Intel Bug Causes Failed SSDs Turn 600GB to 8MB

News
By Marcus Yam
published

It may be solid state, but you should still make backups!

Intel's SSD 320 series offer some great storage solutions for enthusiasts. For those with the budget, getting 600GB in solid state is quite impressive – of course, that is until it fails and reports itself as a cry-worthy 8MB.

A bug that afflicts the entire 320 line can cause an SSD to revert to 8MB following a crash or power failure. The Register quotes a couple of users from the PC Review forum:

"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," wrote one user. "AFAIK they have not yet publicly announced it, and won't have a firmware fix ready for release until the end of July."

Another posted, "I just had this happen to me. Had the 600G model for a month. Then the drive crashed and now DISKPART shows 8MB for that drive. SMART attributes are gone... The drive worked great for a month!"

Fortunately, Intel did eventually acknowledge that it is aware of these "customer sightings" on the 320 SSD series. Intel isn't yet revealing more about the nature of the bug, or when a fix is coming.

If you have a 320 SSD, we recommend that you backup all of your data ASAP.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
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48 Comments Comment from the forums
  • reprotected
    Why can't it be some kind of bug which allows users to unlock conveniently locked SSDs from a crappy 64GB to 300GB?
    Reply
  • f-gomes
    Oh no, Tom's. You didn't just quote TheRegister, did you?
    Reply
  • belardo
    Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
    Reply
  • nearly nil
    Don't get too excited about this folks. The error is caused by extreme power cycling. Yes, it should be fixed to avoid this bug, but it sounds like normal use will not sink the boat. We are, essentially, early adopters of SSDs right now, so it's not too surprising that these bugs are coming up. That said, power cycling seems like a very routine Quality Control test, so why didn't Intel find this error prerelease?
    Reply
  • Netherscourge
    ...and the paid beta testing continues!
    Reply
  • lethal decipher
    I remember Western Digital spinners failing and showing up as 8MB failures...
    Reply
  • nearly nil
    lol related stories: Best SSDs for the money. Guess what gets big recommendation?
    Reply
  • hakkafusion
    i'm surprised with the amount of defective sandforce drives that just drop dead vs intel drives, the sandforce drives don't get a cover story but intel do
    Reply
  • wiyosaya
    Haha! I guess this is rather embarrassing to the behemoth, Intel. ;)
    Reply
  • After all,it's intel we are talking about,here, no surprises.
    A bug here and there once in a while.
    Cpu bugs,chipsets bugs,not news here.
    but i want my data back ,i use them as a backup drive on an external case.
    :-(
    Reply