Yesterday, Intel confirmed that its new consumer-class X25-M and X18-M solid state-disk drives (SSDs) have serious data corruption issues and told the press that it has halted all shipments to resellers. The brand new line of X25-M (2.5-inch) and X18-M (1.8-inch) SSDs were inspired by a joint venture with Micron and utilized that company's 34-nanometer lithography technology. Micron uses a process which allows for a denser, higher capacity product that carries a lower price tag than Intel's previous offerings.
The data corruption problems only occur if a user sets up a BIOS password on the 34-nanometer SSD, then disables or changes the password and reboots the computer, says Intel. As soon as that happens, the SSD becomes inoperable and the data on it is alsio irretrievable.
This is not the first time Intel's X25-M and X18-M SSDs have suffered from firmware bugs, as you may remember. The company's first generation of drives suffered from fragmentation issues resulting in performance degradation over time. Courtesy of computerworld.com
