Most Popular
| Top Stories | Commented | Featured |
ATI Radeon HD 5570 Review featured
AMD's six-core Thuban to have feature like Turbo Boost?
Google to launch Twitter-like service for Gmail
Intel Core i5-based MacBook Pros coming soon?
Intel unveils Itanium 9300 series enterprise processors
Netflix to roll out 1080p streaming later this year
TechSpot RSSHardware
Intel finds X25-M firmware bug
According to a post on its support forum, Intel has managed to reproduce the nasty bug that's been bricking SSDs. Intel replicated the issue on Windows 7 X64 with version 1.3 of the firmware upgrade tool and a 34nm X25-M SSD. The company has placed the bug as a high priority and will deliver a fix as soon as possible.
Last month, Intel pulled the TRIM firmware update (02HA) and associated SSD Toolbox for its 34nm SSDs after users reported problems with the new software. The bug left many X25-M owners with disk read errors and an otherwise inoperable drive. In the meantime, Intel is recommending that users hold off on updating to 02HA if they have not already. The company notes that if you have successfully applied the update, you are in the clear.
Intel is currently seeking direct feedback from members on the bug, and has accepted many of the busted drives for analysis.
Last month, Intel pulled the TRIM firmware update (02HA) and associated SSD Toolbox for its 34nm SSDs after users reported problems with the new software. The bug left many X25-M owners with disk read errors and an otherwise inoperable drive. In the meantime, Intel is recommending that users hold off on updating to 02HA if they have not already. The company notes that if you have successfully applied the update, you are in the clear.
Intel is currently seeking direct feedback from members on the bug, and has accepted many of the busted drives for analysis.
Related Stories
User Comments (15)
Post a comment| buttus on November 6, 2009 4:22 PM | At least they were able to replicate the issue and take steps towards issuing a fix for this. SSD hard drives though IMO aren't worth the cost premium as (a) the speed differentials are minimal versus a standard HD and (b) capicity is no where near what we have in desktops right now. Still, kudos to Intel for being proactive on this one. |
| pioneerx01 on November 6, 2009 5:54 PM | Do you think Intel's X58's till come down in price? They seem great but $$$. Still out of my range. |
| waterytowers on November 6, 2009 6:29 PM | It is good to see Intel is trying to address the issue,
especially given the price of their drives. I think SSDs are worth the money in certain situations, where you need super fast read speeds but don't require large storage space, or you just want a silent, cool running experience and have a spare $1K+. I am waiting for the prices to come down and sizes to get to 500GB+(at a reasonable price). I use a lot of virtual machines which take up space. A friend has 4 SSDs in a raid configuration and applications load before lifting the finger off the button. A large document will save without the user seeing a status bar. This is why people are willing to pay the premium. Me I would love to have a laptop with raided SSDs. |
| slh28 on November 6, 2009 6:46 PM | SSDs are getting better and cheaper but all these bugs and reports of performance fading over time makes me want to wait a couple years before I upgrade to one. By then hopefully the prices will start to rival traditional HDDs. |
| Timonius on November 6, 2009 6:50 PM | I think SSDs are still a loooong way before mainstream use. Perhaps the smaller size is better for storing just the the systems OS? Would this really make the difference even if all other programs and such are on a separate drive? |
| skitzo_zac on November 6, 2009 8:22 PM | Great to see Intel taking steps to remedy the situation. The
X25 was such a well received device by reviewers and is
probably one of the more popular devices with
customers. So hopefully not many people were effected by this and Intel helps them get there data back or replace the drives for them. |
| zaidpirwani on November 6, 2009 8:35 PM | Timonius said: Yes SSD are a toy for
the rich right now, we don't need these for the time being,
uless all bugs are resolved and prices are dropped to
campare those of SATA.I think SSDs are still a loooong way before mainstream use. Perhaps the smaller size is better for storing just the the systems OS? Would this really make the difference even if all other programs and such are on a separate drive? Also it will be of no benefit to put the OS on a small SSD and everything else o a conventional HDD, that just doesn't make sense, as SSD are here to get rid of the seek time and that will not be gone by this way.... |
| xclusiveitalian on November 6, 2009 10:34 PM | A lot of times its hard to replicate a bug, the fact that they did means they are able to fix it quickly. Hard ware can be so complicated, things break for no clear reason. I would hope to the price comes down at least a little...pretty please. |
| z0k! on November 7, 2009 1:31 AM | zaidpirwani said: I think such hybrid configurations definitely
see a boost in boot up times, like we saw in the Microsoft
demonstrations.Plus if u have all your programs and OS on
and ssd you might see your others tasks speed up as well and
leave all the dirt cheap mechanical drives to be consumed by
your media library
Timonius said: Yes SSD are a toy for the rich right now, we
don't need these for the time being, uless all bugs are
resolved and prices are dropped to campare those of
SATA.I think SSDs are still a loooong way before mainstream use. Perhaps the smaller size is better for storing just the the systems OS? Would this really make the difference even if all other programs and such are on a separate drive? Also it will be of no benefit to put the OS on a small SSD and everything else o a conventional HDD, that just doesn't make sense, as SSD are here to get rid of the seek time and that will not be gone by this way.... |
| Colonel Lance on November 7, 2009 10:58 AM | Wow, they still haven't fixed this? Hasn't this been a problems for like months or something? |
| pcnthuziast on November 7, 2009 1:42 PM | I'm still using the beta version and have been since just about day 1. I've had only very minor issues, but feel W7 is about as good as it gets! I'll buy a full version of 64bit home premium ASAP. |
| Guest on November 20, 2009 12:10 PM | SSD are amazingly fast right off the shelf. Sure it's a bit
pricy, but save the wasted money on 8G of RAM which you're
probably not even using half. It's not $1k like everyone
keeps claiming. And why do people keep putting them in raid? The SSD is already near the bus capacity anyway. Any why do you need 500GB of high speed storage. Use a HD for your bulk storage and save the SSD for the stuff that matters. Unless you're going to play a video at 1000x speed, you don't need it on your SSD. And no, SSDs aren't for you if you mind waiting for apps to load. But if you like Excel to open in under a second, reboots to take less than 40seconds, Visual Studio to load in under 5 seconds, Matlab in under 2 seconds...then ya...its nice to have. |
| topcoach on November 30, 2009 3:37 PM | Intel promised a firmware update by the end of November. It is now Nov 30 at the end of the day, and I'm still hoping. I've been holding off on upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 64 bit. My X25-M drive also seems to be getting slower, so I probably need to run the Trim command to speed things up. What is the hold up?? |
| topcoach on December 2, 2009 4:05 PM | Good news. Intel today just released the long awaited firmware update. |
| claycc on December 2, 2009 4:10 PM | the released an updated firmware update but the toolbox hasn't been re-released. I have a download of the original toolbox but I haven't wanted to use it after all the problems with the firmware update. |
