SSD power loss report updates

[Alan_F_Intel]

Intel is aware of the customer sightings on Intel SSD 320 Series. If you experience any issue with your Intel SSD, please contact your Intel representative or Intel customer support (via web: http://www.intel.com/ www.intel.com or phone: http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/contact/phone www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/contact/phone) . We will provide an update when we have more information.

Alan

Intel's NVM Solutions Group

[idata]

if you have sata3, then you have good reason to switch to 510series

if no, well just use it, just make sure you have back up... from what i read in several forum regarding this, the issue not that worst

the rate getting failure (8mb issue) still pretty low if i can say

on other hand, enthusiast even with many problem from SandForce based ssd, they keep looking and buy them

[idata]

Guest wrote:

I should add that the Hitachi tool shows

- Drive serial number: 00000001

- SMART disabled or not supported

- Firmware rev. 4PC10302

I've read your posts discussing HPA, using Linux hdparm, and (worst of all) using a tool intended for Hitachi mechanical HDDs on your SSD.

Please do not use Hitachi/IBM, Seagate/Maxtor, Western Digital, Samsung, Fujitsu tools on your SSD! Please do not use competitors' tools either (e.g. OCZ, Corsair, ADATA, Crucial, etc.) ! 

You won't get anywhere with them -- they are specifically intended to be used with said manufacturer's models of drives. They are not generic tools for use on any model of hard disk or SSD. Furthermore, the tools you're trying are intended for mechanical hard disks ONLY, not SSDs!

I realise you and many other people are frustrated by this problem, but you're making things worse by "trying random solutions". There is no way Intel is going to be able to help folks who run random utilities on their drives "hoping something magically fixes the issue". This makes troubleshooting and analysis impossible.

[idata]

Koitsu,

I'm sure you are aware that the reason I was looking into this was hpa's suggestion that this had to do with HPA. So I ran a couple of tools and determined that did not seem to be the case. If you like to think of that as "trying random solutions", well what can I say.

Linux hdparm was not designed only for mechanical hard disks. It is a completely generic hard disk utility, and anyone trying to tell you otherwise is misinformed at best.

As for the Hitachi Feature Tool, it was recommended by Acronis to fix this very issue with HPA - http://kb.acronis.com/content/1710 http://kb.acronis.com/content/1710

[idata]

Carsten:

What you tried was perfectly reasonable. Don't worry about hysterical posts saying that you should not have tried that. I appreciate the information you were able to provide all of us by giving that a try. In the absence of information from Intel, it is people like you experimenting that provide the most information for the rest of us. Thanks!

[idata]

Guest wrote:

Koitsu,

I'm sure you are aware that the reason I was looking into this was hpa's suggestion that this had to do with HPA. So I ran a couple of tools and determined that did not seem to be the case. If you like to think of that as "trying random solutions", well what can I say.

Linux hdparm was not designed only for mechanical hard disks. It is a completely generic hard disk utility, and anyone trying to tell you otherwise is misinformed at best.

As for the Hitachi Feature Tool, it was recommended by Acronis to fix this very issue with HPA - http://kb.acronis.com/content/1710 http://kb.acronis.com/content/1710

There's no host-protected area on SSDs; they're not mechanical HDDs. I have no idea where the data gets kept, but my guess is within the same EEPROM or Flash chip as the firmware (which is separate from that used for storage). You went to great lengths using a multitude of non-useful tools because of one random poster stating that the host-protected area was corrupt/responsible. If you're taking advice from random folks, here's my advice: RMA your product. 😉

Secondly, I'm a senior UNIX system administrator by career and have been since 1990, and I happen to focus mainly on storage subsystems. I'm quite aware of what hdparm is, what it does, how it functions, and what it can be used for. Nobody tried to tell me otherwise; my previous comment (particularly what I said in bold red) was not in reference to hdparm. You can use its query functions at your behest, but there are write functions within hdparm that you should not use on an SSD. Please don't tinker around unless you know exactly what you're doing.

Thirdly and finally, the advice from Acronis applies to mechanical HDDs, not SSDs. They (Acronis) should also be shunned for recommending using a Hitachi GST tool on non-Hitachi disks. Shame on them. If they want to reset the host-protected area, a person can use the tool called MHDD, which is 3rd-party. Folks who consider adjusting/changing the HPA on a mechanical HDD should be aware that you can lose not only all of your data, but you can also seriously screw up the drive, including on some drives losing its physical defect list (your drive can/will start reporting bad LBAs since the factory list was erased; most SATA and PATA drives do not have a true low-level format, and haven't for 15 years or so). There's a lot of internal data stored in the HPA region is my point.

I cannot stress this enough, and it is not hearsay -- each hard disk manufacturer (as well as SSDs!) has proprietary ATA subset commands which can be used to control aspects of the drive. Each software/utility is specific to that manufacturer's drives, and submitting those ATA subset commands to a disk of a different manufacturer can be detrimental. Again, this is not FUD or hearsay, it's absolute fact. Don't use Hitachi tools on non-Hitachi disks, don't use WD tools on non-WD disks, don't use Seagate tools on non-Seagate disks, etc.. And absolutely do not use vendor-specific MHDD tools on SSDs! I cannot stress this enough.