OCZ Agility 3 just bit the dust out of nowhere

[Rvenger]

Yep, you heard that right. I bought this drive a bit over a month ago on a newegg shell shocker deal. It was idle on the desktop, then boom, bluescreen and cannot find boot device after it restarted.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I have the newest firmware as well.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Have you tried reconnecting the SATA cable or connecting it to another SATA 3 port? Maybe a different cable?

You could also do a partition on your WD Caviar Green and install the OS there provisionally, see if you have any issues then.

 

[Rvenger]

I swapped out Sata cables and nothing. I took it out and plugged it into my Bulldozer rig to see if it will detect as a slave... It not even detectable anymore.

 

[boochi]

That's OCZ for you.

 

[superccs]

Damn, that's a bummer. Hopefully OCZ customer support can take care of you quickly.

 

[Rvenger]

Good news, I was able to get it to work. I didn't have the SSD properly selected in the Bios as a slave. The bluescreen issue still applies though because I was using it as my primary drive. It seems that it is plagued by the sandforce controller issue. I heard disabling the power saving features or trim can cure this.

 

[Shmee]

Disabling hibernation and sleep can help. What motherboard are you using it on? Should have it set to AHCI, and I don't think Sata has slave options, they should all be basically master AFAIK.

But ya, sandforce doesn't like sleep or hibernation. Always better to do a clean shutdown, or just leave the computer running.

 

[groberts101]

S1 sleeps will keep power to the drive and avoid many of those same issues.

Doesn't save you as much money as S3/S4.. but from all my testing/study on the subject... eats far fewer Sandforce based drives.

I also still see much evidence of software based power mgmt settings, driver issues, weak cabling(signaling), and power fluctuations gobbling a few up here and there too.

IMHO, sleeping/hibernating first gen SF controlled drives should be avoided completely. Unless of course you're nearing the warranty expiration and want to throw those dice in hopes of getting a new one through RMA. lol

 

[Rvenger]

Disabling hibernation and sleep can help. What motherboard are you using it on? Should have it set to AHCI, and I don't think Sata has slave options, they should all be basically master AFAIK.

But ya, sandforce doesn't like sleep or hibernation. Always better to do a clean shutdown, or just leave the computer running.

So the odds are if I RMA through OCZ I will probably get a drive with the same behavior, right?

 

[Shmee]

They will probably send another vertex 3, though you might be able to get an octane if if you ask for it. When I RMAd, I got the same product back.

 

[bradley]

What other ignoramuses label as a "bug" is merely a feature of the Sandforce SF-2281. BSOD's are a reminder not to use the drive like you would a normal SSD; they are too precious for that.

As a n00b, I personally like looking down at my rigs and seeing sub-30W idle power usage and therefore bought drives with lowly Marvell and Samsung controllers. They will just have to do for now.

 

[groberts101]

lol.. I don't think the word "feature" comes to most minds when the drive panic locks you out of your data.

@Rvenger. Whether you would have the same issue again would depend on the factors that were involved in the first place.
With the same exact software image and CMOS settings?.. I'm guessing that you probably wouldn't want to repeat exactly what you did to find the issue that you ran into this time.

Most of the time we make assumptions and conservatively.. 90% of them are often wrong. Much more going than meets the eye here and regardless of newer firmwares which have helped the vast majority of those who previously saw issues. It is still possible to config yourself into a corner with the wrong set of drivers, older CMOS, and/or power mgmt features. Not to mention how these drives seem to bring out any borderline weaknesses of some systems. Particularly ram related ones.

Should go without saying that Sandforce should master a new general release firmware... but I'll say it anyways. Especially since the most reliable drive in the world using the same controller is also having more and more issues as time goes on.

If you seriously want to save the $10 bucks to swap that drive out?.. it would be best to use OCZ's bootable Linux utility to properly reset the drive to factory fresh state by wiping all maps. First secure erase it, then force flash the firmware once more to assure proper base code, and then be sure to reset the CMOS before installing/imaging the OS back to it. It's a pain.. but that job often takes less time and money than packaging it up and shipping it out for RMA. If you have any questions just go over to OCZ's support forum.. they will set you straight on what needs to be done.