Intel x25-m just failed all over my macbook pro [Archive]

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Eddyisgreat

May 30, 2009, 12:47 AM

:(

Was running fine. Up for about five days from last restart (sleep instead of shutdown). Purchased 2/1/09.
Powered it down to do my weekly cleanings.
Tried to power back up and was met with a hung system. Now the drive is not detected by the OS, TechTool 5, Drive Genius, hardware test, disk utility, nothing. Sys info shows an empty SATA bus.

Latest firmware.

I knew something was up FF hung my machine on shutdown yesterday. Should've picked up on it.
Needless to say, i'm pissed. Why? Cause i'll have to crack open my early 2008 MBP to get this sucker out. Thankfully most of the time i'm on these boards its to offer advice, and I practice what I preach, though my backup scheme wasn't nearly as robust as I had hoped for OS failures. It took me about four hours to restore my May 20th backup.

I believe this was an isolated issue. Smart status reported fine as I ran tests on the morning of May 28th. Nothing out of the ordinary except the hung system later that day.

Still there are some other instances of this occuring to other users, which has me concerned:
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread192335.html
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1034160601
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=83&threadid=2292224

First hard drive in 18 years to fail before i've had a chance to deem it EOL.

Early adopter FTL.

spaceballl

May 30, 2009, 01:23 AM

I'm guessing that X25 can't be more than a year old though, right? What's the warranty on it? As long as you have a backup, if you have a spare drive, you can restore, live with it until the warranty is processed, and then put in the new drive... right?

Man, bummer to hear... I'm rockin' the 256GB TITAN SSD in my non-unibody MBP. I hope mine doesn't suffer the same fate!

Eddyisgreat

May 30, 2009, 02:02 AM

My own x25-m was in use for roughly four months. I believe the manufacture date that was printed on the box itself was November 2008. From speedy boots to a non existant shell. This thing disappeared from my system without such a trace, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if I were to open up my system and my disk drive was gone, because this thing was there one minute and quickly faded away.

Anyway what I just did was take my latest image of my drive and restore it onto a new partition on one of my external drives, although I needed to create a whole new OS installation also (because disk utility was not cooperating with my images) .

I'm not even going to replace the drive I did this with (my stock mbp drive) for the ssd. Booting up from USB works fine, as it should.

I hate to deal with RMA now, especially since i'm moving across town next week, but such is life. Warranty is 3 years, so if I get more botched drives i'll be covered.

alphaod

May 30, 2009, 08:54 AM

Sorry to hear about your failure; I had 2 SSDs fail in the first 3 days when I bought an SSD about a year and half ago. That kind of put me off from buying another SSD. I know people who bought one at the same time as I did the first time around and they've never had any issues so far. I just think I was unlucky and you were also. Hopefully your replacement will be problem free for years to come. So far my X25-M is working very well *knock on wood*.

First hard drive in 18 years to fail before i've had a chance to deem it EOL.

And it's a solid state disk, so you're hard disk drive record is still failure free. ;)

MacModMachine

May 30, 2009, 08:59 AM

SMART will not give you much help with a SSD as it doesn't report the most needed info from the ssd.

Eddyisgreat

May 30, 2009, 11:17 AM

SMART will not give you much help with a SSD as it doesn't report the most needed info from the ssd.

Yeah thats true. I wonder what actually happened...nothing moved around/wasn't dropped or anything...I can't even zero write this puppy 7 times so my data could still be intact and intel will laugh at my images :(

bcaslis

May 30, 2009, 11:49 AM

Keep in mind that an SSD is basically a semiconductor (chips) as opposed to a hard drive. The normal failure mechanism for a semiconductor is basically to fail early or not fail at all unlike a mechanical mechanism. But you should be able to get this replaced under warranty. I'd be willing to bet that your replacement used in the same way will have no problems.

Bye Bye Baby

May 30, 2009, 12:02 PM

eThat's interesting. I am thinking of the Intel SSD for my new MBP.

CTechKid

May 30, 2009, 06:35 PM

Sorry to hear that Eddy. :(

Maybe you can get a 160GB X25-M from them for time lost. Probably not but you never know! ;)

alphaod

May 30, 2009, 07:10 PM

Sorry to hear that Eddy. :(

Maybe you can get a 160GB X25-M from them for time lost. Probably not but you never know! ;)

This is Intel, not Apple.

Eddyisgreat

May 30, 2009, 07:21 PM

I can dream. Maybe when I talk to them on Monday i'll stress how much this event has "greatly changed how Intel's SSDs will be used in my future data center deployment strategies" and that "such a catastrophic failure will be taken into consideration as to whether or not we will phase out intel based flash storage in our client-facing workstations." :D Charts and graphs will also be used for dramatic effect.

alphaod

May 30, 2009, 07:31 PM

Unprocessed1

May 30, 2009, 07:59 PM

Maybe no one has the 160 GB X-25, but it seems like a lot of the 80 GB drives are failing (possible they're the original models)?

EDIT: by "a lot" i mean a few

Eddyisgreat

May 30, 2009, 08:10 PM

Maybe no one has the 160 GB X-25, but it seems like a lot of the 80 GB drives are failing (possible they're the original models)?

Is this from the links I posted or are there more?!?! I'd like to bring that up if its the case.

Anyway, FWIW, here is the info on the drive which is on the front of the box.

Part No: ssdsa2mh080g1c5
version #:e48765-902
qty:1
pack date: 02-nov-08
batch: cncv8b2201
revision : 045C8820

If you have the same batch i'd backup ASAP.

iaminsane

May 31, 2009, 02:04 AM

Warranty is 3 years, so if I get more botched drives i'll be covered.

anyone know what the warranty details on the x25's ?

Last year I had a "5 year warranty" WD raptor die 18 months after purchase. Well, the warranty actually states if you RMA it, they will replace it with a refurbished with a 60 day warranty. so my "protection" ended after about 20 months, not 5 years. :(

Does the intel warranty replace it with a new or refurb? and does that replacement remain warranted for the three years from purchase? or do they have an "escape clause" like Western digital?

thanks :)

Eddyisgreat

May 31, 2009, 03:06 AM

Does the intel warranty replace it with a new or refurb? and does that replacement remain warranted for the three years from purchase? or do they have an "escape clause" like Western digital?

thanks :)

I'm not sure what they would replace it with. If its an obvious refurb (with nicks on the casing) i'll demand another. Otherwise I probably couldn't tell.

Intel may elect to repair or replace the Product with either a new or reconditioned Product or components, as Intel deems
appropriate. The repaired or replaced product will be shipped to you at the expense of Intel within a reasonable period of
time after receipt of the returned Product by ICS. The returned Product shall become Intel’s property on receipt by ICS. The
replacement product is warranted under this written warranty and is subject to the same limitations and exclusions for ninety
(90) days or the remainder of the original warranty period, whichever is longer. If Intel replaces the Product, the Limited Warranty
period for the replacement Product is not extended.

From http://support.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/CS-029645.htm

I assume the last statement means that they won't extend the warranty of a replaced drive to three years from the date of receipt, Which is to be expected. WD was way out of line on that raptor of yours.

iMacDragon

May 31, 2009, 04:49 AM

anyone know what the warranty details on the x25's ?

Last year I had a "5 year warranty" WD raptor die 18 months after purchase. Well, the warranty actually states if you RMA it, they will replace it with a refurbished with a 60 day warranty. so my "protection" ended after about 20 months, not 5 years. :(

Does the intel warranty replace it with a new or refurb? and does that replacement remain warranted for the three years from purchase? or do they have an "escape clause" like Western digital?

thanks :)

Are you absolutely sure about that? I've never seen a warranty where the replacement wasn't for either 60/90 days or rest of existing warranty term, whichever is longer, and replacing with a refurb is usually standard practice too.

helfo

May 31, 2009, 10:09 AM

Unprocessed1

May 31, 2009, 10:23 AM

alphaod

May 31, 2009, 11:18 AM

My 160GB Intel failed too. (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=704670&highlight=intel+ssd)

On Friday I telephoned with the Intel support. On Monday the SSD was picked up by DHL and on thursday my new SSD arrived. So, Intel Support was very good.

I hope this is not a systematic error.

Good to hear Intel backs up their goods.

I am however surprised, DHL didn't lose your goods. :rolleyes:

Eddyisgreat

May 31, 2009, 12:47 PM

My 160GB Intel failed too. (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=704670&highlight=intel+ssd)

On Friday I telephoned with the Intel support. On Monday the SSD was picked up by DHL and on thursday my new SSD arrived. So, Intel Support was very good.

I hope this is not a systematic error.

Man that sucks. I was kinda hoping I was one of the very few. Intel had better have a quick turn around when you spend $700+ on 160 gb of storage.

Looks like crashed and burned with as little gracefulness as mine.

omikjam

Jun 10, 2009, 03:02 PM

My X25-M 80GB recently died on me too, unibody macbook here. I had it for 5 days before it called it quits.. Waiting for Intel's 30 day DOA-policy to run out (bought on eBay so no returns). :(

Is this from the links I posted or are there more?!?! I'd like to bring that up if its the case.

Anyway, FWIW, here is the info on the drive which is on the front of the box.

Part No: ssdsa2mh080g1c5
version #:e48765-902
qty:1
pack date: 02-nov-08
batch: cncv8b2201
revision : 045C8820

If you have the same batch i'd backup ASAP.

I have that batch and version, and mine is dead too. Seems like a really bad batch or something.

iomatic

Oct 13, 2010, 12:38 PM

Just checking in-- mine also just failed a few days ago after over a year of operation. :(

Eddyisgreat

Oct 13, 2010, 12:57 PM

Just checking in-- mine also just failed a few days ago after over a year of operation. :(

1st gen?

iomatic

Oct 13, 2010, 06:11 PM

dunno, what are the generation designations?

Eddyisgreat

Oct 13, 2010, 11:14 PM

Pretty much:
black drive = g1
silver drive = g2

iomatic

Oct 14, 2010, 12:08 PM

Ah. Black drive. Bad?

Any recovery firms worth trying? Intel keeps saying, naw, not worth it.

http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-service-options/
http://www.datarecovery.net/pricing.html
http://www.24hourdata.com/data-recovery/pricing

???

Thanks!

Eddyisgreat

Oct 14, 2010, 12:56 PM

I'm not sure man. I just restored from a backup. I think those firms focus on Magnetics. They could probably do flash (infact i'm sure they've recieved an obliterated flash drive once or twice) but the cost would be outrageous. We don't really know why these drives failed, just that they did spontaneously. So your data could be completely gone or simply inaccessible by a blown controller (or something. Just a guess).

On that note, i've been having a bit of delayed operation on my replacement unit. No spontaneous deaths, but annoying stutters. I plan on RMAing this drive once the G3s come out.

Anyway sorry for your hassles + good luck.