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Issue with Corsair Force GS (360 GB SATA3) firmware update


Naki

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I bought a 360 GB SSD drive (see thread title) last year (around August/September).

It had 5.02 firmware I think, I then updated it to 5.03, and recently to 5.05a.

However, it now shows as having 5.05 firmware (no A) and no firmware updates available, but a new 2nd drive which I purchased this month shows as having 5.05a out of the box. The new drive is the same model, but thinner (says 7 mm on the box).

 

Why did the 5.05a firmware update for my old drive end up as showing 5.05?

Will combining the two drives in RAID0 cause all my data to crash and burn?

Is there a way to get both to show/get the same firmware revision?

 

A separate note: I find it hard to believe the 5.05a update is from October 2012 - if it is, why did you post it just recently?

If not, I assume the fake date is there to not let the users know the exact date of the update, which is understandable, but inconvenient.

 

SYSTEM: ASRock Z68 PRO3 /Z68/LGA1155 mobo, Intel Core i7 CPU, 32 GB of RAM (Corsair).

2 (almost) identical Corsair SSDs - one older and with Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate SP1 (+all updates) installed on it, one new and empty (unformatted).

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I can not "simply buy a newer/faster drive" - my money is not unlimited. Also, I would have to sell the old drive, which I am not used to (almost never do it), so that will be an additional headache.

 

Also, I want RAID0 not just for the bigger speed, but bigger capacity also - my 360 GB SSD has just 80 GB free and I want to add a lot more stuff on the system partition. :)

Anyway, if you are sure that the firmwares are the same, even though they show as different, I will go ahead with RAID0 - of course, backing up all important info first. :)

 

I doubt I am the first person in these forums who uses SSD RAID0 on a Intel Z68 chipset, so I thought someone here could know if that works OK.

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Also, I want RAID0 not just for the bigger speed, but bigger capacity also - my 360 GB SSD has just 80 GB free and I want to add a lot more stuff on the system partition. :)
If you want RAID 0, go for it, but here's a caveat: You're doubling all of your potential physical failure points - SATA ports, SATA cables, SSDs.
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Like Ram Guy said, they're identical in functionality but the difference is a tweak for the different NAND.

I am a bit confused here - the different NAND does not mean faster speed, right?

The box of the 2 SSDs I have here (Corsair Force GS 360 GB/SATA3) shows the same model and same speed figures (Read 555 MB/s, Write 530 MB/s) - I assume you mean the newer NAND is physically smaller, with the drive being thinner, but same speed? The part numbers of the two SSDs are different, however.

 

EDIT: Model is CSSD-F360GBGS-BK for both. Part number is 48-000403 REV AA for the old one, and 48-000561 REV AA for the new SSD.

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CSSD-F360GBGS-BK is the model / part number. Not sure where you're getting 48-000403 REV AA / 48-000561 REV AA.

 

All CSSD-F360GBGS-BK are physically identical. Make sure they have the same firmware and you should have no issues with RAID 0 (at least no issues caused by different NAND or firmwares).

 

Yes, two different SSDs with different NAND could run at different speeds. The type of NAND also affects the speed (synchronous, asynchronous, toggle). Also depends on how you're measuring speed (ATTO vs. IOPs, synthetic vs real world benchmarking, etc).

 

What the engineer that Ram Guy quoted was referring to is that the NAND in a Force GS is different than the other Sandforce based drives.

 

The NAND being smaller (24nm vs 25nm) isn't related to the drive thickness (at least as far as I'm aware).

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The factory firmware tool is different than the one you used. It's the same firmware however. It's just a character missing in the displayed version number.

 

Please post screenshots of the current firmware version using our Corsair Toolbox.

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CSSD-F360GBGS-BK is the model / part number. Not sure where you're getting 48-000403 REV AA / 48-000561 REV AA.

Back of the product boxes. ;):

OK, screenshots coming up!

 

http://i40.tinypic.com/3135bv6.png

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If you want RAID 0, go for it, but here's a caveat: You'r'e doubling all of your potential physical failure points - SATA ports, SATA cables, SSDs.

 

Yes, thanks, I am aware of that. I am using good SATA clip cables, so at least that part should be fine (cables won't become loose).

Also, a question - when using RAID0, each file is written in half to one SSD, and the other half - to the other one, does that not mean less writes to each SSD, which should prolong their life? If not, why not?

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Thanks for the link!

 

OK, so what about the screenshots - should I go ahead with RAID0, or is it dangerous?

EDIT: I have also submitted a support ticket - I hope I get a reply there too.

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RAID 0 is only "dangerous" in that you have more points of failure. Nothing will explode :)

 

RAID 0 won't affect the drive's warranty, however if there's an issue, we may ask for you to try the drive by itself (which would require it to be erased). You can always decline of course :)

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I was asking about the (seemingly) mismatching firmware. Technobeard asked me for Corsair SSD Toolbox screenshots and I provided them, then I was assuming a comment on those screenshots will follow. Which never came. So, some comment(s) on the given screenshots, please?

 

Is it possible that I did something the wrong way and thus got 5.05 instead of 5.05a, and missed a way to do it such as for the version to show as 5.05a?

Or another way of thought - is it possible that there were 2-3 different downloads/files for the 5.05a firmware in an interval of 2-3 days, and I got a firmware download, which was then shortly replaced with a corrected/different one?

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And another (possibly very stupid) question:

I have Windows 7 64-bit, Utlimate, SP1 installed on the SSD.

Is there a way to move from one SSD with the OS on it to two SSDs in RAID0 WITHOUT losing the data and bootable OS? Or do I need to start "clean/fresh"?

 

EDIT: I saw this --->

How to switch to RAID 0 - without reinstalling!

http://www.OCZtechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?72309-How-to-switch-to-RAID-0-without-reinstalling!

Is this the only way?

 

EDIT #2: I decided not to try RAID0 for now, and get more info on this. For now, I will just use the 2nd SSD as a separate drive/partition, formatted as exFAT.

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We already told you that the ForceGS ONLY works with 5.05a.

We already told you that 5.05 and 5.05a is EXACTLY the same for intentionally different drives.

 

So by answering the following question you should know on yourself if it has the right version:

 

Does it work?

 

YES -> It has 5.05a, stop caring about it SHOWING 5.05 (without a).

 

Wise decision to not choose raid0 with a SSD, the benefit is insignificant, but the risk of failures double!

 

But the question is legit so i go deep into it:

 

If you would have a Hardware-COntroller that ables the Raid0-Drive directly to be recognized in the BIOS (not the FW-Raid after the BIOS), then you might just create an image/backup of the single-drive-filesystem on a HDD, then setup the raid0, then boot a program like Acronis Image and put the image/backup back onto your raid0. The WIndows installation could then boot the hardware raid beeing reported as normal-drive without a special driver.

 

With a FW-Raid you need to make the imaging-prgramm to recognize it by loading drivers.

And what's more important you need to customise your WIndows-installation before to be working as a FW-raid with the appropriate driver, so you need to hardforce install raid-drivers before imaging/backup it to a HDD. Dont know if thats possible.

 

But honestly if you really want a FW-raid0... save your data and install from scratch is quite faster!

 

Beware:

No rescue CD will recognize your FW-raid0 by default, not even the windows cd will by default - it only "MIGHT" find it when loading the approriate drivers during the disk-initialisation-phase with a usb-stick of your FW-raid-driver.

If someone presses wrong keys during boot, your data on FW-raid0 is gone forever.

If a drive has fault of any raid0, your complete data is gone forever.

If you try an FW-update during raid0 .. then you are M.A.D. :D: Truely!

 

The problem with FW-raid in special is that they report the seperated Disks each, and that you need to install drivers to make your CPU understand how to read from that 2 drives in a raid... A hardwarecontroller reports one single raid-drive so BIOS and OS think it is a normal drive, it's beeing accessed though default drivers without a problem, without using the CPU, without your OS even knowing that it's a raid.

 

Unless you have an expensive Hardware-Raid controller i can scrictly not recommend you raid0 with SSD.

 

If you need the speed buy a PCIexpress-card, otherwise stick to the biggest possible size for the money instead of 2 drives.

 

 

Not to make you nervous 'bout speed, but the SATA III controller is maximum capable of 600 megabyte per second, no matter how many disks the raid0 got... what people reclaim in ATTO is maximum compressed data at 600mb/s leaving the SATA III-Bus beeing decrompessed by the CPU into the memory at likely higher rates. What matters is: transfers of compressed data is ultra UNlikely ... in other words... when you move some gigabytes of any game, video, image, audio then there is nearly nothing to compress and there is no way to exceed 600mb/s, except via PCIexpress.

 

Considering that you better let the controller do all it's DirectMemoryAccess-magic using single disks and not force to "command" your CPU to read/write with +6Gbit Bursts from your FW-raid0.

 

Another reaoson is the support in that drivers. A fault-driver update might wipe all of your data. Errors what, especially when programmers update drivers :D:

 

Why exFAT, its meant for flash-cards??????????????????? Why not NTFS?

 

Unlike NTFS, exFAT cannot pre-allocate disk space for a file by just marking arbitrary space on disk as 'allocated'. As in FAT, when creating a file of known length, exFAT must perform a complete physical write equal to the size of the file.

I dont want that on my SSD, id like to reduce unneccessary writes. That means in detail, when downloading for example an linux-ISO-image via P2P, it will write the complete space of the file blank before filling it will data, could nearly doubles the writes.

 

See this benchmark from Tomshardware

http://media.bestofmicro.com/1/V/331843/original/as-ssd_copy_benchmarks.png

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We already told you that 5.05 and 5.05a is EXACTLY the same for intentionally different drives.

Not clear - how is a Corsair Force GS drive (purchased in August 2012) different from a Corsair Force GS drive (purchased this year)!? What is the difference?

exFAT is great for any Flash based media, not just memory cards or USB Flash drives - SSDs use Flash too. :)

I format all my external USB 3.0 HDDs as exFAT too.

 

NTFS sucks - exFAT is much faster in all my tests (testing on my system, using 6-7 different kinds of benchmark software) - thank you, but I don't need the extra stupid fields/attributes NTFS has, unless that can't be avoided (system drive). Too bad you can't format internal HDDs with exFAT, if you could, I would do that too. EDIT: Hmm, or maybe you can via the format command in Command Prompt. Need to test this.

If a RAID0 setup works better with NTFS (and anyway the system drive can't be anything else than NTFS, which is a pity but understandable), I will use that when I do the RAID0.

 

Not to make you nervous 'bout speed, but the SATA III controller is maximum capable of 600 megabyte per second, no matter how many disks the raid0 got...

Clearly incorrect! It is 600 MB/sec per SATA port, NOT total.

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Not clear - how is a Corsair Force GS drive (purchased in August 2012) different from a Corsair Force GS drive (purchased this year)!? What is the difference?

exFAT is great for any Flash based media, not just memory cards or USB Flash drives - SSDs use Flash too. :)

I format all my external USB 3.0 HDDs as exFAT too.

 

You want to know the difference between an Apple bought last year and an Apple bought this year, there is NONE, except the older wont taste good today.

 

NTFS sucks - exFAT is much faster in all my tests (testing on my system, using 6-7 different kinds of benchmark software) - thank you, but I don't need the extra stupid fields/attributes NTFS has, unless that can't be avoided (system drive). Too bad you can't format internal HDDs with exFAT, if you could, I would do that too. EDIT: Hmm, or maybe you can via the format command in Command Prompt. Need to test this.

If a RAID0 setup works better with NTFS (and anyway the system drive can't be anything else than NTFS, which is a pity but understandable), I will use that when I do the RAID0.

i already stated the fact why exFAT is bad for SSD, read above. IN any professional benchmark-review NTFS wins over exFAT.

 

It is meant for high-capacities interoperable flash, that need to be read on MAC also, because FAT doesn't support the high-capacities.

 

Clearly incorrect! It is 600 MB/sec per SATA port, NOT total.

You are clearly an idi*t that even has no source for his LIES!

http://www.sata-io.org/ they link to the next one:

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/guides/SATAIII.php

... 600MB/s bus throughput!!! GET USED TO IT!

The BUS is the thing that connects the ports to the controller. According to you a 4-port SATA-controller is capable of 2,4GB/s and a 6-port of 3,6GB/s :p:

 

But please Mr. IT-Specialist tell me how the amount of mechanical ports have influence on the overall Controller-BUS-Speed. :roll:

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You are clearly an idi*t that even has no source for his LIES!
Please do not insult other members of this forum.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

 

The speed ratings on a SATA port are per device/channel (one device per channel unless you have a port multiplier), not per the total controller. Think of it this way - if it was the way you say it is, why would people RAID 0 SSDs and get faster speeds?

 

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/storage/corsair_240gb_force_gt_raid0_review/1

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They dont get it, only with ATTO measuring compressed data-streams leaving the CPU (not the SATA-COntroller).

 

You referring to channels means only: Any of the channels can run @600MB/s.

 

Not all at the same time.

 

Because the BUS-THROUGHPUT at the Controller (who has to maintain all channels) is by specification 600MB/s max, what dont you get in it???

 

P-ATA had 133MB/s at each channel, but still you can not read with 133MB/s on the one disk and write it at 133MB/s to another Disk on another P-ATA channel, because the BUS-Speed is limited to 133MB/s.

 

However mainboard-vendors seem to have found some workarounds in their latest releases (sandy/ivy) but that is a propriatary virtualisation solution inside the SATA-Controller. Think of it as seperated BUSes, but thats not by SATA-specification design.

 

There's still a limit, depending on how powerful the SATA-Controler is.

 

2x SSD = 1,2 GB/s -> BLOW CAKE!

 

Maybe with 4 or 6 you reach +1,2GB/s. Grats! :D:

 

Heres a brief history:

X58 (ICH10R) = 660MB/s

P67 = 750MB/s

 

Best ive seen on Sandy/Ivy was little higher than 1GB/s.

 

They do not suit there SATA-controller with plenty GB/s bandwith because thats expensive and probably noone would ever notice.

 

Once you understand it... let me know. :D:

 

PS: The requested URL /reviews/storage/corsair_240gb_force_gt_raid0_review was not found on this server.

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Incriminated, NO.

You can check some CrystalDiskMark RAID0 scores too, they are clearly above 600 MB/s, and they are in fact almost double the 550 MB/sec read speed that one drive has.

When you are wrong, you should admit it, and not continue stubbornly to defend the wrong (as in specification wrong!) point of view. SATA simply does not work the way you say. Try reading Wikipedia articles on the subject, if that does not help, try looking for detailed PDF docs on this.

 

PATA has nothing to do with this, this is clearly a very bad example you tried to use - SATA is a serial port.

 

I am planning to use just 2 SSDs - yes, if 3 or 4 are used, it is possible and very likely for a bottleneck to occur. But NOT with 2 SSDs!

 

EDIT: No idea what "BLOW CAKE!" is - what did you mean by that???

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look i have a watch-no-clock.... watch: no clock. -> BLOW CAKE

 

As i repeat the SATA specification states 600MB/s BUS speed, this is inside your wikipedia article.

 

The terms bus, speed and limit are fact.

 

What you refering to is that 1 channel per device... nothing more. It has nothing to say.

 

Im done with you.

 

go ask Intel... out of SATA spec!

 

P:S The fact that actual motherboard to deliver ~1GB/s for a raid0 of 2 SSD doesn't mean that this is endlessly scalable. 4x SSD in raid0 on actual don't deliver ~2GB/s and 6x SSD raid0 doesn't deliver ~3GB. YOu are simply dreaming :D:

 

It is the special SATA-Controller vendor that suits it with workaround for higher achievable bandwith: NOT THE SATA SPECIFICATION!

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  • 1 month later...

It is the PCIe interface that delivers the speed a hw/fw controller needs. No need for a "special" sata-controller.

 

In fact, sofware-raid on Windows proofs your wrong; ther have been numerous benchmarks raid-0 software vs hardware where the differences were close to....ZERO!

 

How on earth can software raid achieve the same raw througput as a 2000 dollar piece of high-end controller ? Simple; software-raid uses the onboard superieur intel-chips SATA 3 ports, with a just as great internal, fixed PCIe interface to the chipset.

 

The HW-controller uses PCIe interface too, but that is not a guarentee it works faster.

 

 

Hardware-controller-speed comes from a few things, and a SAta 3 port does not add up to it, where motherboard uses the same SATA 3 ports too. Each capable of,, yes your beloved 600MB's (in fact, it is 6 Gbit/s , a little less then 600MB).

 

So, where does the extra speed comes from ? Joehoe! Controller bandwidht to the chipset of the motherboard, aka PCIe (internal of ecternal) PCI-X, PCI, ESATA. The higher the bandwidth to the chipset, the more potential there is to achieve much, much higher speeds then 600MB's.

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