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This is great – very tempted to grab the OWC SSD. Is this “risk free” offer valid for international orders as well?
Yes, the “risk free” offer certainly is valid for international orders too.
Really too bad these 6G units are a flop for MBP 17. Guess I didn’t read the fine print when I got mine, wasting a week trying to get it to work. Without any glimmer of hope that there will be some sort of fix – I am unfortunately returning my 240gb model. Back to drawing board getting an old fashioned 3G…
Yes Robert…it is a shame this is a random aspect related to those MBP models and any brand 6G SSD use. We do have this note on our SSD pages to alert customers of the issue:
2011 MacBook Pro 17″ (Model ID MacBookPro8,3)
There are sporadic reports of 2011 17″ MacBook Pro “Core i7” models (model ID 8,3) exhibiting fluctuating performance results with ANY brand 6Gb/s SATA Revision 3.0 SSD. It has been determined this is related to an Apple manufacturing issue. Some customers have found the OWC Shielding Kit improves some or all of the performance results, however there are instances where it has not. The fluctuating performance results do not occur when using our ‘3G’ (3Gb/s) SSD model in this machine.
And I hope you at least took advantage of our 30 day money back guarantee so only “cost” was time…but now you know and can get our 3G EXTREME worry free.
Hopefully my joy is not premature, but let me see if I can help the community (and OWC out) with my findings on this matter.
After much contemplation, I was more bothered knowing that I have a $3k DUD laptop. DUD since some folks get 6G and I get putz. So I called up Apple Customer Relations to express my frustration. It was a last ditch effort, since Apple engineering had already basically told me “not an Apple problem, it’s the 3rd party manufacturer’s” line. The CSR set up an appointment for me today at the Apple Store. The hope was they would “try” a few other machines out with the drive to see if we could swap my machine for a working machine.
So here I am at “Genius” Bar and quickly I realized these guys where giving me the funny look as I am explaining this system malfunction. Sadly, this genius hadn’t a clue what I was talking about 6G, 3G, Sata II, Sata III, 250MB/s versus 500MB/s, so I boiled it down to FAST versus REALLY FAST. Oh, okay. After he spoke to his manager, they said they would do a complimentary exchange to a new [random] machine – but only ONCE. Obviously I had no interest in this one shot crap shoot.
My solution was to buy another machine on the spot, have them put my OWC 6G in, and see if it works. If it didn’t, I was going to return it, rinse, and repeat the process until they got me a machine that works. If I exhausted my “allowed returns”, my wife would come down and continue. My friends. Colleagues. He got the picture, I was NOT going away until I had a working machine or they exhausted their inventory (5th Ave NYC would have been a long time to do that!).
IT WORKED – 6G link speed and 480MB/s test results!
Happily I packed up both machines – my old one and the new one I bought. The old one had to be brought home to finish moving my Optibay doubler, memory, and repack in original box. The fact that doubler was still in old machine added to fact I couldn’t just swap machines on the spot – woops…
….
Okay, that’s the background. Now on to some concrete tests and findings:
Old Machine
2.2Ghz 17″ / Week 6 Assembly
New Machine
2.3Ghz 17″ AG / Week 10 Assembly (took advantage of fact they had one in stock)
….
Step 1:
– The new machine initially contained only the OWC 240g Pro 6G with the unshielded (not modified) SATA cable. This consistently booted with no hangs, no beachballs, and solid MB/s results.
Step 2:
– Moved original machine cable, which I added shielding to, to the new machine. FAIL.
Finding:
– The original factory cable from old machine did not support 6G. It works fine in 3G. Since I shielded the first cable during initial installation in old machine, I CANNOT say if the shielding kit introduced the problem (through misapplication or defect) or the original cable itself is defective and/or not rated for 6G.
*** So far, a few hours running new machine with new cable I can say the new machine had nothing to do with the solution. It was the factory cable – UNEQUIVOCALLY
That said, 6G drive makers want to get this problem behind em, I suggest someone find better cables which are rated and tested for 6G, since Apple isn’t providing them. The hit or miss everyone has been speaking of sounds like the cables are rated 3G and sometimes the top x% actually handle 6G, while remaining % don’t.
Hope this helps anyone else having problems – I doubt there’s any motherboard / controller / firmware issue based on my direct findings.
Cheers
PS – Feel free to mail me for additional info if needed
Whats up with the story about the latest SandForce controllers being defective and does it effect the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G?
HardMac has been advised and is changing their very dangerously misleading headline.
The correctly point out in the story text:
“Not everything is clear yet but according to OCZ, the problem is different for the disk that don’t use the SandForce standard design, which is the case of OCZ’s disks. On those, the problem could be solved through a simple firmware update while the other manufacturers will probably have to recall the disks. While the problem is affecting only 1% of the disks,….”
Thus, this issue as we know it is due to other manufacturers not following the standard design and/or modifying firmware beyond SandForce paramenters.
For the record, OWC SSDs are not experiencing any issue related to above and in fact, we have found them so reliable that we now offer a five year warranty on the EXTREME Pro 6G line…the first warranty of its kind in the SSD industry.
There are no forum posts, articles, etc. that imply or say directly anything of the sort that OWC is affected by this. There is no recall of OWC SSDs…and in fact, we’re readying an announcement of a new line of SF based 6G SSDs!
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This is great – very tempted to grab the OWC SSD. Is this “risk free” offer valid for international orders as well?
Yes, the “risk free” offer certainly is valid for international orders too.
Really too bad these 6G units are a flop for MBP 17. Guess I didn’t read the fine print when I got mine, wasting a week trying to get it to work. Without any glimmer of hope that there will be some sort of fix – I am unfortunately returning my 240gb model. Back to drawing board getting an old fashioned 3G…
Yes Robert…it is a shame this is a random aspect related to those MBP models and any brand 6G SSD use. We do have this note on our SSD pages to alert customers of the issue:
2011 MacBook Pro 17″ (Model ID MacBookPro8,3)
There are sporadic reports of 2011 17″ MacBook Pro “Core i7” models (model ID 8,3) exhibiting fluctuating performance results with ANY brand 6Gb/s SATA Revision 3.0 SSD. It has been determined this is related to an Apple manufacturing issue. Some customers have found the OWC Shielding Kit improves some or all of the performance results, however there are instances where it has not. The fluctuating performance results do not occur when using our ‘3G’ (3Gb/s) SSD model in this machine.
And I hope you at least took advantage of our 30 day money back guarantee so only “cost” was time…but now you know and can get our 3G EXTREME worry free.
Hopefully my joy is not premature, but let me see if I can help the community (and OWC out) with my findings on this matter.
After much contemplation, I was more bothered knowing that I have a $3k DUD laptop. DUD since some folks get 6G and I get putz. So I called up Apple Customer Relations to express my frustration. It was a last ditch effort, since Apple engineering had already basically told me “not an Apple problem, it’s the 3rd party manufacturer’s” line. The CSR set up an appointment for me today at the Apple Store. The hope was they would “try” a few other machines out with the drive to see if we could swap my machine for a working machine.
So here I am at “Genius” Bar and quickly I realized these guys where giving me the funny look as I am explaining this system malfunction. Sadly, this genius hadn’t a clue what I was talking about 6G, 3G, Sata II, Sata III, 250MB/s versus 500MB/s, so I boiled it down to FAST versus REALLY FAST. Oh, okay. After he spoke to his manager, they said they would do a complimentary exchange to a new [random] machine – but only ONCE. Obviously I had no interest in this one shot crap shoot.
My solution was to buy another machine on the spot, have them put my OWC 6G in, and see if it works. If it didn’t, I was going to return it, rinse, and repeat the process until they got me a machine that works. If I exhausted my “allowed returns”, my wife would come down and continue. My friends. Colleagues. He got the picture, I was NOT going away until I had a working machine or they exhausted their inventory (5th Ave NYC would have been a long time to do that!).
IT WORKED – 6G link speed and 480MB/s test results!
Happily I packed up both machines – my old one and the new one I bought. The old one had to be brought home to finish moving my Optibay doubler, memory, and repack in original box. The fact that doubler was still in old machine added to fact I couldn’t just swap machines on the spot – woops…
….
Okay, that’s the background. Now on to some concrete tests and findings:
Old Machine
2.2Ghz 17″ / Week 6 Assembly
New Machine
2.3Ghz 17″ AG / Week 10 Assembly (took advantage of fact they had one in stock)
….
Step 1:
– The new machine initially contained only the OWC 240g Pro 6G with the unshielded (not modified) SATA cable. This consistently booted with no hangs, no beachballs, and solid MB/s results.
Step 2:
– Moved original machine cable, which I added shielding to, to the new machine. FAIL.
Finding:
– The original factory cable from old machine did not support 6G. It works fine in 3G. Since I shielded the first cable during initial installation in old machine, I CANNOT say if the shielding kit introduced the problem (through misapplication or defect) or the original cable itself is defective and/or not rated for 6G.
*** So far, a few hours running new machine with new cable I can say the new machine had nothing to do with the solution. It was the factory cable – UNEQUIVOCALLY
That said, 6G drive makers want to get this problem behind em, I suggest someone find better cables which are rated and tested for 6G, since Apple isn’t providing them. The hit or miss everyone has been speaking of sounds like the cables are rated 3G and sometimes the top x% actually handle 6G, while remaining % don’t.
Hope this helps anyone else having problems – I doubt there’s any motherboard / controller / firmware issue based on my direct findings.
Cheers
PS – Feel free to mail me for additional info if needed
Whats up with the story about the latest SandForce controllers being defective and does it effect the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G?
HardMac has been advised and is changing their very dangerously misleading headline.
The correctly point out in the story text:
“Not everything is clear yet but according to OCZ, the problem is different for the disk that don’t use the SandForce standard design, which is the case of OCZ’s disks. On those, the problem could be solved through a simple firmware update while the other manufacturers will probably have to recall the disks. While the problem is affecting only 1% of the disks,….”
Thus, this issue as we know it is due to other manufacturers not following the standard design and/or modifying firmware beyond SandForce paramenters.
For the record, OWC SSDs are not experiencing any issue related to above and in fact, we have found them so reliable that we now offer a five year warranty on the EXTREME Pro 6G line…the first warranty of its kind in the SSD industry.
There are no forum posts, articles, etc. that imply or say directly anything of the sort that OWC is affected by this. There is no recall of OWC SSDs…and in fact, we’re readying an announcement of a new line of SF based 6G SSDs!
In other words, myth busted.