Patriot Wildfire & Macbook = SLOW

[avaxis]

So I bought the top of the line Patriot Wildfire, for my Macbook 5,1 2008 that supports SATA II to find that it runs at SATA I speeds only, which defeats the purpose of having the Wildfire.

Its running the latest firmware, I installed a fresh copy of Lion on to it and it only manage to link at 1.5 Gigabit instead of 3.0 Gigabit.

How do I fix this?



AFAIK, OWC also uses Sandforce controllers like the Wildfire, and that links at 3.0 Gigabit. Clearly this is a Patriot Wildfire problem.

[Patriot_Ben]

Hello,

How long have you been using the drive for? Out of the 120Gb you have how much of the drive is filled? Can you run some benchmarks on the drive?

Can you try the following: AJA, Quickbench, Blackmagic Disk speed test?

Please advise on the results.

Have you updated the EFI?

[avaxis]

Hi

I have been using it for 4 days. I have used 69.77GB out of 120GB, with 49.4GB available. I have a fresh install of Lion on it, and I have the latest EFI for my Macbook which is version 1.4 for the Macbook 5,1 according to this: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL974

No other EFI versions will install on my Macbook -- I have tried installing 1.7 and it won't install.

AJA doesn't run on MAC OS X Lion. I have attached the results from XBench and Blackmagic.




Another SSD manufacturer O*Z has released a tool to set the speed of their SSD to 3 Gigabit and its reported to work fine for Macbook5,1
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...-of-3Gb-s-link

[Patriot_Ben]

Hello avaxis,

After researching this particular model further we discovered that unfortunately Apple has locked the EFI for this model for 1.5Gb/s instead of 3.0 Gb/s transfer.

Technically the tools that other companies using similar Sandforce controllers are editing the EFI, in which we do not have a similar tweak since it may cause further issues and/or void the warranty.

We would further recommend contacting Apple to see if they can provide an official EFI edit that will open the system to support 3GB/s transfer speeds.

[avaxis]

Hi Patriot_Ben

I appreciate the honest and straightforward answer instead of beating around the bush.

As a feedback I do hope however that Patriot can step up like its competitors and offer similar tools, which is going above and beyond. While I understand there's an inherent risk, Mac users are already taking a risk by installing 3rd party Apple un-approved & un-supported hardware in our machines -- and being un-approved & un-supported, Patriot's tools is basically "use at your own risk", just like the SSD.

So it only make sense if Patriot come forward with such a tool. I do hope you can forward my feedback. The Patriot Wildfire is an awesome product, which is why I bought it -- it would be perfect if Patriot's support for its products matched or exceed its peers.

Thank you, I will go cry in a corner now.

[Patriot_Ben]

Avaxis,

I have forwarded this to the SSD engineers and I certainly will continue to make a push for this.

[sneakers]

I have two drives in my MacBook5,1--a 120GB Patriot Pyro and a 750GB Samsung hard drive (in place of the optical drive). My computer correctly negotiates a 3 Gb/s connection with the Samsung drive, so unless Apple locked the EFI only for certain cases, it doesn't appear to be limited by the EFI. (I have read that Apple has locked down the firmware with some hard drives to 1.5 Gbps, which may be what you're referring to?)

Other forums seem to suggest the problem is the Sandforce 2281 Controller not playing nicely with the NVidia MCP79 chipset Apple used in the MacBook5,1 (and a few other models, I believe). Bummer.

[avaxis]

Well, it is confirmed that other vendors using the Sandforce 2281 Controller has fixed this issue via a firmware flash on the SSD, and negotiates a 3 gbit link for Macbook5,1. That being said I am going to be sticking a Sandforce 2281 SSD from another vendor into my Macbook5,1, and the Patriot is going to my desktop.

[Patriot_Ben]

Well, it is confirmed that other vendors using the Sandforce 2281 Controller has fixed this issue via a firmware flash on the SSD, and negotiates a 3 gbit link for Macbook5,1. That being said I am going to be sticking a Sandforce 2281 SSD from another vendor into my Macbook5,1, and the Patriot is going to my desktop.

The latest version we have is 5.0.1. Do you know what firmware version other vendors are using? I'll check with our SSD Engineers to see if they can provide any insight on this.

[sneakers]

The latest version we have is 5.0.1. Do you know what firmware version other vendors are using? I'll check with our SSD Engineers to see if they can provide any insight on this.

From one of the other vendors... "To everyone wondering what this fix is.. I really don't know what to tell you, it fixes the detection issue, what more can I say? Drive speed detection isn't in the actual firmware, but still stored in the same block of Nand as the firmware. For all intents an purposes, I guess you could say it was in the firmware, but in the interest of the "openess" that people want, it actually isn't."