SSD 530 drives "disconnecting/reconnecting"

[idata]

I have 2 Dell XPS 9000 series (9000 and 9100), both with Intel SATA Raid controllers, both with Raid1 mirror of WD standard drives. Both Win7 x64 Ultimate.

Purchased 2 240GB SSD 530s from Best Buy in December 2013 (9 months ago for Christmas) to be used as a non-raid 😧 Drive for Games to speed loading/transitions.

Both Dells running Intel SSD Toolbox and Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology (latest versions).

Both SSDs have a manufacture date of 23AUG2013 and were packed by S12046530 (I have the boxes for both still).

Both SSDs updated from default bios (can't recall if 1.x or 2.x, but definitely not 3.x) to 3.2.0.

Both ran like a dream for months, then both started dying.

In April, the SSD in the 9100 started randomly "disconnecting" and "reconnecting".

It would act like a thumb drive that was being unplugged and plugged back in, where it would show an AutoPlay prompt for action just as a thumb drive might.

Of course, this also meant the games being used at the time would crash more and more often.

Issue got worse to the point where it would Blue Screen the PC, so I disconnected it.

This week (August), the SSD in the 9000 is starting this same behavior.

While I might be willing to chalk 1 drive up to "/meh, just a lemon from Intel", I'm not willing to take a wash on both now that the other appears to be dying.

I'm writing to see if this is common on 530s.

At the time I purchased them, the 520 thicker medium was known to be more stable than the new thinner 530s, but there were claims that the bugs with the new 530s had been resolved, so I bought the newer larger capacity drives.

What are my options to either fix/correct or return these things?

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Update: Checking S/W for SSD Toolbox, it appears 3.2.3 (no bios change though) was released last week.

I've updated to 3.2.3 on the 9000 XPS and see that the SuperFetch/Prefetch suddenly changed from "Feature is Optimized" to instead note a Tune! requirement to turn SuperFetch off on a 2drive system.

Is this what was causing the issue noted in the original post or is this unrelated to symptoms where problems has a slow/worsening onset until total failure?

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Update2: Answer to 3.2.3 question is apparently "No", as the drive has just disappeared again during a file copy with Windows running.

Problem is ongoing.

[Kevin_M_Intel]

Hi MSchoeny,

I am sorry for your trouble but let me take a look on this and help you out.

The behavior you are describing is very weird, so there are some steps to try. From our side, we have not received reports of a known issue related to the experience you are facing with the product.

I recommend doing the following:

1. Update the BIOS on your computer.
2. Update the SDD firmware. Here is the firmware update tool:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=18363&lang=eng&ProdId=3790 https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=18363&lang=eng&ProdId=3790

1. Test the SSDs in a different computer and check if the behavior is the same.

Kevin M.

[Kevin_M_Intel]

Also, Can you please post a screenshot of the SMART details from toolbox? I would like to check some more information from there.

Kevin M