Gps but thats on the main HDD bay if you were to put that in the optical bay it will slow down to 1.5 gigabit per sec, and your raid will not go into the Sata 2 instead it will go with Sata 1 and where supposedly your Sata 2 should be running at the max speed to compensate it will run the Sata 1 speed to compensate for the share speed in the optical drive Nvidia chipset are the most crapped out chipset I was lucky to have gotten the intel chipset and mostly now apple uses the intel chipset controller for all macs, since late 2009....


Some in early macbook pros have the intel chipset controller. For now we are the guinea pigs for this new technology, Intel has broken barrier with their SSD 750 its a thick SSD and we are talking about the 1 gigabyte past in speed for one SSD check out videos on youtube about this, set back it runs on Sata connection port with a PCI connector which macs don't have I saw this about a month ago and the SSD for 1.2 tera is about in the 1000 dollar range

Nov 23, 2015 6:37 PM in response to Switch900

I enabled TRIM on our office iMac9,1 (early 2009) and MacBook Pro 5,5 (also 2009) and then ran the Black Magic Disk Speed Test again on both machines. The results are the same, as follows:


MBP5,5 = WRITE: 201MB/s, READ: 267MB/s (SATA-II speed)

iMac9,1 = WRITE: 108MB/s, READ: 135MB/s (SATA-1 speed)


Again, both machines show the NVidia MCP79 AHCI as the SATA controller in the System Report. But why the iMac is only 50% the speed of the MBP is baffling. It's the same exact Samsung EVO 850 500GB in both Macs! And again, TRIM is enabled. The same OS is installed too (the latest version of El Capitan). In fact, the iMac's SSD is a CCC clone of the MBP's SSD! And yet, we have the speed difference.


So again, unless I am totally way out in left field on something, the reports I read about the Samsung EVO 850 running at full SATA-II 3G speeds in the iMac9,1 are nothing but lies. Even so, I still would like to know, on a technical level, WHY this is so, seeing both Macs share the same exact SATA chip. It makes no sense.

Nov 23, 2015 9:42 PM in response to JDW1

I Think it's because of a firmware release I read some of this being that the nvidia chipset could be solved with a firmware update has to be done by Apple, I would definitely prefer the Intel chipset instead of the nvidia chipset.. I was getting the same read and write speed when I just had one ssd 1 Tera in the HDD bay that's when I decided to get another SSD of the same exact model and size of the HDD to setup a raid 0 configuration, that's when I saw my read and write speed triple in speed.

Nov 23, 2015 10:06 PM in response to Switch900

Where to get I that special "firmware update" for the iMac9,1?


Next...


Are you really saying you only got SATA-I (130MB/s or so) speeds with only 1 SSD in the HDD slot of the iMac11,1 (late 2009, with Intel SATA chipset)? I ask because I can understand a doubling of 3G to 6G (I asked OWC and they verified that for RAID 0), but a tripling from SATA-I to SATA-III sounds strange.

Nov 23, 2015 10:36 PM in response to JDW1

No I got Sata 2 from the beginning with the HDD bay area but I wanted more speed and I research that by doing a RAID 0 you would get double more speed of what one SATA 2 bay could offer... So I went out and took out the optical bay and got another SSD of the same exact size and model of the EVO line and got the speed you see on my black magic disk speed.. Which now I am very happy with what I have because I could edit videos much more faster and it has brought a new life to my iMac I was running on the HDD alone with the SSD 200 plus speed and read around 260 plus speed but when I added another SSD on the optical bay and set it up in RAID 0 I got more speed than what I expected.

Nov 23, 2015 10:48 PM in response to Switch900

Switch900 wrote:


about the firmware I think you have to let apple do this not nvidia, I have been reading and trying to research this bug problem with apple nvidia chipset that came with it. and I am still searching to find this problem so I could post it here.


Hopefully you can find an iMac9,1 firmware updater that I can use myself because I certainly don't want to travel 1 hour to my nearest Apple store, then pay for expensive parking, and then pay Apple to perform the firmware update. Doing it myself, if possible, is preferred.


As to the 6G speeds you posted here (and in our now-dead thread), I don't doubt you at all. I spoke with OWC and they confirmed that the iMac11,1 (late 2009) will indeed give 6G throughput when two same-sized SSDs are mounted internally (1 in the HDD slot and the other in the Optical bay). So I am not worried about my iMac at home (the 11,1). I am simply hoping this iMac9,1 at the office can be fixed to give 3G speeds.

Nov 23, 2015 11:13 PM in response to Switch900

I think it should be in the apple updater it automatically would update it, I know that when are using the public beta of el capitan and yosemite sometimes it would need to update the firmware, I have mine with password protection so no newer update will cripple my iMac, which is in many cases that apple will launch an update on their OS for certain machines and it could cripple some features even slow down your machine, But don't take my word for it, I just research and read many blogs about this PRAM reset thing but I think it won't work at all.

Best COMPATIBLE ssd for NVidia MCP79 chipset?

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