SSD died twice, prevention ?

digitaldreams

digitaldreams

digitaldreams

Associate
Joined
5 Jul 2007
Posts
512
Hi Guys.

Had a great time with my Crucial M4-CT512 yet since purchase around 2 years ago it had 'died' twice now. The motherboard fails to see the drive yet is fine with others in my system.

The first time this happened I stumbled across advice to disconnect the data cable and leave it on power alone for an hour or two. This apparently makes the drive do some kind of clean up/self heal and it HAS worked twice now !.

SSD Life Pro reports....
Health 99%, estimated lifetime 251 years 10 Months, TEC date June 04, 2266 !. Work time 6965 hours (9 months), powered on 3166 times. Trim supported/enabled. Wear leveling count 10, grown failing block count 10, program fail count 1, erase fail count 1, sata interface downshift 1, end-to-end error 50, reported uncorrectable errors 1 etc

Is this a common problem and cure ?. Yes the latest firmware is installed (0309)

Regards
 
digitaldreams said:
0309 is 070H !. I tried to run the updater anyway and as expected it reported "There are no SSD drives on your system that need updating"

Regards
Click to expand...

I updated mine not too long ago to 070H, worked ok. Although thinking about it now I might have been on 000F.
Are the Crucial firmware updates incremental in any way, meaning you need to be on a certain version to update to another version?

My only thought with this is, have you tried a different SATA cable, just in case that's faulty and previously the disconnecting and reconnecting 'jiggled' it about enough to get it working again?
 
Thanks...I'll try again. maybe being connected though an add-on Asus controller is fooling the updater, SSDLife Pro has no problem though !.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Also found this, re powering the drive with NO data cable to force a tidy (AND it seems a dead drive fix !).......I wonder if most SSD's have this feature....

My SSD used to be so much faster... What happened?
by Moderator Crucial_Katana Moderator ‎01-17-2013 04:30 PM - edited ‎10-23-2013 09:41 AM

Crucial SSDs have a maintenance feature called Active Garbage Collection built into the controller. Active Garbage Collection is triggered when the SSD has power but no data throughput, and does background cleanup on the SSDs. The purpose of this feature is to maintain the SSD's performance in environments where for any reason TRIM is not a possibility, by cleaning out the cells on the SSD as data is removed. If TRIM is present it will handle this background cleanup, but if for any reason TRIM can't reach the SSD, Active Garbage Collection is there to take care of the drive.

However, in order for Active Garbage Collection to have an effect, the SSD needs to have periods of idle time, since that is the only time when the feature is able to run. If the SSD is not given any idle time, for example in a computer that is powered on, constantly working, and then immediately powered off, then Active Garbage Collection will never be triggered. Almost as important as idle time, is that the SSD has empty space to work with. TRIM and Active Garbage Collection both rely on the ability to move data between sectors as a part of the clean-up effort, and without sufficient empty space on the SSD, the clean-up will either be ineffective, or worse, won't take place at all.

An SSD that is not receiving TRIM commands and where Active Garbage Collection never runs properly, will never have the cells on the drive cleaned out after data is deleted. That will over time lead to an accumulation of 'junk' data, which slowly will clog up the drive. Eventually this well result in a drop in performance, and sometimes even a complete lack of response from the SSD.

If that has happened to your SSD, you may simply need to force Active Garbage Collection to run on the drive by powering the SSD on and leaving it idle for 6 to 8 hours. After that, your drive’s functionality and performance should be restored.

Follow these steps to trigger Active Garbage Collection on your Crucial SSD:

On a desktop PC, simply disconnect the SATA cable from your SSD and only leave the power cable connected. After switching your PC on, the SSD will be in an idle state but still have power so Garbage Collection can function. On a laptop, power on with the SSD installed and enter your system BIOS (please refer to your system manufacturer’s documentation on how to access the BIOS.) Leave the laptop in the BIOS menu for the 6-8 hours.

On a Mac, press the Options key while powering on to enter the Startup Manager screen. Leaving the Mac on that screen provides the SSD with power but keeps it in an idle state so Garbage Collection can function, just like the BIOS screen on a Windows laptop.

To prevent the SSD performance from degrading again in the future you can adjustment your power settings, to make sure that the SSD stays powered on when your computer goes into sleep mode.

In Windows:

- Go to Power Options
- Select Change Plan Settings
- Select Change Advanced Settings
- Make sure the 'hard disk' field is set to ‘never’ (Laptop users select 'battery and power adapter').

Regards
 
Would run SSD on SATA1 ICH10R socket (light blue). Don't worry about being max transfer rate limited on SATA 3 Gbps as it's only benchmarks that show it up. Unless you spend all day copying larger single files to and from SSD.

Could also install latest Intel RST driver that still supports ICH10 chipset.

As mentioned by GoogalyMoogaly a replacement quality SATA cable might help, but the above might be all that's needed after SSD firmware updated.

As an example I had corruption issues over a course of 2 years. Would be in Windows and suffer a freeze that would require a reboot. Windows would be unbootable and unrecoverable.

The motherboard SATA slots didn't have the latch locking support in the frame, so suspect cable was working lose over time because of mavity. Replaced SATA cable with a latched fitted cable and forced it in (bulged the outer frame) and never had the issue again.

1de9e371-84e6-477c-9913-fee3c419e036_zps84705092.jpg
 
^Everytime I read your posts, I voice them as Bane from Batman, makes them fun to read :D

"bulged the OUTER FRAME"
 
No all that power stuff is BS

its the firmware

In my work ive had to update all M4 SSDs firmware to 070

what it really is is those SSD's had a bad firmware and after a certain timeframe they go unstable yet all data is there.

usually a power down and power up gives another hour of use.

You need to update the firmware to 070h
 
SSD died again, seems like once every 6 months :)

The good ol 'garbage collection' worked yet again. Once going I connected it to one of the older motherboard sockets and the updater found it.

Fingers crossed.

Yes cheap SATA cables don't lock in or the lock is ineffective and needs to be bent out to ensure it works.

Regards
 
Firmware updated, now shows 070H.

IT DIED AGAIN a few days later. The good old 'power only' trick for an hour worked as usual.

What is wrong with this drive ?, is this the norm ?, what warranty do Crucial give on such drives ?

Regards
 
digitaldreams said:
Firmware updated, now shows 070H.

IT DIED AGAIN a few days later. The good old 'power only' trick for an hour worked as usual.

What is wrong with this drive ?, is this the norm ?, what warranty do Crucial give on such drives ?

Regards
Click to expand...

You probably returned it by now. The returns process is meant to be fairly quick as UK based.

Link to fill in return details

Would be handy to provide feedback on return process in case this thread is searched in the future.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom