Z SSD Failure?

I was just on my laptop when it started to go super slow to the point where it wouldn't respond. I hard reset it, and when it came back on, it said something was wrong with one of the SSDs (first picture below). Then it would go to a Windows screen where it tried to figure out what was wrong, but it couldn't find a solution. It restart again, and when it would list the SSDs, I tried to do the CTRL+I to figure out what options I have. But all it would say is that I can create RAID volume, delete RAID volume, or reset disks to non-RAID. The RAID was listed as normal. This was when I pulled out my camera to take pics.

I hard reset the laptop again, and when it came back on, now only two of the SSDs are listed and on the status screen the RAID volume now says that it has failed (picture 2). After it displays this information then it says an error has occurred (picture 4).

So basically, can I get my data back? Can I even reinstall Windows? Is one of the SSDs busted and now I have to send it in to Sony? Might this have happened for some odd reason because my SSDs only had 10 GBs of free space left?

Any help would be appreciated! My final production video project in college is due this week and I don't have another machine powerful enough to edit or generate my HD movie. ^_^;;

 

This would be the reason why you make (daily) backups ^_^. Because raid0 is about as bad (read as: unreliable) as it gets, when one disk fails you lose your data.

Maybe some advanced restore company can do something about it, but most software you will probably try won't like the RAID setup (aka it can restore something from a disk, but only partially unless it was fully written to that one disk).

SSD's shouldn't fail when there's too little space, that wouldn't make sense. They do slow down (terribly) when there's little space left.

So yeah the only option would be RMA and i hope you got some proper backups left, that's about as far as your gonna get.

 

What's RMA?

 

Means to return the laptop. I forget what exactly it stands for,

 

RMA = Return Material Authorization.

The controller for the SSD could have gone bad. Usually you can still read from an SSD if the NAND chips extend past their write life.

RAID 0 is a horrible RAID, and despite it's name it's not really RAID ( Redundant Array of Independent Disks), and it's not Redundant, it's striped and dependent.

In any case, if it's a dead controller then maybe Sony can replace the controller, and your data will be intact (hopefully), but hxkclan's advice is sound. Backup, backup, and backup some more.

See here though, maybe will help:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/487933-sony-z112-ssd-posting-error.html

 

You didn't mention if you have been able to continue beyond the RST message and actually boot into Windows.

I received this error about a month ago but was able to continue and get into Windows. Once in there I ran a Verify in the Intel Rapid Storage Technology application which told me that I had a number of blocks with media errors. I tried running a chkdsk on the drive but it would just loop without actually doing anything. At that point I made sure I had all my files backed up.

I ended up calling Sony and they talked me through deleting the raid volume, resetting the disks to non raid and then creating a new raid volume as per the options in your third screenshot. Once I'd done that I had to reinstall Windows using the recovery disks. That fixed my problem but Sony weren't able to explain what happened or how I could avoid a repeat of this. Not great to have to rebuild a 6 month old laptop that costs this much without understanding what went wrong

Anyway, I'd recommend contacting Sony support to see if they can help. The guy I spoke to was very patient and helpful (up until the last part mentioned above). Good luck.

 

It costs that much cuz of the expensive components. Not a whole lot of money that you pay actually goes into making the laptop more "robust" or stable. Standard components are used, there's no redundancy (think multiple hot-swappable PSUs on blade servers, etc.)...

 

I'm just wondering... considering that 0 => false in CS, maybe that's why they called it RAID0... because it ISN'T redundant... Does anyone know why? (I guess i can just look in wiki, but it's late and i'm tired )

 

In the very first image, I'm rather curious as to why the bad SSD has a different model number MMCRE64G, whereas the other two are MMCRE28G. And with quite different serial codes (whereas again, the other two are quite similar).

Rachel (the mod here) I remember tried RAIDing with different SSDs, which failed on her twice, the second after a successful return-and-replacement. But her machine was a VGN-TT.

Technically I assume it wouldn't really matter what brands are paired / RAIDed with what, but being different pieces of hardware I can only guess inconsistancies may affect long-term reliability.

I assume we're talking about a VPC-Z? Or wording that differently, this isn't a VGN-Z with a RAID and a retro-fitted extra SSD in the optics bay?

 

If disabledeletenotify = 0 then TRIM is enabled in the OS. If it's anything other than 0, then it's disabled. Download crystaldiskinfo and it will tell you everything you need to know about your ssd.

 

That doesn't mean you have working TRIM, though -- only that it's not disabled in Windows. The drive, controller and driver ALL have to support it too, and set to AHCI in BIOS. And, of course, if you run RAID (or RAID 0), you won't have TRIM even if all of the above is true.

If you do have RAID 0, you might as well set disabledeletenotify to 1, because generating and sending those commands will just be a waste.

 

Can we get?to the point here: to read this thread alone, no one in their right mind would own a Z1 with what you are all describing as the "terrible" Raid 0 SSD array. Yet as far as I know, the majority of (very, very sophisticated) owners/posters on the Z threads all use the Z in its standard raid 0 configuration. Other than backing up data - which is rudimentary for anyone with a computer - there is no concrete advice here other than what appears to be, if one didn't know better: don't buy a Sony Z with Raid 0! This further conflicts with the thread on SSD degredation which shows nearly zero degradation over a year or more.

What gives?

 

My Z's SSDs performance degraded quite noticeably in a few months of very tender use

 

I understand that. But I thought the Sony Z SSD setup was found to actually work with TRIM commands.

 

If you read the thread on SSD degrading, you will find your experience is an outlier; most had less than 10% change (and many had nearly 0% change) after a year. http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...g-term-ssd-performance-post-your-results.html If one has to be obsessive about taking steps to avoid premature degradation, the Raid 0 array is truly a sham and the Z1 should not be purchased by anyone at any price....but the behavior of extremely sophisticated users on this forum would suggest otherwise. Might there be something about the way you are using your stock Raid 0 SSDs that is causing such severe degradation?

 

quit bsing. Without trim, performance will degrade, irrespective of usage pattern, that's a fact. The rest of your argument is irrelevant, especially that thread, where only a handful of people actually bench their drives consistently, not to mention devote 20gb or more of SSD space for GC and leave their notebooks idling to no end for that GC to work, while the rest simply go on with their lives, not noticing the slow degradation in the write speed. They are the outlier, not me

 

Nope. Not unless you break the RAID.

 

I got a warning message a long time ago when I first got my Z, it was some crap in RST. I attribute it to an older version of the Intel software. I don't think I every really had an actual hardware problem. Yours looks like one of the SSDs might actually be going bad though, since you are getting problems pre-boot.

 

I'm a n00b here. So can one get rid of the raid0 setup then if raid0 is bad?

 

You need to hack the BIOS to do so. Another solution is to carve another partition out out of the C drive and create a D drive. This will mean that you can create a backup on one drive and do everything else on the other. This effectively functions like RAID 1 because RAID 1 clones almost everything giving you real-time backup, but the disk is still in RAID0 so you will still run the risk.

 

I'm a little confused - so is it possible to recover the data? I'm not very SSD-savvy. ^_^;

 

If it's the drive's controller that's broken, and the technicians are able and willing to change the controller while leaving the drive intact, yes.

So no. No matter what the problem is, you'll lose your data. Sony's service technicians aren't engineers, but low pay replace monkeys. They will swap out the entire drive (or two drives), and restore to factory conditions. Hopefully without damaging your machine too badly in the process.

 

Thank you for posting this! I had the same problem, with a Z11 that's now out of warranty. My free 15 minute chat session with Sony would have had me try to do a system recovery to a damaged RAID drive - they didn't mention recreating the RAID drive. You may have been lucky to get the support you did (although I assume it helped that your laptop was under warranty).

I'd also like to know why this problem occurred.

 

Glad I could help