Ao1

As I mentioned it is rare, or it is now. It appeared to occur more frequently when the early firmware versions had a lot of bugs. As the bugs have been ironed out reports have diminished. I haven’t seen one report of it occurring on the 520, but then again the 520 is the only Sandforce driven SSD that underwent extensive validation and debugging before it was put on the market.

Sandforce drives can enter a panic mode when a serious error has occurred. When a panic mode is instigated a log file is generated that provides a system snapshot of information that helps to debug the problem. The drive can accommodate 4 panic logs, after that the slots have to be cleared via a manufacturing-level format process. If the LED light is permanently on (i.e. not blinking) it means that the drive is in panic mode and a panic log has been saved to the drive. (Some vendors do not follow the Sandforce reference design, so in some instances the LED will not follow this protocol). If the drive is in a panic state data can only be recovered by a specialist, and even then it cannot be guaranteed. Drive Savers used to be an accredited Sandforce partner, not sure if they are now, but they are probably your best hope if you need to recover data. As Brian mentioned, this is a rare occurrence, but a rather annoying one as you loose all data.

Intel 520 60GB – 417 GB 1,031 Hours - Relocated Sectors - 0 MWI - 100 Samsung 830 60GB – 1.19 TB 1,475 Hours - Relocated Sectors - 0 MWI - Not supported Intel X25-M 160 GB – 5.13 TB 5,867 Hours - Relocated Sectors - 7 MWI - 99 Intel X25-M 160 GB – 3.05 TB 3,915 Hours - Relocated Sectors - 1 MWI - 100

There have been widespread problems of premature relocations occurring with the Petrol and Octane and to a lesser degree the Vertex 4. Once relocated sectors start to appear they rapidly escalate until the drive stops functioning. This problem is not confined to one particular NAND type. Do you have any information on this issue and what might be causing it? Also f/w version 1.4 for the Vertex 4 appears to result in a significant drop in write speeds on the 128GB version of the drive in certain scenarios. This appears to be by design. Do you have any information on why the write speeds drop? What instigates the “problem” and how can write speeds then be restored?