topic Re: Is 320 firmware buggy? in Archive

Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:34:07 GMT

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/do-ssd-drives-really-fail-lot-t4035508.html http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/do-ssd-drives-really-fail-lot-t4035508.html

Be wary of the new Intel SSD 320 series. Currently, there's a bug in the

controller that can cause the device to revert to 8MB during a power failure. AFAIK they have not yet publicly announced it, and won't have a firmware fix ready for release until the end of July. We had an SSD 320 600GB 2.5" SATA drive in for evaluation from our Intel rep. I was able to kill it in two or three hours by power cycling it. Apparently (according to the Intel rep) when the power failure is happening, the SSD device tries to reconnect with the SATA port instead of initiating a proper shutdown. Something to do with interrupt priority being higher for reconnection rather than a proper shutdown.

I don't know how much truth is to this post. Has there been any official acknowledgement of this problem?

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:20:31 GMT

Furthermore, why would a person be constantly power-cycling one of these devices? It's important to note the article says they're power-cycling the device (either hooking it up to a PSU with a manual switch, or are yanking the SATA power cable repetitively), which is very different from stand-by (DIPM).

If this is true -- a bug is a bug, no argument from me there, and it should be fixed. But the criteria for this happening seems a bit excessive.

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:57:28 GMT

I suppose, but I upgraded to 320 because of built-in capacitors (I'm not using a laptop and I don't have a UPS). Kind of defeats the purpose if it can't shut itself down properly in the event of power failure.

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:04:21 GMT

Dosen't the toolbox say to power cycle the SSD in order to secure erase?

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:22:53 GMT

Goose wrote:

That's not how I read the description of the problem at all. I read the description to mean that repetitive power-cycling of the SSD -- which I interpret as "continually powering the device on, then powering it off, then powering it on, then powering it off" -- resulted in the drive reporting a total capacity of 8MBytes.

The exact quote: "We had an SSD 320 600GB 2.5" SATA drive in for evaluation from our Intel rep. I was able to kill it in two or three hours by power cycling it."

"I was able to kill it in 2 or 3 hours by power cycling it", to me, means the guy sat around power-cycling it constantly for 2-3 hours. Let's say he did this for 2-3 hours at 10 second intervals. 3 * 60 * 60 = 10800 seconds. A power-cycle requires both the power-off and power-on cycle, so 20 seconds total. 10800 / 20 = 540 power cycles over the course of 3 hours.

This is what happens when people who write damning articles don't take the time to write verbosely what they were doing. Without those details, people have to speculate. I can point the world to a thouand different devices which will fail/freak out when continually power-cycled. How often are users power-cycling (again: NOT putting the device in stand-by/sleep mode (DIPM)! That isn't the same as a power-cycle) their SSDs? Are you power-cycling yours as often as this guy is?

Sigh.

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:26:31 GMT

Relic wrote:

Dosen't the toolbox say to power cycle the SSD in order to secure erase?

It doesn't say to power-cycle the SSD repetitively for 2-3 hours.

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:44:06 GMT

koitsu wrote:

Relic wrote:

Dosen't the toolbox say to power cycle the SSD in order to secure erase?

It doesn't say to power-cycle the SSD repetitively for 2-3 hours.

Actually, a friend brought his 320 SSD for me to help him secure erase it. We power cycled it at least a dozen times and the toolbox would never SE it. We tried Parted Magic w/ Hd erase several times power cycling each time and still never unlocked it. So, no we didn't do it for 2-3 houts. Probably only one.

And, I thought this forum was to get help answering legitimate questions about issues about SSDs , not to receive smart alec answers.

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 03:19:01 GMT

koitsu:

I know what you're trying to say, but the way the bug is described, it doesn't seem like one of those flaws that worsens every time you power cycle. i.e. the chances of failure remains the same, so basically I'm rolling a dice whenever there's power disruption (or reboot? does shutting it off and on count as a power cycle?). The guy in the post happened to have experienced it after 2-3 hours of power cycling, but if you're really unlucky you could potentially brick it the first time, which is what worries me.

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 05:38:46 GMT

From the quote: "when the power failure is happening, the SSD device tries to reconnect with the SATA port instead of initiating a proper shutdown."

It seems like he is discribing an improper shutdown due to power loss and not a standard power down. I wished that poster defined what he was doing so it could be replicated. To me, 2-3 hours of power loss cycling seems like an odd test.

I have foward this discussion to Intel.

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:50:58 GMT

I just had this happen to me. Had the 600G model for a month. Then the drive crashed and now DISKPART shows 8MB for that drive. SMART attributes are gone...

The drive worked great for a month!

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:07:39 GMT

I just had this happen to me. Had the 600G model for a month. Then the drive crashed and now DISKPART shows 8MB for that drive. SMART attributes are gone...

The drive worked great for a month!"

You can recover the drive using HDDerase.

http://www.iishacks.com/2009/06/30/how-to-secure-erase-reset-an-intel-solid-state-drive-ssd/ http://www.iishacks.com/2009/06/30/how-to-secure-erase-reset-an-intel-solid-state-drive-ssd/

Make sure you download the Intel compatible version 3.3

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:55:20 GMT

Same with 120Gb 320 series SSD, bought 2 days ago. Just got 8Mb problem and googled it. Sweet, newly installed system and software are gone. Any comments on this, Intel?

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:26:55 GMT

I am reading reports of the 8MB problem after restart from users of the 320 SSD series on various forums / review sites. I just bought one of these drives and am also wondering if there going to be a firmware update or recall of the drives to fix the issue?

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:30:18 GMT

For example, you can find several people complaining in Amazon reviews of the 320...

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 07:48:39 GMT

I have had the same problem with the fellow a few posts above, I was installing a game on my 80G intel 320 and somehow everything froze up and couldn't do anything so I reset the system and before I knew it I kept getting the dreaded cannot find "bootmgr" on the main drive, so I switched to my old velociraptor 300g tried to revive the intel SSD but kept getting the BAD_CTX 8m reading on the crystaldiskinfo.

Someone mentioned about waiting the end of July but you see we are dealing with expensive equipment here, Intel should've thought ahead of time to prevent goof ups like this happenning before they even released the drives series 320, firmware bugs and all that is a lame excuse.

That drive cost me $199 and it's only one week old.

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 01:25:46 GMT

I am disappointed in Intel about this. From that 'JW' post about the problem, dated May 17, it seems Intel has known about this random data loss issue for more than a month. A heads-up would have been nice: "Hey guys, we have recently become aware of a random data loss problem with Intel 320 SSDs and we are working on a fix. In the meantime, be sure to have your data backed up at all times and try to minimize power cycles."

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 05:29:14 GMT

I've had two consecutive drives die with this problem. I'll have to call intel RMA tomorrow to ask for a refund. This is ridiculous. Stay away from this drive until Intel fixes it.

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 06:17:47 GMT

Bach:

Can you give more information about what happened just before the drives failed with this "8MB bug"? Maybe it can help others to reduce the chances of having the same problem?

Were the drives powered off just before the failure? Was it a "safe" or "unsafe" shutdown? Were they in a computer that went to sleep or hibernation?

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 06:19:17 GMT

Had the 8MB issue happen to me as well with my 160 GB 320. On Monday, I cloned the drive using the Intel Data Migration Software and installed the SSD in my new laptop. Monday night there was a software problem and I had to hold down the power button to cause the system to reboot. On reboot, drive was not recognized. Went though various procedures to try to get it to work. Nothing. Restarted the computer about 30-40 times. Eventually, the computer booted from the SSD. It ran fine for a while, and then I hibernated the computer. Took computer out of hibernation, drive not recognized.

After that I put in the original drive (a HDD) that laptop shipped with, machine booted right up. Attached the SSD to the laptop over USB 3.0 with the adapter the drive came with (Retail Box). Drive didn't show in "Computer". Right clicked on Computer --> Manage --> Disk Management. Drive shows as unformatted, no partition table, with an 8MB capacity. The original vendor is replacing the SSD, because I bought it less than 30 days ago.

I bought the 320 because of the proven track record of Intel SSDs. My machine supports SATA 6Gb/sec and I could have purchased a faster SSD. I choose the 320 because it is supposed to be more reliable. Dying within the first 24hours of use is not reliability. If the replacement unit fails quickly, I will need to get a refund and buy a different product. I understand taking time to fix an issue; however, it would be nice to know an issue exists so people who own the drives can take precautions.

Re: Is 320 firmware buggy?

idata — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:28:12 GMT

Sure thing.

I use OSX and have the SSD in a 2010 Macbook Pro. The first time I had the device, I enabled the TRIM hack in snow leopard and was able to use the device for about 3 weeks. I usually just close the lid on the laptop and let it sleep when I don't use the machine and open it to resume when I do use it.

The second failure just happened last night and also manifested upon resume of the laptop from a sleep state and not a full power down.

Both times, when I open the lid of the laptop, the machine appears to resume but when I try to open an application, the machine freezes and becomes unresponsive. I get the dreaded eternal beach ball. I suppose that's the same as the windows hourglass.

I do a hard power down and upon boot up immediately following that, the device no longer mounts and booting into another hard drive I'm able to open disk utility and the SSD now shows with 8.4MB of space.