I just tried reformatting my SSD using 1 partition (Apple Partition Map for PPC) via Disk Utility under lion, with the SSD connected to the Mac via Firewire. Disk Utility coughed up the following error:
"unable to write to the last block of the device"
Tried formatting several times, to no avail.
I then unmounted, yanked the Firewire cable, then connected to my iMac via the drive's USB interface. This time Disk Utility allowed me to partition it. I then copied a 700MB disk image to the drive (via USB) and after that a 7GB file too. No problems.
Not sure what the deal is with the Firewire connection. This is a FW400 drive, so I had to use this adapter in order to plug it into my Intel iMac:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/FIR1369AD/
Anyway, with the drive still connected via USB, after copying those big files, I then ran another Disk Utility check on the SSD. No problem. I then erased it in Disk Utility. No problems.
UPDATE: I just ran Intech's SpeedTools Utilities Pro 3.7 on my iMac, using the Test Data Transfer Integrity function. I set the Test Size to 1MB and duration of 10 minutes. The average WRITE speed via the rather slow IDE interface of this external drive got me 28.6MB/s, and READ speed of 29.6MB/s (connected to the Mac via USB). No errors to report. I think this proves the SSD is good.
I also tried the same Transfer Test via the FireWire connection. It failed. So I then looked through my OWC SSD box and found a USB cable that has a power connector at the other end. It made sense that this drive must not be getting the power it needs via the FireWire cable (perhaps due to the FW800-FW400 adapter?), so I connected the power to the drive (via USB from my iMac) and then used the FireWire cable for data transfer and started the test again. This time it completed the test without error. Average WRITEs were 24.6MB/s and READs were 35.5MB/s. Not sure why the READs are slower than USB, but the WRITES certainly are faster. No "fast" by any means, but that's understandable in light of the fact this is a "legacy" SSD with an older IDE/ATA interface.
"unable to write to the last block of the device"
Tried formatting several times, to no avail.
I then unmounted, yanked the Firewire cable, then connected to my iMac via the drive's USB interface. This time Disk Utility allowed me to partition it. I then copied a 700MB disk image to the drive (via USB) and after that a 7GB file too. No problems.
Not sure what the deal is with the Firewire connection. This is a FW400 drive, so I had to use this adapter in order to plug it into my Intel iMac:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/FIR1369AD/
Anyway, with the drive still connected via USB, after copying those big files, I then ran another Disk Utility check on the SSD. No problem. I then erased it in Disk Utility. No problems.
UPDATE: I just ran Intech's SpeedTools Utilities Pro 3.7 on my iMac, using the Test Data Transfer Integrity function. I set the Test Size to 1MB and duration of 10 minutes. The average WRITE speed via the rather slow IDE interface of this external drive got me 28.6MB/s, and READ speed of 29.6MB/s (connected to the Mac via USB). No errors to report. I think this proves the SSD is good.
I also tried the same Transfer Test via the FireWire connection. It failed. So I then looked through my OWC SSD box and found a USB cable that has a power connector at the other end. It made sense that this drive must not be getting the power it needs via the FireWire cable (perhaps due to the FW800-FW400 adapter?), so I connected the power to the drive (via USB from my iMac) and then used the FireWire cable for data transfer and started the test again. This time it completed the test without error. Average WRITEs were 24.6MB/s and READs were 35.5MB/s. Not sure why the READs are slower than USB, but the WRITES certainly are faster. No "fast" by any means, but that's understandable in light of the fact this is a "legacy" SSD with an older IDE/ATA interface.