OCZ OCTANE SSD corruption only with 10.6 and 10.8 NOT 10.7!!!

[sidkn33]

Hello all and thanks to the team for all their efforts - through you, I have been enjoying awesome i7 Sandybridge performance for some months, with both reliability and affordability in running Logic Studio, instead of having to rely on a now thoroughly overpriced and outdated Mac Pro.

I have an odd SSD issue - which is severe and predictable - the behaviour repeats each time, it is not a one-off.
(The SSD has been updated to the latest firmware via a Windows machine).

I say "odd" for good reason - it happens ONLY after booting the second time into OSX.
That is: After a fresh install, the first boot is successful, but then after the first reboot (and thus second fresh boot) their is some kind of disk corruption on my Octane 2 SSD which renders the system effectively dead.

All further boots are the same:

System hangs on white Apple icon screen and eventually the machine restarts completely (of its own accord so to speak).
In verbose mode the system pauses at "FIPS USER SPACE POST SUCCESS" then after about 3 minutes or so, there is a mass of text, that appears to be referring to disk errors (the text is unreadable as it is too fast!) but there is some mention of "media is not present".

I have taken a photo of the screen using my iPad but it is unavoidably blurred.

What is really odd is that this only affects Snow Leopard and now Mountain Lion, it does not affect Lion.
I gave up on 10.6 with this SSD due to these errors and was surprised to find that Lion was unaffected - I have been running Lion 10.7.4 for a month without issue.
I assumed that Mountain Lion would also be OK - that whatever changes to SSD support were implemented in Lion would be carried over.
I was wrong.

Steps taken:

1. Installed ML via Unibeast 1.5 to old SATA (none-SSD) drive.
All fine.
Reboots repeatedly without issue.

2. Cloned using Carbon Copy Cloner to Octane SSD - all fine on first boot, then corruption occurs and cannot boot a second time.

3. Tried fresh install of ML to SSD using Unibeast 1.5, thinking Carbon Copy Cloner could be source of the problem above, all fine, boots after restart after installation. Then after first re-boot, corruption - no boot.

I have run through these steps three times at least and the behaviour repeats and then

4. Used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone previous Lion system back to SSD - clones without issue and boots into Lion from SSD, fast and without issue, repeatedly.
There are no hangs or errors.

So, with evidence, something is happening further to the second boot into Snow Leopard and/or Mountain Lion, specifically when using my Octane 2 128Gb SSD that causes a disk problem and renders the OS unbootable.
This does not affect Lion.

Any ideas or assistance is gratefully received, though comments along the lines of "why did you buy a POS OCZ SSD?" aren't necessarily all that welcome as whatever is happening, it is not absolutely true of all three OSX versions listed above.

My system is:

GA-Z68XP-UD3 F10
16Gb 1600 RAM
9800GT 512mb
i7 2600k

2x SATA drives
1x Octane SSD

 

[crunky404]

I know you asked for people not to talk crap on your OCZ SSD, but they really are abysmal. Check the RMA rates on OCZ brand SSD vs all other brands...

I've seen similar issues happen with other people. SSDs just seem to fail in atypical ways like this. I had a Mushkin drive that died and it showed similar behavior, random reboots and sudden bursts of I/O error while using Lion.

If I were you I'd do a stress test on the SSD from a boot CD or something to try and rule the SSD out. SSD corruption does not happen as the result of how a particular OS treats it. IIRC this issue with SSDs "accidentally" disconnecting/reconnecting themselves during system operation is the result of a bug in the SSD controller itself so you probably should check and see if your model is affected. I don't think this is an issue specific to OS X.

 

[sidkn33]

Thanks - I know, I know - the OCZ drives appear to suck.
BUT, and this is a critical point: The problem does not affect Lion.

I am, and have been for several weeks now, running 10.7.4 without issue.
I must have rebooted my rig 100 times or more and there has been no corruption, or boot problems on the Octane drive.

But when I tried the drive with SL and then ML - drive errors occurred on the second boot (as I detailed in the post).

So for example, I have a working copy of Mountain Lion 10.8 on a standard sata 500gb drive.
No problems - boots and works over and over again.

I also have an image of Lion 10.7.4 which boots fine from a standard drive AND an image of SL 10.6.8 - works fine from any SATA drive.

If I use Carbon copy cloner to copy

1. The Snow Leopard image to the SSD - it copies fine, boots once, then won't boot again.
2. The Lion 10.7.4 image to the Octane SSD, it copies fine AND STAYS FINE - I am typing this from that drive now.
3. The ML 10.8 image to the SSD, same thing happens as with SL - it boots once, but won't boot again.

So the question is I guess, what the hell is the difference between 10.6.8, 10.7.4 and 10.8.0 that causes only 10.7.4 to work smoothly with the Octane drive?!

 

[sidkn33]

Just found this on the OCZ support forum - guess that's an answer, at least for now.

Mountain Lion and OCZ Octane, Petrol, and Octane S2 SSD's.

OCZ is aware of the issue regarding Mountain Lion and the above OCZ SSD models. We have the firmware team looking into the issue and we will post an update or fix as soon as one is available.

Thank you for your patience.

 

[objective-x]

Hey sidkn33,

I have an OCZ Octane as well and it's exhibiting the exact same problem (doesn't boot, console floods with IO errors). I had the original drive RMA'd but the new one exhibits the same symptoms. Mine worked fine in 10.7 as well.

The fact that OCZ acknowledges the issue is a step forward. Here's a link to the official announcement. In the meantime, someone on the OCZ forums has a proposed workaround. I haven't tested it myself yet:

#1 Boot into SAFE MODE by holding down SHIFT.

#2 Open Terminal, type in this command; sudo rm -f /private/var/db/BootCache.playlist

#3 Shut down your Mac.

#4 Start it again but this time, hold down COMMAND-S to boot into SINGLE USER MODE

#5 Your Mac will boot up and show some funky text (yeah, that what's behind the apple) - you'll be presented with a prompt.
Just type in exit and your Mac will start up normally.

 

[kyron]

I have an OCZ Octane SSD 120GB and it works fine on OSX 10.8.1 with no problem

 

[objective-x]

I have an OCZ Octane SSD 120GB and it works fine on OSX 10.8.1 with no problem

Good to hear! Once I'm done backing up I will give 10.8.1 a try this afternoon.

Update: Nope, still won't work.

 

[objective-x]

Here's the latest update:

OCZ is making significant progress on a firmware update which is now in validation and will be released in the very near future. This update will provide full support for OS X Mountain Lion and our support team will provide timely updates as we get closer to the firmware release, as well as a detailed update procedure when the new firmware is made available.

Also someone's come up with another possible fix in the interim:

I just got an Octane 256GB this morning and was very upset to find my machine unbootable. After reading these forums I got it booting by deleting the BootCache.playlist file. I obviously wanted a more persistent fix. So, I disabled OS X's boot caching:

sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext ~/

If you do this from the Terminal in Mountain Lion's recovery partition it'll look a little different:

mv /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/<your user name>

This moves the kernel extension in OS X that handles the BootCache.playlist file to your home directory. Without that extension in place OS X cannot read or write a boot cache file. So, the machine will boot a little more slowly but, at least it'll boot and continue to do so.

Note: it is likely any updates to OS X will put the extension back.

 

[objective-x]

Looks like the update is live.

I used the above workaround and it's been fine for me so far, so I'll be waiting to hear confirmation that the firmware update works before upgrading.

 

[giacomo892]

Is there a way to upgrade the FW?? The live linux update tool still show 3.15!