128GB Nova Series SSD dies too fast ?

Hi everyone. After one of my Velociraptor 10.000RPM in RAID choosed to suddenly die on me... i've decided to move into "the new generation" hard drive... and that's what everyone's saying about SSD. After a lot of comparision, reviews, tech data... i've decided to go with Corsair (never had problems with Corsair memory). Our Corsair distribuitor recommended me the 128GB Nova Series SSD, the one that supports TRIM by default and has Indilinx Barefoot (well known for stability and performance).

Everything went well, i've installed my Windows 7 license... setup the swap file, temporary files on a Velociraptor drive... then disabled prefetch, defragment and every other tweak i could find for SSD drives, so that my Corsair drive live a long and happy life. Even everything i download, i do it on the other drive. I just use the Nova for Windows and installed apps (Adobe CS4 & Office mostly).

After about a week, i found this tool called IndilinxSSDStatus... and i got shocked ! It says my drive is now at 96% Health. That means 4% down in just one week. If it keeps like this, in a half an year or so, the drive will be dead. And that without me using it at full potential (downloading and keeping everything on it, including temp files).

I've seen other people screenshots for the same Indilinx chipset, but different manufacturer. They were at 100% even after a month or more of usage. Is my drive faulty or something ? I don't want to lose my data after just 6 months or so.

Thank you in advance !

That may not be anything to worry about it will show the same thing in Crystal Disk Info, seems to be an issue with the current firmware.

Yeah... now i noticed in Crystal Disk Info too... it's going down to 95% Health Status. Do you have any clue about when there will be a new firmware to fix this problem ?

P.S. I've tried uploading a screenshot from Crystal Disk Info, but it says "upload failed", no matter if it's .png, .jpg or else. And the size is under the requirements...

P.S. I've tried uploading a screenshot from Crystal Disk Info, but it says "upload failed", no matter if it's .png, .jpg or else. And the size is under the requirements...

Thank god.. Thought it was me (felt like a dumb a$$ when I mentioned it in a post.).. lol

It sometimes takes as many as 8 times to upload each attachment.. I just kept trying till it worked

Note: There was one time where I saved a picture as a BMP with a jpg attachment, and it wouldn't go at all (some sort of file scan to confirm attachment ;-)

The latest reference Firmware has several other issue that are more critical

Can you tell us what are those issues ? Thanks in advance !

RAM GUY, please tell us what's the plan with the firmware update and fixes for Corsair Nova series, as it's going really bad. Mine is now at 85% Health after just a month of "low" usage. At this rate, it will go down in 6 months or so... I don't even want to imagine what would happen if i would have only one drive, and be forced to have all the temp/cache files on the Nova...

I would not discount that there may be something wrong with your drive specifically. I did 0 (zero) "optimizations" that you are talking about on my drive. I have my page file active, I do work on this system daily. I install and remove files, download to this drive, etc. You name it I do it. Basically I abuse this drive the same way I would a traditional HDD.

Here's the status after about a month of use (8h per day roughly)...

http://img.techpowerup.org/100427/IndilinxSSDStatus_27042010004.png

I would not discount that there may be something wrong with your drive specifically. I did 0 (zero) "optimizations" that you are talking about on my drive. I have my page file active, I do work on this system daily. I install and remove files, download to this drive, etc. You name it I do it. Basically I abuse this drive the same way I would a traditional HDD.

 

Here's the status after about a month of use (8h per day roughly)...

 

http://img.techpowerup.org/100427/IndilinxSSDStatus_27042010004.png

As you can see, mine had even less write/read data than yours (probably because the optimisations) and shows 87% health (against yours showing 98%):

http://www.consolegames.ro/forum/attachments/f35-offtopic/58564d1272400098-spambox-reloaded-p-screenshot_27.04.2010.png

I don't know what to do ? Shall i contact Corsair distribuitor from my country and change it ?

Have you ran Parted Magic to secure erase the drive?

Why should i run Parted Magic ? I just installed the drive, partitioned and formatted about a month ago. Does SSD need special format ?

And there are no issues with Nova drives that I am aware of and no plans for a firmware update at this time.

Strange, as you said earlier

The latest reference Firmware has several other issue that are more critical

I would suspect you just have a improperly installed drive or a failing controller on the MB or the SSD may be failing.

I've tested the drive on different computers, different configurations and controllers. I also tested different drivers. Plus, clean installed OS. Plus, on my computer i also have 4 more Hard Drives that are working within specs on the same controller. So no, controller can't be failing. To be sure it's not the port, i also changed it. Same results...

As you can see, mine had even less write/read data than yours (probably because the optimisations) and shows 87% health (against yours showing 98%):

http://www.consolegames.ro/forum/attachments/f35-offtopic/58564d1272400098-spambox-reloaded-p-screenshot_27.04.2010.png

I don't know what to do ? Shall i contact Corsair distribuitor from my country and change it ?

There is definitely something wrong with your drive or your setup. Your cell wearing is very high, and you have a drive with less data writes. I would get the drive changed. That is not normal. Why is your up-time so high anyway? How long have you had the drive?

The I would run parted magic and secure erase the drive and then quick format the drive with 4k Allocation and test it again with Atto.

OK RAM GUY, if that's what you recommend, i will run parted magic and secure erase the drive. But i need to make a clone as i have important data on that drive. What method do you recommend ? I am afraid if i use my licensed Acronis TrueImage, it will restore the drive as it was before.

There is definitely something wrong with your drive or your setup. Your cell wearing is very high, and you have a drive with less data writes. I would get the drive changed. That is not normal. Why is your up-time so high anyway? How long have you had the drive?

The uptime is high because it's my main computer and it does a lot of rendering and some server jobs. That requires the PC to stay on as long as possible. That's why i have lower numbers in "Powered on" times than you but higher numbers in "Operation hours".

NO do NOT do a full format just use Parted Magic to secure erase the Drive and then with Windows 7 and the SSD as second HDD in Disk Manager QUICK format ONLY.

 

dejanh Please keep these kinds of suggestions to your self. If you want to try it on your own drive please be my guest and please start your own thread.

Since my original comment got moderated out for some reason I will repost this again...

1. I was not talking about a 0-fill format. I was simply stating that he should fully format his drive. However...

2. Quick format and full format are the same thing aside from full format checking for bad sectors. It will do nothing to an SSD. Only 0-fill full format should not be run on an SSD as it needlesly uses up write cycles. More information can be seen here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686

As I have posted on other threads that seems to be an issue with the latest firmware and Crystal Disk info and as long as the drive is performing properly nothing to be concerned about.

OK, i've done the wipe as you recommended and then restored my data. Same results (even lower actually, with 225MB/s average). Health has gone down a notch, and not only in Crystal Disk Info. Indilinx SSD Status shows the same. Some other tools also show strange stuff. And the worst is SpeedFan, that shows after using in-depth online analysis:

NOTE : your hard disk has 26667 offline uncorrectable sectors (this value is very large and your hard disk should be replaced). Those are sectors that an offline scanning found as unreadable. Offline scanning is a process that can be automatically started by the hard disk logic when a long enough idle period is detected or that can be forced by some tool. Those unreadable sectors are identified and the hard disk logic is waiting for a write command that will overwrite them to try to remap them to spare sectors (if available). A simple disk surface scan won't be enough to force the remap operation. You need a read/write surface scan to remap the sector. The best option should be a tool that knows about what should be read from that sector so that it has some option to apply the best fix to the missing data.

 

The overall fitness for this drive is 0%.

Everest Ultimate Edition (last build) shows me in SMART atributes (with exclamation mark):

Run Out Cancel - Treshold 0 - Value 52 - Worst 180 - Always Passes

I don't know what else to say or do... I'm afraid it will just die on me (and it's a drive i don't use for "hard stuff", and have it for just one month).

Please run ATTO and post a screen shot.

And what did you use to create the image and restore the drive?

Also did you install and format the drive as a second drive and test it with Atto before you put the image back on the drive?

I've tried to upload screenshots on this forum arround 5 times now. Everytime it says it failed to upload. Maybe the server is full or doesn't allow some users to upload ? The only thing i managed to work was to link to pictures on another forum. Hopefully you can fix the upload problem and i'll post every proof you need (as i've done before and after benchmarks, and not only with Atto).

As for how i've done it, i used the sticky from the SSD area: http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85344