Possible Intel SSD 320 series problem

hideki · 13 Jul 2011 at 15:06

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.

Hopefully this issue isnt widespread.

http://communities.intel.com/thread/22227?tstart=0

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/11/intel_320_ssd_bug_reports/

Philtor · 13 Jul 2011 at 19:30

Yeah this is a big problem at present for Intel. Just like the OCZ Vertex 3 drives - new Tech always has it's teething problems. In this case Firmware.

Broken Hope · 13 Jul 2011 at 19:51

I wouldn't call an issue that requires 2-3 hours of constant power cycling to manifest itself a big problem, sure it's a problem that needs fixing, but it's no where near the level of the Sandforce issues, which are pretty damn huge.

Philtor · 13 Jul 2011 at 20:19

It's a big problem for Intel who thought they could develop their own firmware in house until now... 'the level of Sandforce issues' ?? You mean a small number of users running the Vertex 3 under certain conditions???? There's a fix for that

Justintime · 13 Jul 2011 at 21:13

philtorrens said:
It's a big problem for Intel who thought they could develop their own firmware in house until now... 'the level of Sandforce issues' ?? You mean a small number of users running the Vertex 3 under certain conditions???? There's a fix for that

Dunno about that, the two i sent back weren't in any special rig, just run of the mill Sandy Bridge machines not even clocked yet. Bluescreens like you wouldn't believe and constant loss of drive at boot. Firmware and wipe did not sort the issue and replacement 2E drives worked flawlessly.

Philtor · 13 Jul 2011 at 21:26

Justintime said:
Dunno about that, the two i sent back weren't in any special rig, just run of the mill Sandy Bridge machines not even clocked yet. Bluescreens like you wouldn't believe and constant loss of drive at boot. Firmware and wipe did not sort the issue and replacement 2E drives worked flawlessly.

Never knew that

Hope Sandforce sort it out as they have done so well up until now. I know the new firmware made changes to the SATA timings but is that actually the problem? God knows...

Justintime · 13 Jul 2011 at 22:07

Yea i'm not touching these drives again until word is out for a while that the problems sorted