5000+ hour m4 bug confirmed by Crucial

This is really a weird one.

Once you pass 5000 hours power on hours the m4 will start "rebooting" every hour.

There will be a fix within mid January so just relax :)

Posted by Crucial Dude at the Crucial forums

"We are aware of an issue that is currently affecting a small number of users whereby their m4 causes their system to require a restart. This issue occurs after approximately 5,000 hours of actual “on time” use. Following the initial reboot, the system then requires subsequent restarts after each additional hour of use. However, the data on the SSD is unaffected and will not be lost due to this condition.

Through our investigation, we have determined the root cause of the problem and will be releasing a firmware update that rectifies the situation. We are currently running through our validation and compatibility process. Once this process is complete, the firmware will be made available to our customers. Although we understand the desire of some people to start using unreleased firmware now, we want to ensure that our solution works across multiple chipsets, systems, and operating systems before publishing the release code. We are currently targeting the week of January 16th, 2012 to publicly release the new firmware update.

We understand the impact that this is having on some users right now and apologize for this inconvenience. We appreciate your continued support, feedback, and patience as we finalize code and resolve this issue.
Dude, Crucial Employee, US"

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Separate thread created by Crucial_Dude

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Originally Posted by Anvil

Posted by Crucial Dude at the Crucial forums

"we want to ensure that our solution works across multiple chipsets, systems, and operating systems before publishing the release code.
Dude, Crucial Employee, US"

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What a concept, to bad SF and others don't follow that rule.

And also, that is pretty quick to confirm and fix!

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Originally Posted by Anvil

"We are aware of an issue that is currently affecting a small number of users whereby their m4 causes their system to require a restart.

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A small number of users? Do they mean that it affects all SSDs over 5000 hours, but only a small number of users have reached 5000 hours? Or do they mean that only a small number of users who have reached 5000 hours are affected?

I don't think the bug is selective :)

I guess what they are saying is that "it's a small number of users, due to that most users don't use the drives 24/7",
it would literally take 24/7 usage since the m4 was released, so there can't be that many affected users.
(enough to catch the bug though :))

I don't think I've got a single m4 thats gotten past 12-1300 hours. (I ordered as soon as they were available)

glad to hear of a quick resolution! :)

Just another reason to like Crucial. No bull crap, yes we have a problem, we are working on it and will release a fix shortly.
At least they didn't try to blame Intel in 4 or 5 stickied threads, lol. :D

ROFL Oh well... Mien isn't that far gone btu good to know :D

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Originally Posted by DooRules

Just another reason to like Crucial. No bull crap, yes we have a problem, we are working on it and will release a fix shortly.
At least they didn't try to blame Intel in 4 or 5 stickied threads, lol. :D

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Or SATA leads, or the ignorance of customers to properly configure their systems, overclocking, the inability of chipsets to cope with the blazing speed of their SSD’s, the position of the moon, voodoo spells…..:D

All companies have problems. What differentiates is how a company resolves a problem.

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All companies have problems. What differentiates is how a company resolves a problem.

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very well said!

New Firmware 0309 for Crucial M4 just posted to fix the 5184 Hour Bug...

http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx


Release Date: 01/13/2012
Change Log:
•Changes made in version 0002 (m4 can be updated to revision 0309 directly from either revision 0001, 0002, or 0009)
•Correct a condition where an incorrect response to a SMART counter will cause the m4 drive to become unresponsive after 5184 hours of Power-on time. The drive will recover after a power cycle, however, this failure will repeat once per hour after reaching this point. The condition will allow the end user to successfully update firmware, and poses no risk to user or system data stored on the drive.

This firmware update is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED for drives in the field. Although the failure mode due to the SMART Power On Hours counter poses no risk to saved user data, the failure mode can become repetitive, and pose a nuisance to the end user. If the end user has not yet observed this failure mode, this update is required to prevent it from happening.

If you are using a SAS Expander please do not download this Firmware. As soon as we have a Firmware Update that will work in these applications we will release it.

extremely fast respone, talking with the Micron team that was a HUGE focus for them from the very day that it was found. They have been working all nighters to get a fix out as quick as possible, very good job from them. Many would have waited for another FW like intel did with 8mb bug, and roll it into that. Kudos to Micron for making this priority number one!

great support from Crucial

It would have been months before I discovered this update on my own. Thanks for the link!

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Originally Posted by bluestang

New Firmware 0309 for Crucial M4 just posted to fix the 5184 Hour Bug...
If you are using a SAS Expander please do not download this Firmware. As soon as we have a Firmware Update that will work in these applications we will release it.[/I]

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And so I won't be updating the ones that are still working on raid-controllers.
At least they acknowledge that there will be a fix.

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Originally Posted by Anvil

And so I won't be updating the ones that are still working on raid-controllers.
At least they acknowledge that there will be a fix.

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I would assume this to include only SAS expanders, not drives connected directly to controllers. I'm not familiar with your setup, though, so you may actually be using an expander.

You are aware that the m4 on FW 0009 is incompatible with popular Areca and LSI controllers?

I'll make sure to test the ones I'll upgrade anyways (as they are already on 0009) on the controllers in question, the comment they made doesn't sound like it fixed though.

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Originally Posted by Computurd

extremely fast respone, talking with the Micron team that was a HUGE focus for them from the very day that it was found. They have been working all nighters to get a fix out as quick as possible, very good job from them. Many would have waited for another FW like intel did with 8mb bug, and roll it into that. Kudos to Micron for making this priority number one!

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I've heard about a different story - the Micron engineers had detected and fixed the 5184 bug before long, however the marketing team didn't manage to post it before Christmas, giving an excuse of not done with the validation process. Besides, there have been some compatibility issues that causes BSOD on certain systems with the 0009 firmware. I guess now those who rely on the 0002 firmware are screwed up, cuz the 0309 firmware seems to be based on 0009 and has inherited all those BSOD bugs.

I'm not gonna buy Crucial SSD again. Two (2) out of my three (3) M4 512GB suffered from BSOD, and now the last "good" one is still stuck with 0002 firmware, leaving me no chance to return it for refund. I'll make good use of the remaining 3000 hours and try to sell it on ebay before it reaches 5184 hours. Their mod simply denies that there's something wrong with the 0009 firmware that can cause BSOD, just like how they used to deny the existence of firmware bug for the 5184 hours BSOD.

Sorry, Crucial left me a poor impression - how are they doing anything better than the SandForce/OCZ plagued by BSOD? Poor reliability/compatibility/customer service. I feel sorry for that guy who got a refurbished M4 from RMA throughout the 5184 bug. Crucial may be good for gamers and most consumers, but I'll never recommend deploying them into enterprise, not even for a small workstation, where some basic reliability and compatibility is needed.

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Originally Posted by Anvil

You are aware that the m4 on FW 0009 is incompatible with popular Areca and LSI controllers?

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Sorry, getting a bit off-topic...

No, I had no idea. I'm currently using two M4 drives with 09 firmware attached to a 9211-8i and provisioned(DirectPath I/O) to an ESXi v5 OpenIndiana VM for SLOG and L2ARC. Is this a driver level compatibility problem to which you're referring?

No, it's not driver related.

It is not detected on LSI 9265 and it stops the Areca 1880 from booting. (all is OK on FW 0002)
The issue is related to the SAS Expander comment made in the change log, hopefully there will be a fix.

there is a fix for the 1882. The same method should work for the 1880, b8ut tbh i havent tried either...i will hopefully soon.

To me it looks like a Crucial FW issue, the "timeout" fix for the Areca is "flaky" if one mixes HDDs and SSDs.
(so, does it mean that there is another/new fix?)

flash worked flawlessly.