How long are solid-state drives supposed to last?

I bought two Intel 320 160 GB SSDs for a total of around $600. I've had them for a little over a year. Both of them just fried within a day of each other. One fried yesterday, the other fried today. They were in different computers.

Now, I know that SSDs have a write-limit and do stop working after a while. But I feel like it should be a little longer than that, especially since one of them had far less usage than the other, and neither of them had all that much usage in total. Although one of them I did erase multiple times and reload Windows onto multiple times because I used it between different computers before settling on one to keep it in. Still, I'd expect a little more time than that. Is this normal behavior for SSDs or did I just get unlucky?

 

They should last MUCH longer than that. Look up your warranty. A quick search online shows that the 320 series has a 5yr warranty.

New 5-Year Limited Warranty on Intel® SSD 320

 

It's not how much usage they had; it's what kind of usage they had.

So? What was the typical work day for these SSD's?

(And while we're chatting... make sure to start your warranty service on these drives...).

 

Yeah, I forgot about the long warranty; I'll get on that.

And as for the usage--I don't know, mostly internet usage, iTunes, Microsoft Office, the occasional Photoshop; the computers are on most of the day. One of the drives (I'll call it Drive B) was reformatted several times because I kept switching it between computers before I decided to keep it inside one.

They were in different situations: Drive A was in my desktop; it had Windows 7 on it. One time I started up the computer and it wouldn't boot Windows, told me that the boot drive couldn't be accessed. Yet I can still access all the files if I hook it up by eSATA. So I'm not totally convinced Drive A is ruined.

Drive B, on the other hand, the one that I reformatted several times, was in my laptop running Windows 7 fine for a couple weeks until today when my computer crashed out of nowhere and it wouldn't restart. I cannot access anything on it if I hook it up to my other computer through the eSATA port; it doesn't even show up.

 

Hmmm... I see your problem clearly... it's iTunes that's the problem.

j/k

Seriously... my Crucial m4 crapped out after upgrading to the most recent firmware. The drive was completely unavailable to any OS. Crucial sent me instructions on how to force a power cycle in the SSD. You should give it a try.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...rage/689884-crucial-m4-new-firmware-010g.html

 

Drive A may just be a corrupt boot sector or something. With it in the system, boot off the Windows 7 installer disc and select the repair option.

 

I removed my 300 GB 320 Series long ago...tons of issues. You are probably not FRIED, but have suffered from this:

Anyone else had a repeat 8mb brick on 320 ssd AFTER firmware update.

Is 320 firmware buggy?

Intel seems to ignore the situation, but a lot of people are plagued by the 8mb bug, even after firmware flash. Something is definately wrong with the controller...

Under normal use, you can see 5-7 years...as long as they support wear leveling, where writes are moving around to different areas of the drive.

 

I have been using the same drive since April 2011 (over 5 TB r/w since) and have had no issues so far. I haven't even got a single BSOD yet.

I have the exact same drive in my office computer as well and that runs fine too. Yours is just a bad luck I'd say. Just RMA it and get your replacement drive.

If you want to upgrade to something else look for Samsung 840 (coming up mid-October). Seems to be one of the best out there.

--

 

Fried =/= used up write limit. A SSD is suppose to be read accessible even though it can't be write on anymore. A fried SSD is just like HDD died suddenly with no bad sector etc.

 

I'd definitely wait to see what tech support tells you to do with the drive. Power cycling could work.

My 160GB 320 is still working just fine with much the same usage patterns, and I *haven't* upgraded my firmware so I'm still technically vulnerable to the 8MB bug Probably just got a bad drive.

 

I've had two Kingston drives and one PNY drive fail on me. Both of the Kingston drives (V100s) would just "freeze up" periodically for a second or two where the HDD light would remain solid but no I/O activity would occur and the computer would completely freeze up. Then it would return to normal and be fine for another 5-10 minutes, after which this process would repeat. Checking the disk would result in bad sectors. Each drive lasted less than a year.

The PNY drive lasted almost two years, and just recently (1-2 weeks ago) started throwing BSODs at least once a day due to ntfs.sys. Scanning the drive revealed file corruption. Replacing the SSD with mechanical HDD (only temporary until I get another SSD) has stopped the BSODs.

I have an Intel X25-M (160gb), Intel 320 (120gb), MyDigitalSSD mSATA (32gb), OCZ Vertex Plus (240gb), Kingston V100 (256gb), and Crucial M4 (512gb) that are all functioning without issue so far.

 

So, yes. I've confirmed that I definitely have the "8MB Bug" that plagues the Intel 320 series. Kinda regret buying two of them now...

There's supposed to be a firmware fix; I tried it, didn't work. I'm just going to have to utilize the warranty and have them replace it...

 

That's sad to hear!

Which firmware were you running when they went kaput?

 

I don't know. I don't remember ever running an update before, but either way, when I tried to do the firmware fix it said I already had the current firmware, so it didn't do anything. Still stuck with an 8MB drive...

 

Thanks for the additional data points... when you tried the firmware update - did you try both the bootable CD/DVD option or only the Windows exe method (via Intel SSD Toolbox)?

 

Yeah, I tried both; neither worked. It seemed convinced I already have the updated firmware.