Yay, 8MB death on X25-M

[StockDC2]

I was doing some work on my computer and it BSOD. Once the computer restart itself, I got the dreaded, "Insert system disk" error. After swapping drives with another and running Intel SSD Tooldisk, I found that my drive is plagued with the 8MB death disease.

My main question is this. I have another X25-M drive being used in my laptop. Does the 8MB death eventually happen to every X25-M? I purchased the SSDs together at the same time so I'm worried that I will lose the data on my portable machine.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Coup27]

I don't think the 8MB bug was caused by a time limit, rather a certain set of events / criteria.

Allegedly it was present in the X25-M G2 but was 99% eradicated by the latest firmware for that drive.

I don't think the fact this drive has it will influence your other drive. Shame Intel never fully killed this, esp considering their "extensive testing and validation procedure". Intel are now behind Samsung and Crucial in my book.

 

[jwilliams4200]

I think that the "8MB bug" is actually more of an effect, rather than a cause. I think that there are a number of things that can cause an Intel-controller SSD to be unable to properly initialize, and if any of those things happen, it goes into 8MB mode.

As for a list of things that can cause 8MB mode, I don't know. The only one that I heard about that was repeatable was with the Intel 320, if you power cycled the SSD thousands of times, one of the times it might randomly go into 8MB mode. I guess Intel fixed that one. But there are still other causes.

 

[Phynaz]

Doubtful you have the 8MB bug, that was the 320 drive.

 

[jwilliams4200]

Doubtful you have the 8MB bug, that was the 320 drive.

No, the X25-M's also go into 8MB mode when there is a severe problem. It just is that severe problems are rarer with the X25-Ms (especially G2) as compared to the 320s.

 

[StockDC2]

Doubtful you have the 8MB bug, that was the 320 drive.

Definitely have the 8MB bug. SSD Toolbox showed only 8MB of space on the SSD. Clicked on Secure Erase and my SSD vanished into thin air. Even Disk Manager cannot find the drive.

Just finished swapping my laptop harddrive back to the original and am now posting using my other Intel X-25M drive. Should I upgrade the firmware? I've read that the latest firmware has caused quite a bit of issues as well.

 

[jwilliams4200]

Should I upgrade the firmware? I've read that the latest firmware has caused quite a bit of issues as well.

First of all, if you don't already have a backup, backup your SSD.

As for firmware, when it comes to SSDs it is almost always a good idea to use the latest firmware available.

While the old X25-Ms, especially the G2s, have been quite reliable, I suspect that certain hardware configurations may increase your chances of having problems. In other words, the fact that you have one X25-M die on the same hardware makes it more likely that your other X25-M could die (as compared to if you used the X25-M on a completely different computer). But I don't have any good evidence of this, it is just my impression.

My guess is that your chances of having problems are not a lot higher than if you bought a new SSD, since then you run a chance of having some other issue. If your X25-M is performing okay for you, I'd stick with it.

 

[StockDC2]

Thanks for the feedback.

I am just going to go ahead and take my chances with the latest firmware since the firmware on this "new" drive is the same as the old one. Hopefully I'll only have to RMA one drive instead of two.

 

[bryanW1995]

I've heard of the 8mb bug rearing its ugly head with older x25m (and g2) drives as well, it is just much more rare than in the 320 series.

@OP: your x25m in the laptop is almost certainly fine. Something happened in your usage pattern with your main rig that caused that ssd to fail.

 

[StockDC2]

Thanks so much for the responses guys.

For those that are stating usage patterns, can you guys be more descriptive? I'm afraid that the second SSD will fail as well since I plan on using it for the exact same purposes of the first drive (Photoshop and League of Legends). If it makes a difference, I leave my computer on most of the day, especially when I am running around meeting clients.

 

[jwilliams4200]

For those that are stating usage patterns, can you guys be more descriptive? I'm afraid that the second SSD will fail as well since I plan on using it for the exact same purposes of the first drive (Photoshop and League of Legends). If it makes a difference, I leave my computer on most of the day, especially when I am running around meeting clients.

I think it is very UNlikely that the type of read and write access you made to the SSD caused it to fail. You can write hundreds of thousands of gigabytes to even a 25nm flash SSD without wearing it out, and the X25-M has larger flash (34nm or greater) which has even greater endurance.

Most likely is that it was just random bad luck and won't happen again. Next most likely is that the hardware you paired it with slightly increased the chances of some firmware or controller bug occurring, but even then there is a small chance it will happen again. Far, far down there is the chance that the type of read/write IO that you did caused it to fail. Too small to even worry about.

Of course, I am assuming you did not physically, electrically, or thermally abuse the SSD (i.e., throw it against the wall, subject it to ESD shock or electrical overvoltage, freeze it or put it in an oven, etc.)

 

[StockDC2]

Hah, definitely didn't abuse the SSD but gladly will if it fails again .

Thanks so much for your help! Wish I could rep you or something.

 

[Compman55]

And is intel working on a fix to this?????

 

[VirtualLarry]

I sold my friend a Kingston-branded X25-V 40GB SSD, because I didn't want to use it because it lacked trim. Well, his got hit with the "8MB bug" too. Had to RMA it.

I hear that doing a "Secure Erase" is supposed to bring the drive back to normal size, but in the process, you lose all of your data.

 

[bryanW1995]

And is intel working on a fix to this?????

Generally, rigs with the latest firmware don't get hit with this bug. There are a few outliers, and the OP seems to have lucked into one of them. They were obviously either unable to completely fix the issue or unwilling to invest the resources necessary to fix it, which fyi is quite likely the reason that they're now using sf-2281 controllers instead of their own.

@OP: unless the 2nd x25m is/was in the same rig then you should be fine. Rather than a function of usage, I think that it is a funcion of specific hardware incompatibilities increasing the odds of the drive getting reduced to the 8mb state. As VirtualLarry stated, a secure erase will reset the drive but all of your data is lost.

edit: Sorry, it looks like specific shutdown scenarios can also cause it. Regardless, your laptop would also shutdown differently in, for example, a power outage, so you should still be fine.

Here's some info from last year on it: http://www.pcper.com/news/Storage/Intel-Releasing-Firmware-Fix-8MB-SSD-Bug-Two-Weeks

We reported a few weeks ago that Intel was able to reproduce the 8MB firmware bug in it's lab and was working on a fix. Officially called the Bad Context 13x Error, the 8MB bug is a rather serious firmware issue that a small percentage of users ran into when their drives unexpectedly lost power due to improper shutdown procedures or power outage at an especially wrong time. Once the drives were powered on again, they reported a capacity of 8MB to its users, who were able to restore the drive using secure erase but not the data.

 

[StockDC2]

Generally, rigs with the latest firmware don't get hit with this bug. There are a few outliers, and the OP seems to have lucked into one of them. They were obviously either unable to completely fix the issue or unwilling to invest the resources necessary to fix it, which fyi is quite likely the reason that they're now using sf-2281 controllers instead of their own.

@OP: unless the 2nd x25m is/was in the same rig then you should be fine. Rather than a function of usage, I think that it is a funcion of specific hardware incompatibilities increasing the odds of the drive getting reduced to the 8mb state. As VirtualLarry stated, a secure erase will reset the drive but all of your data is lost.

edit: Sorry, it looks like specific shutdown scenarios can also cause it. Regardless, your laptop would also shutdown differently in, for example, a power outage, so you should still be fine.

Here's some info from last year on it: http://www.pcper.com/news/Storage/Intel-Releasing-Firmware-Fix-8MB-SSD-Bug-Two-Weeks

I'm currently using the 2nd drive in the same machine .

Maybe it's time to purchase the Samsung 830 I've always wanted?

 

[bryanW1995]

Well, from reading the pcper article, it looks like it is related to shutdown at the wrong time as well. The firmware update fixed most but not all of those issues. The question is, were you just lucky to have your other drive fail, or was it because of something that you did regularly for a long time?

If you're buying a new drive now, I'd lean towards an m4 since they are so much cheaper than the samsung.

 

[jwilliams4200]

The pcper article is about the Intel 320. The OP has X25-Ms.

Since the 320 series has extra hardware and modified firmware to support power-loss-protection (that the X25-M lacks), it is reasonable to assume that this particular issue with powering down the SSD is unique to the 320, and not relevant to the X25-M. Also, the first reports of the problem with the 320 claimed it was reproducible by simply power-cycling the SSD many times. This suggests that the problem is random in nature, and every time the power was cycled that you had some (small) chance of the SSD going into 8MB mode. Most likely Intel fixed that problem. But as I already wrote in this thread, there are multiple causes that can make the X25-M or 320 go into 8MB mode. Intel has obviously not fixed all of the causes.

 

[StockDC2]

How the hard drive crashed was quite weird. I was simply doing work in Photoshop while streaming music and all of a sudden, got a blue screen that if I remember correctly, said something about cache. Then the computer automatically restarted and instead of booting into the OS, had a message about a boot file missing.

I restarted the computer and booted off of an older disk drive with the SSD attached. Once I opened Intel SSD Toolbox, it showed only 8MB of storage capacity on the SSD.

What worries me is that Photoshop and streaming music is basically what I use this computer for (apart from web browsing). Since I'm doing the same thing with this second drive, is it likely that this problem will occur again?

Thanks for the suggestion regarding the SSD as well as the feedback about my problem. It's very much appreciated .

 

[jwilliams4200]

How the hard drive crashed was quite weird. I was simply doing work in Photoshop while streaming music and all of a sudden, got a blue screen that if I remember correctly, said something about cache.

That sounds like a random failure. Certainly no one has ever reported any failure modes involving running photoshop or playing media files.