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Firmware update quietly enables SATA 6Gbps in MacBooks

By | September 15, 2011, 8:45pm PDT

Summary: Nearly seven months after new MacBook Pros arrived, users can now reliably harness the blistering 6Gbps speeds hidden under their aluminum hoods. Oh, and 2011 MacBook Airs have it too. Shhh…

Other World Computing noted in a blog post today that Apple appears to have quietly fixed a pesky SATA 6Gbps bug in its 2011 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with today’s MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.2.

In addition to adding Lion Internet Recovery and the Thunderbolt fixes mentioned in its release notes, the 4.17MB firmware update also squashes a pretty significant bug found in Apple’s secret SATA 6Gbps support in the 2011 MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs.

Why didn’t Apple mention the SATA 6Gbps fix in the release notes?

Apple doesn’t promote the fact that the 2011 MacBook Pros and Airs support SATA 6Gbps because it isn’t officially supported. I bet that it’s because Apple can’t get sufficient quantities of SATA 6Gbps SSD modules. Apple ships its current MacBooks with SATA 3Gbps SSDs and doesn’t want to promote its SATA 6Gbps support until it can ship every unit with a 6Gbps SSD from the factory. What’s the point of promoting SATA 6G when shipping SATA 3G drives?

OWC offers SATA 6G SSDs for the 2011 MacBook Pro in capacities from 60GB to 480GB and for the 2011 MacBook Air in 120GB and 240GB capacities. A 480GB capacity model for the 2011 MBA may be offered in the future but no date has been announced.

SATA 6Gbps is a big deal for users that need to get the absolute maximum performance out their Macs and this is great news for anyone in the market for a SSD upgrade for their MacBook Pro or Air. A SATA 6G SSD is a no-brainer upgrade — if your Mac supports it.

Image: Slashgear

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Firmware Update, Firmware, Serial ATA, Storage, Hardware, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

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RE: Firmware updates quietly enables SATA 6Gbps in MacBooks
jackson1984-24316069205748857739440257893812 10th Oct
Remarkable to get searching your weblog as soon as mulberry outlets all over again, it's been months for me. Properly this submitting that i've been waited for so intensive.
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RE: Firmware updates quietly enables SATA 6Gbps in MacBooks
Bookmark71 15th Sep
I just ran the software update on my 2011 Mac Mini and it updated the firmware to support 6Gbps SATA. I was planning to replace the hard drive with a Seagate Momentus XT SSD/Hybrid drive to improve disk performance over the 5400rpm drive that it comes with but this may change my disk choice.
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RE: Firmware updates quietly enables SATA 6Gbps in MacBooks
MichaelWells 16th Sep
@Bookmark71

I am thinking of doing the same on my MacBook Pro CTO 2.93 Core2Duo. They are supposed to be very good and the boot time with the SSD Hybrid is supposed to be very good. May still be a better option for you, depending upon your needs. I doubt you have seen it yet, since you own a Mac; but HP is offering a 580 and 830 7200RPM Hybrid SSD Drive with 80GB SSD on their new 14" Envy, looks very nice. I wish Apple would offer this. Apple is slow on moving to hardware upgrades for some reason.
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RE: Firmware updates quietly enables SATA 6Gbps in MacBooks
doh123 16th Sep
My 2011 MBP says it only supports 6 in the main connection. So if someone adds an extra hard drive in place of the optical drive... it can only run 3 there.
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awesome
Hobyx 18th Sep
zoooooooom! (if you can afford it)
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RE: Firmware updates quietly enables SATA 6Gbps in MacBooks
jackson1984-24316069205748857739440257893812 10th Oct
Remarkable to get searching your weblog as soon as mulberry outlets all over again, it's been months for me. Properly this submitting that i've been waited for so intensive.

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