Wild smart readings on new Intel 520

[Zaxx]

Recently installed a new 120gb 520, no issues, speeds are right on target...everything is perfect. Was skimming thru my utilities folder and decided to check smart stats. My new 520 thinks it's 102 years old and only been power cycled 3 times...lmao. Ofc I put this down to a fw glitch of some sort...not gonna sweat tho it'd be nice to have an accurate clock. I don't think there is a way to re-flash the 400i fw without sending it in to Intel. Anyone else heard of this weird behavior?

Edit: also have a crazy uncorrectable error count as well...

[westomatic]

just used one, found the same thing. apparently a known problem. http://communities.intel.com/message/157652

[Zaxx]

Interesting read...thx! Looks like I'll be waiting for a fw fix. Don't have the issue with runaway unsafe shutdowns...just the opposite, my shut downs don't increment like they should...lol

[kiwi]

I can confirm that my Intel 520 has the same weird power on hours value

[canthearu]

Use the latest version of crystaldiskinfo. That works better with the Intel 520, and corrects the power on hours value

First of all, the power on hours are offset by 800,000 or so. That is probably done deliberately to prevent activation of any write throttling. This is normal on all Intel 520's.

Secondly, the uncorrectable error count is misnamed. That is likely the RAW error count as seen on other sandforce drives, and as the drive is always correcting minor errors, this value will always rise. It is not saved between reboots, but it's value is normalized and presented as a value that indicates the drives overall error performance. This smart value triggers a computer warning if the drive isn't storing and retrieving data as accurately as it should.

[Zaxx]

Lmao...didn't realize my copy of CDI was so old. Looks much better now. Kinda funny that Intel's own toolbox can't get it right...lol

Took a peek at the smart of one of my V2s using the ocz toolbox. Uncorrectable errors are described as errors returned by RAISE which Intel opted to disable with the 520 60GB and 120GB drives (enabled on 240gb) in favor for extra op...confident that their top binned nand would do fine without it.

[canthearu]

It is corrected errors returned by the SSD, either by normal CRC or by RAISE. A high number isn't really a big problem here, as there is always noise in the signals read from NAND. As long as the correction mechanisms are sufficient to correct and overall error rate stays stable and predictable, it doesn't cause problems. If they were uncorrected errors, there would be quite significant problems

Intel NAND is very very good, I am not that surprised they decided to disable RAISE on the 120gig 520. Most manufacturer's disable RAISE on their 60gig drives though ... as it consumes too much space on these smaller drives.

[Zaxx]

I may be wrong about the 520 60gb then. Forget where I even read it...lol The big point was that RAISE is mostly intended to help with models using lower quality nand.

Heh...we found out what customers thought about losing the raise space when ocz transitioned from 34nm to 24nm and the 60gb V2s were formating to 51GB. One of those nasty 64Gb die packin turds made it into my array knee-capping my performance before I eventually sniffed it out. Raised enuff hell to get it replaced with a 34nm piece.

re: Intel's top binned 25nm...I hope they get busy in the PCI-E ssd department, I'd looove to see 4 SFs pushing that nand thru a beefy LSI controller. It'd be a Revo 3 X2 beater. I wonder if intel enabling trim for arrays will be of any help trimming a PCI-E array.