SSD's Vulnerable to Sudden Power Loss?

I found this on another forum. Interesting read.
https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/fast13/fast13-final80.pdf

 

Interesting. No warm fuzzy here now... thanks. j/k

 

Hmm. Interesting article, thanks for the read.

 

Already found this out the hard way ... even on the enterprise class SSDs

Nice read.

 

I've worked on several projects in which flash technology was used ... you can definitely corrupt a system by cutting power at just the right time. There are some techniques you can use to minimize the risk (parallel super capacitors for example) but its always still a possibility. That said, hard drives aren't perfect either .

 

Definitely not a good thing, but I kind of expected it. Given how the SSD industry has so completely focused all of their attention and all of their efforts on speed first and reliability second, it's no surprise that a relatively unimportant thing like graceful power loss handling has been neglected.

 

Seems like a questionable thing to say. ^ ^ ^

e.g. Crucial's latest f/w (version 040H) update makes an effort at better handling of power loss: >"Improved robustness in the event of an unexpected power loss. Significantly reduces the incidence of long reboot times after an unexpected power loss."<

I found the .pdf writeup, in the OP of this thread, to be a strong reminder of doing regular and robust backups of one's SSD drives with a HDD.

 

That and a UPS for a desktop, as well as implementing shutdown routines for desktops w/ a UPS, laptops and other battery powered devices.

 

Maybe prepare a replacement SDD just in case if you got a nice looking paperweight.

 

It's still way cheaper to backup SSD to a HDD.

Not to mention that you can't leave unused SSD units lying around; whereas you can leave backup HDD units unused for more than a year.

FWIW newegg has a rather good sale at ~$55/drive till Mar. 7, w/ promo code EMCXTXW37, on 500GB 7mm thick HGST 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s.

See: HGST Travelstar Z7K500 HTS725050A7E630 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive - Newegg.com

Even the best current 500GB SSD deal (w/ MLC NAND) will set you back > $350.

 

I picked up a 1GB Travelstar for my second internal drive on my Lappy for $84. I use that for data and to backup my SSD. Very happy with prices after the fiasco of the flooding a while back when prices shot up so much. Agree completely with HHD backups.

 

I meant in case if the ssd got bricked during power loss (which happened to me a few times before), you got the choice to replace with another ssd and restore it with your backup.

 

So you've "bricked" at least two of your SSD units in the recent past?

Big wow on that.

But exactly what do you mean by that?

e.g. 1) that you had to throw away the SSD units? As they could not be used anymore?

or 2) that you lost all data on the SSD units? But were able to use them again by reformatting them???

Please explain; thanks.

FWIW my own goal is to do easy clone backups from my boot SSD to a temp HDD, at either SATA II or SATA III speeds, and if the SSD dies, all I have to do is remove it and drop in the backup HDD into the main bay and the laptop will boot without having to do anything special.

 

They couldn't be used anymore ... BIOS can pick them up but they show up as a locked password protected drive. There was no password before.
At this point, you can't even use the drive or see it beyond the BIOS unless I know the password.
They have to be RMA'd as I do not have equipment to modify the controller.

Good thing they were still under warranty and I called RMA # as well doing a web RMA (took them a month to approve a request vs a few hours on the phone)

I got them back from RMA, only 33% of the data was intact, the rest was gibberish. Oh well.

 

I just did my 1st clone of my main/boot SSD (nominal 512GB M4 2.5" SSD) to a temp 500GB HDD in the DVD bay, on my new T530 laptop with a single NTFS partition (fresh Win7 installed by me); then pulled out the boot SSD and dropped in the HDD and it booted fine.

I used Acronis True Image 2013 CD (clone > manual > "as is"), which I booted the laptop with (NOT installed into Windows); I also have a CD of True Image 2011 (from late in the Acronis 2011 model year) and am fairly certain that it would also work with that or 2012 version.

The M4 SSD is SATA III and the temp HDD is a 500GB single platter (7mm thick) HGST 7200rpm which is also SATA III, and both bays work at SATA III speed.

It took 8.6 minutes to do the actual clone backup (not counting time spent moving drives around).

So 58.71GB of actual data on the partition / 8.6 minutes = 6.83GB/minute, which is even better than the best clone xfer rate on my fastest desktop.