Crucial Releases RealSSD C300 Firmware Fix, Bricks More Drives?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 4, 2010 1:47 PM ESTBack in March I posted an update on my experiences with Crucial's RealSSD C300. In it I pointed out that not only had my review sample apparently bricked itself but I was also able to get the C300 into a state of extremely low performance (~20MB/s) that it could not get out of, even if I TRIMed the whole drive.
Crucial discovered the source of the problems and promised a fix in mid April. It's a bit later than that but we do finally have an update from Crucial. An updated fw has been posted to Crucial's site (Version 0002) and it promises the following fixes:
Change Log:
- Improved Power Consumption
- Improved TRIM performance
- Enabled the Drive Activity Pin (Pin 11)
- Improved Robustness due to unexpected power loss
- Improved data management to reduce maximum write latency
- Improved Performance of SSD as it fills up with data
- Improved Data Integrity
The update is destructive so you'll lose all of your data when you apply it. I haven't had the opportunity to test it thoroughly yet so if you're concerned, you may want to wait until others have used it. If you are a C300 owner, please feel free to leave your experiences with the update in the comments below.
Update: It seems as though the new firmware, designed to prevent drives from bricking, appears to be bricking drives. Hold off on this one guys.
I've also requested a 128GB C300 for review and I should see that in the coming days. I've got a ton of non-SSD stuff to deal with this week so I'm not sure I'll be able to get to all of it before I leave for Spain this weekend. If I can't get it done before I leave, I'll definitely tackle it all when I get back.
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SpeedyJDK - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
I just bought 2 of these drives. Both was bricked when i received em. So they are on their way back for RMA now.