Is 320 firmware buggy?

[idata]

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?

[idata]

For peoples who can't/don't want to RMA the drive before some firmware patch is released (if it could be) - you can use an bootable usb drive, for example, to secure erase the drive. Follow the instrustions found here https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase

Remember, some linux distributions want "sudo" inserted in console before any command you use

And as for me I was able to use Secure Erase command only hot re-pluggin my drive power when booted up into ubuntu, the "sleep" function does the same job for me, but it is not 100% working on any hardware configurations. RTFM! and be patient and careful when selecting and erasing the drive. Good luck!

It would be good to post some S.M.A.R.T. data also in this thread.

For me 232 attribute is changed after every crash and recovery (but my drive is X25-E and it's not crashed anymore after flashing it with non-public 8860 firmware)

[idata]

Does anyone have any insight it terms of data? I don't know if I should Rma my drive or wait until the firmware update and see ifI can get some of my data back. I guess what I'm really asking is if anyone understands the nature of the issue and if a firmware update will reverse the effects or if the SSD will have to be formatted anyway. I know I should have backed up my data... Calm down 🙂

[idata]

I have no idea whether this will work in your situation, but if you have a windows 7 installation disk or can borrow one, this will be worth a try. You will not have to install just try to http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93347-copy-paste-windows-recovery-console.html copy and paste in the recovery console.

[idata]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I can't see any data on my SSD, and I want to pull some files off it. If I can get files off the SSD after the firmware update that would be great...I guess I'll have to wait and see. I just wish Intel could give us small updates every few days or something.

[idata]

I left my laptop with Intel320 160GB drive turned on whole night, today in the morning, the drive is dead as well 😕

I bought the SSD 2 months ago.