Please, vegan, stop coliciting livemesh - it wont help you when you are 'out in the field' at a client and the ssd breaks.

LIve Mesh works anywere the inmternet is available

backup to home computers or company servers

great. my 'out in the field' was regarding exactly the situation where you don't have internet or don't have the time to wait on a slow Edge connection for a backup of your harddrive.

I use my portable lots and I use Mesh on it, works fine.

MIne has a a GSM service built-in so its always on, so as long as my phone works my internet works

I need connectivity as sometimes I am in remote locations

I too have experienced TWO crashes of the SSD320 600gb.

24 hours ago I got the 8Mb error (after having ruh the 320 for 3 months). Erased and installed the latest driver (4PC10362) (Reinstalled W764b prior to updating the driver).

12 hours later I got exactly the same error.

I was using the 320 as the D: partition for data. Thankfully I had a good backup (took me 4 hours to put everything back as it should be , thanks Intel).

After the second crash I have reinstalled Samsung HD and am awaiting a firmware update for the intel. Hope it comes soon, or does Intel think that they have solved the problem?

I will call their support on monday morning.

Drop them and go with something else, it's unfortunate that some of us trusted the name more than the performance and I just cannot see why we need to keep dwelling over these drives, it's what I call high maintenance low performance hardware.

Yes, go with something else, a SandForce controller SSD, that'll fix you right up.  High maintenance and low performance?  You ain't seen nothin' yet!

I found a new version of Intels SSD tool kit so I put the link on my SSD page

after unpacking it, I see it has firmware for a range of models

the program also has the ability to see regular hard disks as well so it looks like its a good tool for everyone

This is version 3 of the SSD toolkit according to the installer

Get it and use it

UPDATE.

Just now the 320 crashed again.

I think it is replicable.

I restarted windows 7.

When my bios was loading the marvel LAn driver it froze.

After about 30sec's I restarted. Again a freeze on loading the marvel.

Then I shutdown the system for 10sec.

I was able to start and the 320 had crashed and was showing 8Mb memory. Secure erase will get it back.

I have often harped on the backup bandwagon.

In light of the problems, use a HD and backup your SSD in case the unthinkable happends again

RMA it, then update the new drive as soon as you get it if it's not already running the latest firmware.

Running Secure Erase on an already affected drive is only a temporary fix and won't eliminate the possibilities of another crash, regardless of firmware version.

The new firmware only seems to prevent Bad Context when it's applied to an SSD that has never had this issue before.

>The new firmware only seems to prevent Bad Context when it's applied to an SSD that has never had this issue before.

Utter nonsense and totaly wrong. If you would read the thread, you'd see, that I was one of several cases, where the 13x error hit for the first time after I've already had updated the firmware of the drive. And please stop propagating that the new firmwareupdate prevents the 13x error, it isimply isn't true. The problem isn't fixed, and Intel PR has stepped into silent mode, after they were able to place articles containing the same misinformation in the usual "news" outlets.

Thats all. Just don't buy this product.

Chill out, I was trying to help. I was going by my impression of the problem, hence the "seems to" in my post. I must have missed what you said earlier or I just forgot. It's been a while now.

Seriously, I think that if the problem could be so easily reproducible with correctly working units, Intel should be having so many RMAs that it couldn't hide the problem. How many 320 SSDs has it sold so far? I don't think they're few.

I think that there WAS a problem with "Bad Context 13x Error" on power loss and that it has been fixed. Whoever is still having similar problems (same error message, but in different conditions) after updating the firmware, he/she must have a defective unit in some way. So, I see the RMA as the only solution in their case.

Considering that Intel does not ask for money (neither for shipping back the unit), I think the inconvenience is limited after all... Everyone would prefer to have no problems at all, but I think that getting a defective device can happen. The quality of the support service makes the difference then.

In my personal experience, I had an Intel X-25M that shown some S.M.A.R.T. errors after some time. I contacted the Intel technical support and it took about a week for my defective SSD to be taken by the express courier, shipped from Italy to Ireland and replaced with a new one one, with no cost at all! Never had a so good experience in the past with other manufacturers (except for Plextor, which was at the same quality level). The new X-25M is still working perfectly and so I even decided to buy another Intel SSD, a 320 80GB. It has been working fine with no problems at all for some months now.

So, consider the case you may have a defective unit.

Mauro.

I suggest giving the SSD a chance with the SSD tool kit. The new tool ket can upgrade disks, it can also do the secure erase etc.

Makes it a perfect tool.

I still will plug for backups, I use hard disks for backups, they work OK, not so fast but big capacity is a plus