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P256 and 13"MacBook Pro 2.56ghz


saas

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Hi guys!

 

tomorrow I will receive the new 13" MBP 2.56ghz 4GB, together with a P256 bought separately. I was really looking forward to pair the two for a super-fast road warrior - but today I found the net swamped with news on the new MBPs being shipped with 1.5GB Sata I...

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=718516

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2036732&tstart=0

 

Have anybody installed the P256 in the new MBP?

 

Given (god forbid) that Apple does not make up for this mistake, how will P256 using Sata I perform in my everyday life? I am mostly concerned by OS and App boot times, general MS Office use, 20 browser tabs and iPhoto.

 

Bottom line - is the P256 worth the bucks in the new MBP, or should I return it unopened...

 

Edit - just found this on the Apple.com forum:

I just bought the New MacBook Pro 15" 2.8 Ghz 4Gig Ram and 500 Gig drive and it's also saying Serial-ATA 1.5 Gigabits, so the issues is not only with the 13"

 

I actually just added a Corsair 256Gig SSD and it's runing slower then My Old MacBook Unibody Early 2009 with Corsair 128 Gig.

 

I have to say the LCD monitor seems to be inferior too. Looks like the density of the pixel are less. I can see the pixels, and it's driving crazy.

 

I am very disapointed as well.

 

MacBook Pro 5,3 Unibody Mid 2009 Mac OS X (10.5.7)

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  • Corsair Employee

The P256 is one of the fastest drives on the market I have not seen any test results with this system but I will see if we have tested it specifically.

However, it should perform with out problems as far as I know and I am sorry you would have to talk to Apple about the other questions!

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  • Corsair Employee

This was taken from another post by Legend and the results will be close to the same and should be a bit faster for the P256:

Below is our Lab test results on SATA I. Testing was done on a netbook with Intel ICH7-M Storage controller.

 

S128= 70MB/s write 90MB/s read

 

P128= 125MB/s write 125MB/s read

Also from the same source for P256:

SATA I = 125MB/s write 125MB/s read

 

SATA II= 200MB/s write 220MB/s read

 

These are actual up to speeds and usually bandwidth will not reach to the 200MB/s range unless it is a file that is above 1MB in size. Actual performance difference in OS will be less, since OS will usually do 4K reads and writes

 

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I installed the P256 on my brand new MBP 13" 2.53 Ghz on Friday 06/12/2009.

 

First I booted on the stock 250gb HDD to and downloaded all updates, in case I have to return the notebook, so I can just install the factory drive in perfect condition.

 

After, I replaced the stock HDD with the P256 SSD; it is fairly simple to do the install if you have some technical skills. I am a dentist, so you don't need to be an engineer to do the swap...

 

Anyway, did a fresh install after the swap and downloaded all updates and installed all my software. Everything went without any issues.

 

Once the machine was setup and updated, I tried running it side by side with the MBA Rev. A 1.8 Ghz 64gb SSD it replaces and boy was I in for a sweet surprise... IT IS FAST, VERY VERY FAST... And I was happy like a kid on Christmas morning!!!

 

Yesterday I found out about the 1.5 Gbps SATA restriction and was obviously bummed about it, ran X Bench and the results are 135 MB/s Read - 95 MB/s Write which are less than spectacular for this drive, although it is not a problem with the drive itself, but the motherboard... FYI my workstation runs the same P256 at 210 MB/s Read - 190 MB/s Write benched from the drive itself which is not ideal.

 

Now for my opinion, and I apologize in advance if I offend anyone or if I say something technically incorrect. I currently have three P256 SSD's, two of them power my workstation and my wife's workstation which are identical machines: core i7 920, 12gb DDR3 RAM, NVIDIA QUADRO FX 3800 GPU's, dual 30" monitors, running 64bit Windows 7 RC. The third P256 is on my MBP 13" as mentioned before. Obviously all three machines are extremely fast. The workstations are faster when it comes down to very resource hungry applications like AutoCAD and 3DS Max, but they have $900 graphics cards and where built for that kind of work and are full size workstations comparable to the new MacPro Tower, albeit running windows because of software compatibility.

 

As far as regular activity (Word, Excel, file copying, downloading, copying within the network) I can not tell the difference between the $5000 workstations and the $1399 MBP 13" with the P256 SSD except when I copy large files from one workstation to the other which is a bit faster; however the workstations are wired while the MBP is wireless into the same network.

 

The last thing I did was install the stock HDD back into the MBP and try it around, and I can honestly say, you can feel the difference without the P256; so I happily installed the P256 back into the MBP 13" and typed this post.

 

Hopefully the 1.5 Gbps issue is firmware correctable by Apple and not hardware related. Personally I do believe labeling this machine a Pro without a 3 Gbps interface is unfair specially when the previous non-pro model had a 3 Gbps interface, but at the end of the day I will still be reading replies to this post from a machine that I personally think is spectacular!!!

 

Maybe Apple will give us a surprise update and make this machines beyond spectacular and into the realm of perfect by magically enabling 3.0 Gbps through an update thus rewarding those of us who are earlier adopters and spent considerable amounts of money on their products...

 

Just my two cents...

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dayd to day use not likely to notice the Sata operateing at 130MB/s as you have to be using E-sata with an second P256 on that and one inside, even over gigabit ports still will only get 120MB/s out of it

 

with SSDs its all about Access times or lack of it that makes them respond so fast any SSD that has cache on it will fly norm (S128 P128 or p256)

 

i ahve an S128 now now alot may think that 80MB/s read and 70MB/s Write would be slower then an Norm hdd as most at the start of the disk is 100MB/s now (avg 80MB/s) but every thing just loads Right away as an HDD suffers under any que loads as the HDD head can only be at one spot and has to seek a lot if there is a lot of reads and Writes going on you get the sLow loading program times (5200 RPM drives in laptops are slow to start off with any way with access times 200x slower or more around 15-24ms SSDs mostly stay below 0.5ms<)

 

do not see the big fuss in Sata 1 on the new macs to save power under norm use you never get 90MB/s speeds any way (ignoring SSDs that Most users would not be using and even if so above still apply's)

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Apple just released a firmware update that allows the SATA interface to function at 3Gbps thus solving the problem for the MBP 13" and 15" with the P256

 

Just finished running X-Bench and the results for the drive are amazing (210 MB/s Read - 190 MB/s Write)

 

Here is the link to the update, you can also get it through Apple Software Update.

 

http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacBook_Pro_EFI_Firmware_Update_1_7_

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3561

 

Enjoy!!!

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  • 3 weeks later...
Apple just released a firmware update that allows the SATA interface to function at 3Gbps thus solving the problem for the MBP 13" and 15" with the P256

 

Just finished running X-Bench and the results for the drive are amazing (210 MB/s Read - 190 MB/s Write)

 

Here is the link to the update, you can also get it through Apple Software Update.

 

http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacBook_Pro_EFI_Firmware_Update_1_7_

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3561

 

Enjoy!!!

 

Miula,

 

Have you had any problems after applying firmware update 1.7 on your Macbook Pro?

 

Lots of folks are reporting that their drives (not necessary SSD, but HD as well) are freezing randomly after applying 1.7, and I'm just wondering if the Corsair P256/P128 is affected.

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Hello,

perhaps i can make thinks hum. I use a macbook pro 15'' 2,33GHZ with the AHCI-M SATA Controller. Since the specs on the intel side say that AHCI Version 1.10 supports 3GHZ opteration, apple considered to patch the firmware to only allow 1,5GHZ opteration. But in the 1.1 AHCI Specs Version 1.10 supports 3GBit opteration via HBA Capabilities in the 00h Offset:

Bit 20-23: 0010 Gen 1 (1.5 Gbps) and Gen 2 (3 Gbps) So the EFI firmware has set this bits to 0001 and allow only 1,5GBit. The works so far, i can get 120 MB/s raw output and tha'ts enough for me. The Hitachi 7,2K on did 37MB Raw output, so the drive is ok and very fast. Bzt i have the same problems you mentioned. Sometimes programs stall and then, after 5 seconds, came back again. I crosschecked it via iostat but didn't find any problems. Last week there was a efi update and that killed something. Perhaps they made a fatal mistake in the firmware ? I will now build a custom kernel, but the sources are older than the current release. But that's ok for me if i get things back working.

One severe problem i have is, that after replacing the harddisk with the P256 i have no sound anymore. The interface isn't listed anymore. After several PRAM/NVRAM resets it worked for one hour and then the onboard audio went away. It seems the the new macbook pro's have similar problems (reported from other friends with newer ones).For me the firmware is bad and should be patched. Anyone news about it ?

 

Rgds.

Mr. Hanky

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I would suggest contacting Apple and see what they say!

 

They never contacted me.

By now, i tested the disk extensively. There seem to be a problem with SSD and other IO Devices. It should be correctable via firmware update. I dumped the nvram and saw that the device is limited to 1,5GB. But the 3GB is not that fast as it should. The 945GM seems to be a little too "historic" to get on the limit. Lets wait till the nehalem release next year.

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Now the audio suddenly works again. I think this is a side effect when attaching a USB/FIREWIRE/ESATA device when using the ssd. If i don't connect anything, the audio works. But if i attach the USB Disk, then the audio interface will go down. Can reporduce it anytime. So it is a firmware bug. I think the IO reserved memory doesn't cover so much interfaces.
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Miula,

 

Have you had any problems after applying firmware update 1.7 on your Macbook Pro?

 

Lots of folks are reporting that their drives (not necessary SSD, but HD as well) are freezing randomly after applying 1.7, and I'm just wondering if the Corsair P256/P128 is affected.

 

I have the 1.7 EFI installed on my 13" MBP 2.53 Ghz with the P256 SSD and it works without any issues. The X-Bench scores almost doubled after the update and the computer feels faster when copying large files as well as handling large files in intensive applications like Photoshop CS4.

 

Luckily I haven't experienced any beach balls or stutters.

 

Used SMART utlity to check for CRC errors as suggested in other forums; ID#199 UDMA CRC Error Count = 0

 

Either I got lucky with my 13" MBP or the 13" MBP & P256 SSD are not susceptible to this particular issue.

 

In either case, I couldn't be happier with the MBP & P256 (well maybe if I got it for free, LOL)

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I have the 1.7 EFI installed on my 13" MBP 2.53 Ghz with the P256 SSD and it works without any issues. The X-Bench scores almost doubled after the update and the computer feels faster when copying large files as well as handling large files in intensive applications like Photoshop CS4.

 

Ok miula - I'm crossing my fingers here. I just purchased the Corsair 128GB SSD on behalf of your posting here and in the Apple forums. It appears that 90% of 3rd party drives are incompatible with the Macbook Pros running on EFI 1.7; however, these Corsair drives still miraculously work.

 

I'll post again in a few days to let everyone know if the 128 works on EFI 1.7 (for the mid 2009 17" macbook pro).

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Ok miula - I'm crossing my fingers here. I just purchased the Corsair 128GB SSD on behalf of your posting here and in the Apple forums. It appears that 90% of 3rd party drives are incompatible with the Macbook Pros running on EFI 1.7; however, these Corsair drives still miraculously work.

 

I'll post again in a few days to let everyone know if the 128 works on EFI 1.7 (for the mid 2009 17" macbook pro).

 

Yes, please let us know.

I will do the same if I ever decide to update to 1.7.

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By now, i think it is a problem in the power managment of the drive. OSX isn't able to wake up the devices when the SSD is connected. This happens when the OS sends the sleep command but after the wake is issued not all devices come up again. So i tried to step back to 10.5.6 which solved my issue. Now the sound remains and the drive works perfect. Even if getting not the speed you have in your newer models , my book is super fast, no disk spinnigs anymore. The fusion perfromance is truly astonishing. It is fast as working with the disk and native linux-windows. It is good to have the backups to be able to step back if having such an issue. Perhaps this problem will be fixed soon. Snow Leopard ?

 

LANG=C gdd if=/dev/zero of=testfile bs=1M count=100

100+0 records in

100+0 records out

104857600 bytes (105 MB) copied, 0.775209 s, 135 MB/s

 

Old Hitachi 7200 rpm/s 250GB Drive:

LANG=C gdd if=/dev/zero of=testfile count=100 bs=1M

100+0 records in

100+0 records out

104857600 bytes (105 MB) copied, 3.23526 seconds, 32.4 MB/s

 

There's no oflag direct - think bsd don't use caching cause this is pretty the raw io i tested with the same Book with linux using the oflag=direct

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  • Corsair Employee
Thank you for taking the time to let us know, I would suggest talking to Apple Tech support if you have not already as they will want to make a Bug report I am sure or may have some other solution.
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