intel 520 degrading performance over 6 months

[Seven]

Can I do secure erase from say some boot disk or is it only via ssd toolbox?

If you are using a laptop, you may not be able to do a secure erase using a toolbox. You might need to connect your SSD as an external disk in order to do a secure erase.

However, you can format the SSD during the OS installation process.

 

[wpcoe]

You can easily do a Secure Erase with Parted Magic on a USB bootable drive. Even if you find your SSD reported as "frozen," the workaround is built into PM. It's a handy USB boot drive/CD/DVD to keep on hand.

 

[wpcoe]

FYI, compare your 120GB Intel 520 with mine:

Not sure why your CrystalDiskMark shows so much lower, but our AS scores are only one point apart. If you want to feel better about your drive, run the CrystalDiskMark with <0 Fill> (compressible data) from the CDM File menu:

I'm following your situation because you mentioned that you had a couple episodes where your SSD was not being found to boot from, and I just had that happen twice in the past three days. I'm having a raft of other problems, as well, so not sure if the drive itself is to blame. Something else may be causing it to "disappear."

 

[Emulex]

RAISE? perhaps you have a failing chip and it's doing its best to keep it together.

sandforce FTW!

 

[docp]

I am also suspecting falling drive and as emulex suggests,its trying its best to keep it together.

I found another issue,
i had windows 8 also installed on another partition,
yesterday I thought lets switch to that,
I tried and it was dead.unable to boot.
I used windows 8 flash drive to see if it repairs,after two runs,it failed to repair it .
So i decided to get rid of it.
I went through bcedit and deleted the w8 entry.
and when i went to format that partition,it fails and refuses to delete or format it.

I have used this same method of removing second w8 dual boot on another system and it works.
I dont know what is issue here.

Another thing I noticed,crystaldisk info shows barely 1283 GB write to NAND.
why is this intel sandforce is failing so soon within 6 months?
Didn't Anand say that intel has fixed the sandforce issues.

And my SSD is sitting with spacer for 9.5mm and sitting securely on my table and not a single drop.
At same SATA port ,my 500 gb seagate is doing absolutely fine without a single issue and I positively think,its not loose port issue also as this SSD is secured in place with 4 screws on chassis of laptop.


Is it time to junk this 520?

 

[Zxian]

It could be that the drive itself is failing. Your one sample is not proof that "Sandforce sux" or anything of the sort. Failures happen - even on the most reliable hardware.

I wouldn't junk it at all - get a replacement from Intel if you think that the drive is failing.

 

[docp]

but is it normal to fail after just 1200 gb write?
I mean its barely used and still showing 100 percent health in ssd toolbox .

 

[wpcoe]

RAISE? perhaps you have a failing chip and it's doing its best to keep it together.

sandforce FTW!

Is there any (third party?) utility/diagnostic that can report RAISE activity? Is there some statistic/log that can be coaxed from the drive firmware?

I'm looking for some definitive proof that the drive is at fault. It's not nearly as easy to return merchandise here in Thailand, and I don't blame the resellers. But, I'd feel confident that if I can somehow document that the drive is failing/has failed that they would accept that in a heartbeat.

 

[John Connor]

I did AS benchmark as suggested here,
no. are somewhat worse.

I noticed that it's not saying the drive is running in AHCI mode.

 

[docp]

system is set in AHCI mode from bios , I dont know why its not showing here.
where can I confirm its AHCI?

 

[groberts101]

system is set in AHCI mode from bios , I dont know why its not showing here.
where can I confirm its AHCI?

you would not be able to install that Intel driver it the bios was not set to AHCI or RAID mode. So, you are most definitely running it in AHCI mode.

Tight on time here so I will try to type quickly and get the main points across.

Bios related issues and SF controlled drives: Intel may have tested this drive more than others prior to releasing it.. but I can tell you without doubt that it was not purely by choice. It merely took them that long to get the OS's drivers and power mgmt(both BIOS and OS) to jive with the controllers limitations. Not to mention that they pooled together all the fixes and troubleshooting done by the umpteen other companies who had been using it for more than a year by that time. Not all is as it seems and there surely are many combo's of bios/OS/drivers that they have not validated.

Best way that I know of to reduce those incompatibilities is to:

flash the latest bios
latest drivers(both IME and sata related)
reduce, or even eliminate, power saving features in bios AND OS(tough to do on mobile platforms)
ONLY use an OS that's been validated on the hardware in question

As for the various bays used to run SSD's. Just because it's spec'd for sata3 means squat for how it's been hooked into the bios and there's a hell of a lot of incompatibilities flying around the net right now. Wiring, bios, power mgmt, OS used.. you name it.

Also keep in mind that W8 has given tons of issues for many around the net(SSD and HDD based systems) from mixing and matching the various drivers, bios, and OROM's. This can, and has, resulted in all sorts of issues.. including lost or corrupted drives.

Mobile platform users should also be aware that there are still some major incompatibilities with certain SSD firmwares and the sure fire way to make sure you're not an unsuspecting guinea pig is to see if that soem hardware combo is available from that specific mfgr. If it is not?.. then you are working with invalidated hardware/software combo's and need to tread lightly with mission critical data and make regular backups. Dell has, and still is, known to be one of the worst out there in that regard. So, I generally tell most people that.. if you can't get it spec'd that way from the factory?.. good luck with it.. because you'll need it and it'll be hit or miss.

To the OP of this thread. I would highly recommend installing this suspect drive as a spare on another PC to make an image, secure erase, and reimage it with the same backup image. Especially after hitting it with those particular random/incompressible benchmarks.. and extra especially if it was filled more than 70% at the time of testing.

Update firmware once more. Not sure if Intel allows overflashing an already updated firmware.. but if it does, that assures you have refreshed the code and may eliminate any corruption of that physical space.

At the very least.. for troubleshooting purposes.. I would eliminate many of the various power saving features to help reduce variable. Move from S3 to S1 in the bios. Set to high-performance power plan and in advanced pwr mgmt options to never shut the harddrive down. An overnight idle will usually be sufficient for the drive to maximize/optimize it's available space.
I would also lean down the amount of data stored prior to idling the machine either in the bios or at login screen to better allow the firmware to clean the physical space and assure you have alrger fresh block pool to test with.

PS. if you want top speeds for benchmarks?.. do the above mentioned power mgmt tweaks and disable speedstep(EIST) to get them. Is completely reversible and you don't have to live with them longterm. That will just let you know what the hardware will allow(minus some OS/boot drive overhead, of course).

Bout all I have time for right now but hopefully you can pick something good out of all that. I HIGHLY doubt that the drive is at fault from a physical standpoint and has to do more with bios/power mgmt/ software. But the ONLY way to test that for sure is to tweak away and test?.. or have the drive replaced and reimage that EXACT OS BACKUP while running the same exact bios. If the problem remained after that replacement was swapped in?.. you have to either work around the firmwares limitations with some of the above mentioned?.. or go towards another SSD controller.

BUT.. it is a Dell we're talking about here.. and Sandforce is NOT the only one having issue on their hardware. Good luck with it.

 

[docp]

yeah,
I thank you from bottom of my heart for this excellent post and its full of knowledge and experienced advice.

tonight I am doing it all as you have written and I will let it stay in idle overnight with no power management.
I do understand ,here it is double whammy with DELL plus sandforce.
I am not really in to benchmark stuff but I was not comfortable with no boot device detected issue.

I agree with you that system is in AHCI mode only.
I will move the drive to original system bay in my break.

only issue is no boot device error which refused to go despite re seating the drive in itw original system bay and nothing else.

I do back up like once or twice a week.
my main data is on seagate 500 gb drive so no worries in that but system image,I do it twice a month.

I am only worried about waking up to find system unable to boot.
speed & benchmark are not a single percent issue also.
its about reliability nothing else.
I will be very glad to avoid RMA hassles of this drive.

And DELL,I am going to get rid of it within next 6 months.its heating up in palm rest is troublesome and DELL has been incompetent so far to troubleshoot and fix this heating.they did try to repair but unsuccessful over last 6 months.

 

[wpcoe]

@groberts101: Many thanks for your feedback and thoughts from me, as well.

One thing you said:

Also keep in mind that W8 has given tons of issues for many around the net(SSD and HDD based systems) from mixing and matching the various drivers, bios, and OROM's. This can, and has, resulted in all sorts of issues.. including lost or corrupted drives.

was of particular interest to me. All the strange behaviors I've seen started after installing Win8 (on a secure-erased SSD), and my instincts tell me that's not a coincidence, but I had never heard anybody link Win8 with lost/corrupted drives.

So far, it's been about 30 hours of smooth sailing -- the first time I've managed to not blue screen, freeze or spontaneously reboot for that length of time in about two weeks.

 

[docp]

As per discussion,
I have kept it on high perf.mode with power option set to do not shutdown HDD( increased time before shutdown to 600 ) and let it sit idle over night and this was after run SSD optimizations under intel ssd toolbox.

I did not run any benchmarks and I plan to do secure erase on 22nd,23rd dec.
lets see how it goes.

Only thing I hate is sudden error of no boot device.
I hope I dont have to see that error again.

 

[docp]

just to update this,
ssd is finally dead and thanks to norton ghost back up,I went back on samsung 830.

this ssd died ugly death.
its going to rma tomorrow.
just spoke to intel and they agreed to replace it asap.

It died all of sudden and no warning under tool box or windows error.

when i tried to connect in desktop,it failed to be detected in windows.
only once i could see it in windows and i could not get toolbox to see it.

last i checked it had 2tb data write and 3.1 tb data read over period of 7-9 months.

it was used exclusively in dell latitude e6520.