Intel Bug Causes Failed SSDs Turn 600GB to 8MB

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Was just considering splurging on a small SSD for my linux machine and going with intel... I still probably will, sad to see they're still having major issues like this though.
 
[citation][nom]darkphox[/nom]Trust me, there is nothing excessive about her 'power cycling'. She turns it on during the day, and off at night.[/citation]
Whew, at last I fought down the urge to say something sarcastic and possibly disrespectful. I'll just chuckle to myself.
 
Dunno about the chipset, but 320 is at least the second gen Intel SSD. They had the x-25 series first, followed by 320, and now third gen 510. So who is it safe to get an SSD from? I looked at an OCZ 120gb Vertex 2 (my system only has sata 2 so sata 3 speed is wasted) and on newegg, the last 2 weeks have 9 reviews and 8 list drive failure. Crucial m4 series had big problems too...
 
[citation][nom]another_Moose[/nom]Dunno about the chipset, but 320 is at least the second gen Intel SSD. They had the x-25 series first, followed by 320, and now third gen 510. So who is it safe to get an SSD from? I looked at an OCZ 120gb Vertex 2 (my system only has sata 2 so sata 3 speed is wasted) and on newegg, the last 2 weeks have 9 reviews and 8 list drive failure. Crucial m4 series had big problems too...[/citation]

The 320-series is actually Intel's 3-rd generation of mainstream drives. There was an X-25M 1st and 2nd gen (I own both), and then the 320. The 510 is contemporary to the 320, with both available now, and the 510 simply uses a different controller / flash internally and supports SATA III 6Gbps.
 
Well, on any thoughts at least right of about anything, to say that the better parts of "builds" to say for any value device or component to be made readily availible despite the drop in prices for more, on ideas for sales of more, with anymore was actually taken into account for the hardware or whatever is hard saying really. Also rather or not the amount of info on there is actually lost, right?
 
We know about reduced power state issues from several major SSD manufacturers. I would like to know the sequence that leads to failure. From the reports regarding other drives, they seem to be acknowledging their Sata buffer size instead of their flash bank - a controller initialization issue?

Strange. I do wish I was involved in super cap research...
 
I have (2) Intel 8MB SSD's

Intel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2K5 2.5" 40GB
Intel X25-M SSDSA2MH080G2K5 2.5" 80GB

Needless to say... Intel has lost my SSD business...
 
[citation][nom]Erion[/nom]I have (2) Intel 8MB SSD'sIntel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2K5 2.5" 40GBIntel X25-M SSDSA2MH080G2K5 2.5" 80GBNeedless to say... Intel has lost my SSD business...[/citation]

Wait a moment - are you saying this problem extends to their older X25-M series drives? If true, that is much bigger news than just the 320s having an issue. Have you contacted Intel's tech support about those at all? They should still be under warranty (even my old 80GB 1st-gen X-25M is less than three years old).
 
i suspect that the reason the fubar'd drive is reported as being 8mb is probably because that's the size of the cache, i.e. after the crash only the cache is accessible.
 
There sure are a lot of Intel fanboys in the comments. This kind of bug is simply unexcusable and such late acknowledgement is terrible. Face the truth you damn fanboys. Intel SSDs are buggy and have inferior price/performance compared to Sandforce drives. Go read some damn benchmarks.
 
I'm glad a got a WD Raptor last year instead of an SSD (and yes I know SSDs are way faster), SSDs still have too many issues in my opinion.
 
[citation][nom]johnsmithhatesVLC[/nom] ...Intel SSDs are buggy and have inferior price/performance compared to Sandforce [sic} drives. Go read some damn benchmarks.[/citation]

Whoa now. I spend a lot of time analyzing SSD reviews (professional) as well as customer reviews. This 320 "8MB" issue is extraordinarily rare. While I agree with price/performance concerns - the MTBF between newly purchased 320 drives vs. SandForce (excluding Wildfire, which doesn't have sufficient basis yet to draw conclusions, but in particular OCZ) - is that the 320 is 3 orders of magnitude less likely to exhibit a serious problem. Remember - there are many external affecting issues - AHCI, cables, chip-sets, block size, etc. The 320 problem is associated with power failure during specific SATA operations, it is minuscule compared to what we've seen in the SandForce line and could well be a specific case of user conditions that are easily resolved.

Call me a fanboi - I own SandForce based SSD's and think they're fantastic. That doesn't mean I'm unaware of the massive DOA and early failures being reported.
 
[citation][nom]WilliamMGeorge[/nom]Wait a moment - are you saying this problem extends to their older X25-M series drives?[/citation]

I am with Erion. Post "anything" backing this up please. I have seen zero evidence that anything but the 320 has the power failure 8MB issue. There was a bad firmware update in 2009 for the X25-M, but that had nothing to do with this. An unconfirmed (but reliable) estimate is that the 320 bug affects 0.00014% of shipped units. (that's a total of 7 drives).
 
I have a 160gb, 320 series in a laptop so not really concerned about power failure, what does annoy me is the drain the SSD put on my battery life in STANDBY! The drive shouldn't require any power. Compared to my 7200 RPM mechanical drive im loosing an additional 2-4% and hour.
 
I have experienced the 8MB fault on my 300GB 320-series drive, and I certainly did not power cycle excessively. (Just once or twice a day).
 
I bought the 600gb model from Newegg. It died and showed 8mb. RMA'd to Intel. Second drive died and shows 8mb after 3 months. RMA'd to Intel. Third drive just died this morning after 2 months. Bios doesn't even recognize that it's in the laptop at all. I'll call Intel on Monday.
 
I've had this happen to two Intel 320 drives in three months. Intel promptly replaced them with no quibble, but made no offer to recover data (fortunately everything backed up, but still PITA to rebuild from backups). Deffinitely no excessive power cycling...laptop turned on at beginning of the day and off at the end of the day!
 
In laptops there are power management profiles that will turn your HDD/SSD on and off constantly during your work. So one can not be sure about power cycling of HDD unless the power saving is completely off.
I have OCZ Vertex 4 512Gb SSD. And it also came with two unpleasant bugs (not found from cold boot, and BSOD after sleep). But they fixed the bugs, and now I'm happy that I have this SSD.
 
For people keeping score at home, it is now more than a year since a lot of this original posting. I have a brand-new Intel 320 SSD with the latest firmware (later than the firmware indicated in Intel's SSD tools) and, sure enough, it's an 8MB brick right now.

Yes, this was being used on a laptop-- and a sudden power-down (overheat) seems to be what started the issue. After several rounds of trying to repair damage (Windows indicating corrupt files-- running standard disk tools, none of which indicated any kind of issue with the disk or filesystem), I suddenly got "Disk not found."

This is a brand new laptop (just a few weeks old), so I was still in the process of building it all up when this happened and did not have full backups.

For the record, the drive performed amazingly. Windows boots are so fast, they look like they were enhanced for a commercial or movie. Sadly, it's a little like saying "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
 
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