{"id":795,"date":"2011-08-12T23:54:45","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T21:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/?p=795"},"modified":"2018-05-08T22:19:00","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T20:19:00","slug":"crucial-m4-ssd-for-macbook-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/2011\/08\/12\/crucial-m4-ssd-for-macbook-pro\/","title":{"rendered":"Crucial M4 SSD For Macbook Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you have a Macbook Pro and you decided to upgrade to Crucial memory and solid-state drive (like mine), then I believe you should read my experience through-out this journey to avoid being upset !<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n<i>Macbook Pro:<\/i><br \/>\nModel Identifier: MacbookPro5,5<br \/>\nProcessor: 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Due<br \/>\nMemory: 4 GB 1066 MHz DDR3<br \/>\nStorage: 250GB Hitachi 5400 rpm HDD<br \/>\nGraphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB<br \/>\nBoot ROM Version: MBP55.00AC.B03 (EFI 1.7)<br \/>\nSoftware: Mac OS X Lion 10.7 (11A511)<\/p>\n<p><i>Crucial Parts:<\/i><br \/>\nMemory: 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3<br \/>\nStorage: 256GB M4 SSD\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><b>Hardware Upgrade:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Upgrading the Memory <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1IlQEMtjHSo\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">video tutorial<\/span><\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Upgrading the Hard Drive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JoHNcjCyAvU\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">video tutorial<\/span><\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>\n<i>If you like to have a bootable version of OS X Lion follow <a href=\"https:\/\/mashable.com\/2011\/07\/20\/lion-clean-install-guide\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">this<\/span><\/a> tutorial.<\/i>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><b>OS X Symptoms:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>System freeze after wake-up from sleep state (open\/close LED) or else with Beach Ball rotating forever.<\/li>\n<li>Start-up flashing Question Mark with Folder, or Circle\/Slash.<\/li>\n<li>Apple Logo with Spinning Gear rotating forever.<\/li>\n<li>Apple Logo with progress bar followed by sudden power-down.<\/li>\n<li>Kernel Panic with the message &#8220;You need to restart your computer.&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Fresh installation failed due to write errors (SystemCache or <a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/kb\/HT4718\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">Recovery HD<\/span><\/a> creation error)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Research Synopsis:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Enabled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NnBk2IGYerU\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">TRIM support<\/span><\/a> is NOT the issue, however, if you did enable TRIM support using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groths.org\/?p=308\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">this<\/span><\/a> tool, then you should know that it&#8217;s just a software command, a new OS X installation will get that back to default state anyway.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/kb\/ht1820\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">Zero Out erase<\/span><\/a> will NOT do any harm to your SSD, it&#8217;s not necessary due to the new write technology, instead you might need to perform an <a href=\"https:\/\/ata.wiki.kernel.org\/index.php\/ATA_Secure_Erase\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">ATA Secure Erase<\/span><\/a>, it&#8217;s an internal procedure literally write nothing to the entire drive, best way to do so is using <a href=\"https:\/\/partedmagic.com\/doku.php?id=downloads\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">Parted Magic Boot CD<\/span><\/a> by following <a href=\"https:\/\/linhost.info\/2010\/06\/parted-magic-erase-a-hard-drive\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">this<\/span><\/a> tutorial.<\/li>\n<li>Crucial DDR3 ?memory kit are NOT the issue, they are working just fine with original HDD.<\/li>\n<li>Resetting <a href=\"https:\/\/video.about.com\/macs\/MacBook-Booting-Problems.htm\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">PRAM and SMC<\/span><\/a> are not going to help in our case.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Solution:<\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Downgrade Macbook Pro <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">EFI<\/span><\/a> to version 1.6 (only if you have version 1.7 installed via Software Update).<\/li>\n<li>Upgrade Crucial M4 SSD <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crucial.com\/support\/firmware.aspx\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">firmware<\/span><\/a> to version 0002.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><b>Step-by-Step:<\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Make sure that you have a higher EFI firmware version 1.7, you can find out from System Information, where &#8220;Boot ROM Version: MBP55.00AC.B03&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Download <a href=\"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/efi_1.6.zip\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">this<\/span><\/a> DMG.<\/li>\n<li>Open DiskUtility and drag the above image to the left.<\/li>\n<li>Plug-in any USB flash drive (no need for large capacity).<\/li>\n<li>Click the USB from the left and erase with &#8220;Mac OS Extended (Journaled)&#8221;??.<\/li>\n<li>Click the image and choose restore.<\/li>\n<li>In the destination drag the USB drive.<\/li>\n<li>Click restore.<\/li>\n<li>Reboot while holding the option key to select the USB drive from boot menu.<\/li>\n<li>Apple logo will come up and a dark gray bar will start to move right under it.<\/li>\n<li>Sit relax and wait for the process to be done.?<\/li>\n<li>Macbook Pro will reboot automatically.<\/li>\n<li>Open System Information and make sure that Boot ROM Version is MBP55.00AC.B00?.<\/li>\n<li>Now perform Crucial firmware update following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crucial.com\/firmware\/m4\/0002\/ProductFlyer-letter_m4-firmware0002_06-11.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">their<\/span><\/a> official guide.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><b>Tips on Note:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you&#8217;re going to use iStat Pro widget, disable the polling of S.M.A.R.T status, it may cause SSD freeze according to other users experiences.?<\/li>\n<li>If your Keyboard Backlight went dead after replacing new hardware, you might accidentally slipped the ZIF Ribbon Connector next to memory banks, shutdown your Macbook Pro and use a plastic tiny tool to manually fix that ribbon, do it carefully, it&#8217;s a bit hard to put back in place.\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/zif_ribbon.jpg\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\" \/>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Conclusion:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>EFI 1.7 is a disaster for Macbook Pro with third-party SSD !<\/li>\n<li>EFI 1.6 limits data transfers to 1.5 GB\/s.<\/li>\n<li>An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcetech.com\/optibay\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#EF6596;\">OptiBay<\/span><\/a> can increase data transfer to 3 Gb\/s with EFI 1.7.<\/li>\n<li>Apple is pushing hard to prevent third-party hardware upgrades, in other words, they probably won&#8217;t release any future EFI firmware updates to resolve any of these issues !<br \/>If the impossible happened and Apple did release EFI 1.8 for MacbookPro5,5 I will make that update and perform all necessary testing to post back here, meanwhile I think it&#8217;s better to live with 1.5 GB\/s (EFI 1.6).<\/li>\n<li>Crucial seems to care more about us, hopefully the next M4 SSD firmware update resolves my issues without the need to downgrade Apple&#8217;s EFI firmware !<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you have a Macbook Pro and you decided to upgrade to Crucial memory and solid-state drive (like mine), then I believe you should read my experience through-out this journey to avoid being upset ! Macbook Pro: Model Identifier: MacbookPro5,5 Processor: 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Due Memory: 4 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 Storage: 250GB [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,68],"tags":[73,74,71,69,72,70,33],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-53","category-august-2011","tag-efi","tag-firmware","tag-m4","tag-macbook-pro","tag-os-x-lion","tag-ssd","tag-Thought"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1227,"href":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions\/1227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ixdc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}