Question 1

one of the reviews said that he locked this drive for encryption purposes.  then the motherboard failed and Mushkin didn't provide for a software solution to unlock the drive.  which effectively means the drive is unusable.  the motherboard on my last 2 pc's died.  so this is a concern to me.  my question is do you have to lock this drive?

Accepted Answer

I never locked mine.  I seemingly have had two issues with these, though I am not going to blame the drives as yet.

First issue was that after a week of having Windows 7 on one, it became really slow, I mean taking 8 hours to reboot slow.  Found out, it was because one of my other hard drives had an 'unclean' NTFS partition, after forcing a chkdsk on everything, it runs awesomely.  Second issue was last night, my Linux drive locked up, and when I hit the reset button, Grub basically said that the drive wasn't there.  A simple power off and on fixed it, but that could very well be due to me running Debian Testing.

If you're worried about your motherboard failing on you, I'd suggest sticking with ASUS brand motherboards.  They may be a bit more money, but I have yet to have one die on me.

Question 2

Is this SSD drive compatible in a Lenovo Thinkpad W520 laptop?

Accepted Answer

Yes. It will work just fine. 
Here's more useful information

storagereview dot
com/lenovo_thinkpad_w520_upgrade_guide

Question 3

macbook pro compatible?

Accepted Answer

Sure is I love this SSD in my 2011 MacBook Pro. 
Make sure to tape the chord down when installing it can come loose inside your computer if you aren't careful

Question 4

Is this a TLC, MLC, or SLC SSD Drive?

Accepted Answer

Thank you for asking this question. I am wondering the same thing. The official manufacturer page doesn't indicate this, and when I used the "drill down" menu and narrowed it to only MLC or SLC drives made by Munshkin, this item completely disappears.

It makes no sense that they'd be intentional about obfuscating the cell style of this drive. As an aside, i can't believe one answer was "This is an SSD Drive". REALLY? Thanks, genius!

Question 5

Is this SSD backwards compatible for use in SATA I or II?  I have an early MBP running Mavericks 10.9.5  (Mid 2009)  Thanks!

Accepted Answer

This is backward compatible.  I had one of this exact model running in a SATA-II box myself until recently with no hardware compatibility issues.  (It's still fine, I just replaced it with a larger Samsung 850 Pro.)

Question 6

Is this drive compatible with the Sony SVP132A1CL?

Accepted Answer

Hi.  Me again.  I forgot that this device is an EXTERNAL USB 3.0 drive.  So my answer is not correct.  You could use this device with your computer by simply plugging it into a USB port, USB 2.0 or 3.0.  If you really want an internal drive HGST makes those too.  They have 5K and 7K versions that could be used to replace the boot drive in a laptop.  But this external drive can not be used for that purpose.

Question 7

I purchased this SSD on black Friday and have been using it now for around a month with no problems. It seems like most of the people who bought it have had it die within the same amount of time so i was just curious as to if the reviews are just filled up with angry customers who got lemons or if this drive does indeed fail that much? (If its relevant, i have it in a PC not a laptop)

Accepted Answer

My son and I each have one running for almost 4 months without issue. Sometimes it seems a little slow but think that's just me getting used to the speediness. Good luck with your drive.

Question 8

Maybe I missed it but does it come with any sort of drive cloning software?

Accepted Answer

No drive cloning software. I had a main HD failure and replaced it with the solid state drive. All is fine now.

Question 9

Will it fit a 15" MacBook pro retina ? Will it need an adapter if so ?

Accepted Answer

Micah is incorrect. rMBP SSD is NOT soldered to the motherboard.

First: MBA and rMBP up to early 2013 use an eSATA card that you can buy from places like OWC

Second: MBA and rMBP Late 2013 and after use PCIe cards that give the SSD direct access to the PCI bus for enhanced speeds in excess of 980 Mbps or better. This is because they bypass SATA completely but require the specialty interface to connect directly to PCIe.

Long story short: In both cases you CAN replace them, but you cannot buy an off the shelf SSD.. Sorry.

OWC and Transcend both make replacement drives for the Retina Macbook Pro and Latest Macbook Air. Their are a few others as well, I suggest you Google Upgrade Retina Macbook Pro SSD. Plenty of info on it.

Question 10

Is anyone getting the advertised speeds?  In ATTO I am, but in every other SSD benchmark software and plain old Windows file transfers, I am getting less than half those speeds.  I have a few other brand SSDs in the same system with similar specs, and I get the advertised speeds on all of the other drives.  Just not this one.  And the firmware update software cannot detect this drive, so I can't even flash it to a newer version.  Tried everything.

Accepted Answer

Weird, the software detected mine, just said there wasn't a newer firmware available.  Only problem I've had with mine is that it will occasionally 'disappear' so it crashes the computer, makes it reboot, and since the two that I bought are drives 1 and 2, (which has grub, and 2 has the grub config) it boots up to a grub rescue (since one of my older non-ssd drives has grub on it as well).

I am thinking it's just a bug in my somewhat old motherboard.  (probably why Asus quickly released a revision of this board)

Questions & Answers