SSD Write Endurance 25nm Vs 34nm

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anvil

There is just one version of the Endurance test that is publicly available and we are all using it.
There is nothing special with the 46% or any of the other compression levels, it's just a write pattern that results in a that particular compression ratio.

It does sound weird that several 512GB are failing, they should behave just like any other m4 drive.

Just for the record, what settings are you using, static file size, min free space etc.

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The page size of the 256GB/512GB M4 is 8k, while that of the 64GB/128GB M4 is 4k. I have a speculation that the firmware/controller of M4 isn't doing a great job there taking care of the 8k page sized models, which might lead to unexpected wears on certain blocks. Also, it might be a reasonable assumption that the cutting-edge capacity (currently 512GB or 600GB for a 2.5" SATA SSD) always comes with a higher failure rate, just like the mechanical hard drives (e.g. now 4TB drives shouldn't be that reliable at the moment because the manufacturing process isn't that mature yet).

Here I list some details of these three samples of M4 512GB, each on a different machine (I'll try to recall as much as I can and please let me know what you'd like to know). Sample 1 was from an early batch. Sample 2 and 3 were from the same batch at a later time.

Sample 1:

Model: M4 512GB
Factory firmware: 0001
Testing firmware: 0009
Motherboard: ThinkPad X220 SATA III (Intel native). This machine didn't have any problem with Intel X25-E 64GB.
Settings: all default
Static file size: around 380GB
Min free space: 12GB
Avg speed: 100MB/s
Error description: At the beginning I really liked this SSD. Looked very stable. Updated the firmware to 0002 before I installed OS on it. Then one day I started AIDA64 and ran the looped linear read test in the disk benchmark, and the system stability test with disk stress at the same time. The laptop halted within minutes each time I did this. The SSD was not detected by BIOS after reboot and each time I had to use the power cycling method to recover it. Then I updated the BIOS of the laptop from 1.19 to 1.24 and the laptop no longer halted under such tests, and I thought it was just all the laptop's fault. Later on, one day when I was installing a virtual machine, I got 0xF4 BSOD several times, each time upon a burst of writes, and none of the crash dump was successfully written to the SSD, indicating that the SSD went offline. Then I updated the firmware of the SSD to 0009 and seemed to have cured the BSOD problem. I lost trust in the SSD, so I decided to run ASU's Endurance testing on it. Unfortunately with around 380GB static file and the default settings (0-fill, 12GB min free etc), the SSD could be easily forced to go offline within the first loop. The "05 Reallocated Sector Count" and the "C4 Reallocation Event Count" increased crazily. Then I ran "diskpart clean" and used Windows 7 to do a *slow* format (hence 0 static file), and ASU wasn't able to repeat any problem for several loops, which I guess was because Windows marked the bad sectors. Then I did a quick format but ASU wasn't able to repeat any problem for several loops again, which I guess was because Windows copied the information of marked bad sectors. Then I used WinHex to do a DoD fill of the SSD, and it was forced offline easily upon the first loop. Then ASU was able to repeat the problem easily within 1 loop, until several times of failure the SSD was no longer recognized by BIOS regardless of the power cycling method for recovery.

Sample 2:

Model: M4 512GB
Factory firmware: 0002
Testing firmware: 0009
Motherboard: EVGA X58 E760 SATA II (Intel native). This machine didn't have any problem with Intel 320 600GB.
Settings: all default
Static file size: around 320GB
Min free space: 12GB
Avg speed: 80MB/s
Error description: At the beginning the SSD seemed to be stable, until I decided to upgrade the firmware from 0002 to 0009. I noticed 0xF4 BSOD upon bursts of read/write, e.g. verifying the local cache of a Steam game. Then I started AIDA64 and ran the looped linear read test and the system stability test with disk stress at the same time, and I could easily repeat the BSOD within tens of minutes each time. Then I ran ASU's Endurance testing with default settings, and the BSOD could be reproduced very quickly (at the very early stage of the 1st loop). The "05 Reallocated Sector Count" and the "C4 Reallocation Event Count" both stayed at 0.

Sample 3:

Model: M4 512GB
Factory firmware: 0002
Testing firmware: 0002
Motherboard: ASUS P8H67-I SATA III (Intel native)
Settings: all default, except 46% application fill and 1GB min free space
Static file size: around 120GB
Min free space: 1GB
Avg speed: 119MB/s
Error description: This sample didn't seem to be that troublesome but since my partner has been using it and never stressed it like I did I guess it just didn't have the chance to show any problem. I ran ASU's Endurance testing for around 3 loops of 0-fill with 12GB min free space and didn't notice any problem. Then I ran it for another night with 46% application fill with 1GB min free space and the computer lost video signal (and according to the log the computer halted during the 4th loop). At this stage the static data was around 310GB (because ASU didn't have a chance to clean the test files yet) and when I tried to continue running ASU's Endurance testing I got write error straight away (with very slow Avg speed displayed). I clicked "Stop" and all test files were deleted. Then ASU's Endurance testing wasn't able to reproduce the problem for another 3 loops. Still running more tests to see what happens next. The "05 Reallocated Sector Count" ,the "C4 Reallocation Event Count" and the "CA MWI" are all still at 0 at the moment.

The m4 really should have no problem running the Endurance test, the smaller 64GB did remarkably well and looks to do just as well in round 2.

The amount of static data should be relative to the capacity and so 350-400GB would be OK but 12GB as a minimum of free space would be on the low side for the 256/512GB capacities, you might consider increasing that to at least 16-32GB as that would be more realistic for a drive on the large side.
I keep at least 20-30GB of free space on 256GB drives and that is actually out of my comfort zone.

The relatively slow avg speed might be a pointer to that the drive is struggling with the work-load, I had expected it to be 2x the speed of the m4 64GB.
(the first m4 64GB had an avg speed of 88MiB/s)

Anyways, it should not fail this test in just a few loops!
Personally I'd probably approach the test carefully or stay away from testing that particular drive/model as multiple drives have shown issues with the workload.

So, you could try increasing the minimum free space to 20-30GB as that would be more life-like for client workloads, 1GB is much to low, even for a small drive.
If I can arrange to take one of my C300 or m4 256GB drives out of "production" I'll do a short test sometime during the Christmas holidays.

Todays update:
Kingston V+100
308.6083 TiB
1577 hours
Avg speed 25.37 MiB/s
AD still 1.
168= 1 (SATA PHY Error Count)
P/E?
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472854http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472851

Intel X25-M G1 80GB
163,9794 TiB
19796 hours
Reallocated sectors : 00
MWI=156 to 155.
MD5 =OK
48.55 MiB/s on avg
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472853http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472850

m4
113.9955 TiB
412 hours
Avg speed 81.18 MiB/s.
AD gone from 38 to 34.
P/E 1986.
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472855http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472852

Any news of those charts, the C300 and Vapor ?

I don't have access to my X25-E at the moment, and the only pics I have access to are some benchmarks.

But the power count/unsafe shutdown counts are not 1:1, but there are quite a few. Mine only has around 300GB on it though.

I checked my X25-E drives and all have unsafe shutdowns, looks like 20-30% of the shutdowns are unsafe.

I performed a few tests last night and when Unsafe shutdown increased, the Power Cycle Count did not.
(I had expected Power Cycle Count to increase on every power Off and it didn't)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anvil

I checked my X25-E drives and all have unsafe shutdowns, looks like 20-30% of the shutdowns are unsafe.

I performed a few tests last night and when Unsafe shutdown increased, the Power Cycle Count did not.
(I had expected Power Cycle Count to increase on every power Off and it didn't)

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But at the same time, it seems as though most drives don't act this way... the Intel's power cycle may = 1 power on + 1 ATA shutdown. If the unsafe shutdown increases, power cycle doesn't. Other drives just assume that the drive has to be on to get turned off ;)

So the true number of power cycles for an Intel is Power Cycle Count + Unsafe Shutdown.


I believe that if you enter the bios/uefi then exit, unsafe shutdown count will increase. I enter the BIOS and UEFI all the time, so some drives are worse off than others. For example, I had been reflashing and upgrading the FW on all of my Indilinx drives, so I would remove all of the other drives in the system, as it could take a lot of reboots and UEFI changes and I'd prefer not to have other drives in the system when doing FW updates. I don't think the unsafe shutdown counts are problematic, but it's probably best to avoid them if you can do so without much trouble. Basically, anything other than a soft-shutdown with a modern OS would result in an unsafe shutdown count.

All of the drive failures I've experienced have occurred in Windows, not on a restart. The sample size is pretty small though.

Strange, now I cannot reproduce any problem on the 3rd sample of the M4 512GB. Today when I woke up it was the first time I saw the MWI lost virginity (no reallocated sector though, strange? Is it because MWI is calculated according to wear-leveling count and the P/E of the flash?):

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4...atadevice5.jpg

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5889/smartsp.jpg

http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/1576/statsk.jpg

OK never mind, I've figured it out myself. By looking into the figures in the OP of this thread, it is very obvious that the MWI is simply calculated by the P/E spec of the flash. For M4, the P/E spec is 3000 cycles, and so the MWI of the M4 64GB should last for 59.5GB * 3000 / 1024 = 174.3 TB, which is pretty close to that of the test result of the first M4 64GB sample in this thread (and also the trend of the 2nd sample). It also works the same for the Samsung 470 64GB. I'm just a bit slow to follow you guys here :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anvil

I checked my X25-E drives and all have unsafe shutdowns, looks like 20-30% of the shutdowns are unsafe.

I performed a few tests last night and when Unsafe shutdown increased, the Power Cycle Count did not.
(I had expected Power Cycle Count to increase on every power Off and it didn't)

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Christopher

But at the same time, it seems as though most drives don't act this way... the Intel's power cycle may = 1 power on + 1 ATA shutdown. If the unsafe shutdown increases, power cycle doesn't. Other drives just assume that the drive has to be on to get turned off ;)

So the true number of power cycles for an Intel is Power Cycle Count + Unsafe Shutdown.

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Can I ask you guys what's the firmware of your X25-E's? Mine is 045C8850. This disk has been used in 4 different computers during the past 2 years and I don't know which computer(s) might did most of the "harm" to it.

I've done some simple tests of the "0C Power Cycle Count" and the "C0 Unsafe Shutdown Count" here in the current computer (ThinkPad X220, BIOS 1.25):

1474
1033

soft shutdown

1475
1034

soft reboot

1475
1034

sleep

1476
1035

hibernate

1477
1036

It looks like the difference between my 0C and C0 is locked :( I'll test it in another computer and see if it's the same problem.

Edit: just confirmed that my desktop E760 motherboard doesn't increase the "C0 Unsafe Shutdown Count" when doing soft shutdowns in Windows. It's obviously something wrong with the ThinkPad X220.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by minpayne

OK never mind, I've figured it out myself. By looking into the figures in the OP of this thread, it is very obvious that the MWI is simply calculated by the P/E spec of the flash. For M4, the P/E spec is 3000 cycles, and so the MWI of the M4 64GB should last for 59.5GB * 3000 / 1024 = 174.3 TB, which is pretty close to that of the test result of the first M4 64GB sample in this thread. It also works the same for the Samsung 470 64GB. I'm just a bit slow to follow you guys here :)

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I've not had the opportunity to observe my M4 decrease MWI, but other drives operate differently. Also, the NAND in the M4 is rated at 3000PE cycles, but it really should be rated at 5000.

An Indilinx drive typically has high write amplification with random data, so MWI on a 120GB Turbo may drop after 100MB of host writes (when used as a OS drive, sometimes less). So running ASU will typically take much more host writes to do reduce MWI by 1. Actually, MWI with Indilinxes are kind of wonky anyway so perhaps they're not the best example.

I just opened a brand new 64GB Vertex Turbo last night, and it was at 97 percent out of the box (1.7FW). A brand-new Vertex EX 60 was at 89 MWI out of the box when I unsealed it last week (1.3FW).

The 64GB "Real Turbo" is not half as awesome as Bluestang's M225 Turbo, at least not on 1.7FW. It also had 5 erase failures out of the box too.

That doesn't mean the MWI is a good indicator of anything in and of itself. When taken in context with other factors, it can help give you a picture of what is happening -- but its just part of the picture and doesn't mean much on it's own.

I just noticed that the MWI of Intel 320 Series may also work differently.

Did some simple tests of my Intel 600GB drive and yet to observe the MWI increase (I thought the MWI was supposed to increase by 1 when 5.5TB is written, if the P/E spec is 1000?):

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/3...600g3atade.png

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/4054/smartpn.jpg

Maybe the wear-leveling algorithm of the Intel 320 Series isn't that good, and without over-provisioning (which means merely relying on the factory reserved space) the drive could wear out pretty fast on some blocks?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Christopher

That doesn't mean the MWI is a good indicator of anything in and of itself. When taken in context with other factors, it can help give you a picture of what is happening -- but its just part of the picture and doesn't mean much on it's own.

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Then what are we looking for in this thread? When the MWI is exhausted on a drive, the flash becomes volatile to some extent. How to verify if it's still working as it's supposed to? (It's obviously not practical to wait for a year of loss of power then verify the integrity of data in it.) A drive may continue to work to 50% more of its spec'ed P/E cycles but how do you know the current period that the data can be held without power?

The 320 Series 600GB would need about 17.5TiB written for every decrease of MWI if P/E is at 3000.

E9 starts at 100 and stops decreasing at 1.

There's nothing wrong with Intel's reporting :), it's just a huge drive.

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edit

All my E's except for one are 8850, the last one has 8860 which is not available as a download.

Todays update:
Kingston V+100
310.3283 TiB
1597 hours
Avg speed 25.36 MiB/s
AD still 1.
168= 1 (SATA PHY Error Count)
P/E?
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472937http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472934

Intel X25-M G1 80GB
167,5932 TiB
19815 hours
Reallocated sectors : 00
MWI=155 to 154.
MD5 =OK
52.75 MiB/s on avg
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472936http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472933

m4
119.5655 TiB
432 hours
Avg speed 81.20 MiB/s.
AD gone from 34 to 31.
P/E 2083.
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472938http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472935

Kingston SSDNow 40GB (X25-V)

577.73TB Host writes
Reallocated sectors : 05 14
Available Reserved Space : E8 99
POH 5231
MD5 OK

33.15MiB/s on avg (~133 hours)

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Corsair Force 3 120GB

01 92/50 (Raw read error rate)
05 2 (Retired Block count)
B1 48 (Wear range delta)
E6 100 (Life curve status)
E7 10 (SSD Life left)
E9 572928 (Raw writes) ->560TiB
F1 762590 (Host writes) ->745TiB

MD5 OK

106.68MiB/s on avg (~58 hours)

power on hours : 2212

Chart on the Force 3, showing WRD vs GiB written over the last few days.

http://www.ssdaddict.com/ss/Force3/F...2011_12_23.png

It shows that WRD climbs rapidly vs the GiB needed to decrease WRD to the same level.

Nice chart Anvil.

Are you using logged attributes or doing it manually?

Christmas update:
Kingston V+100
311.8668 TiB
1614 hours
Avg speed 25.35 MiB/s
AD still 1.
168= 1 (SATA PHY Error Count)
P/E?
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=473000http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472997

Intel X25-M G1 80GB
170,8411 TiB
19833hours
Reallocated sectors : 00
MWI=154
MD5 =OK
52.80 MiB/s on avg
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472999http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472996

m4
124.5444 TiB
449 hours
Avg speed 81.21 MiB/s.
AD gone from 31 to 28.
P/E 2169.
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=473001http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=472998

My next update will be late tomorrow night. No it's time to enjoy christmas with my family.

Merry Christmas to you all :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Christopher

Nice chart Anvil.
Are you using logged attributes or doing it manually?

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I'm using logged attributes :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by B.A.T

Christmas update:

Merry Christmas to you all :)

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Merry Christmas to all of you!

Yeah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!!!

merry christmas~!

Merry Christmas to you all!

I bought myself a Christmas present - Samsung 830 512GB, and I wish everyone here a happy new year :)

Christmas update:
Kingston V+100
313.9284 TiB
1638 hours
Avg speed 25.33 MiB/s
AD still 1.
168= 1 (SATA PHY Error Count)
P/E?
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=473086http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=473083

Intel X25-M G1 80GB
175,1643 TiB
19857 hours
Reallocated sectors : 00
MWI=154 to 152
MD5 =OK
52.68 MiB/s on avg
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=473085http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=473084

m4
131.2455 TiB
473 hours
Avg speed 81.22 MiB/s.
AD gone from 28 to 24.
P/E 2286.
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=473087http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=473082