Virtually all SSD makers are having to provide firmware updates on a regular basis to address issues that should not exist in consumer grade SSDs. These are akin to Microsucks doing monthly security upgrades for defective code - these folks are rushing-to-market, crap for profit. :(
Would you rather then not improve things over time. Most of the updates that are released for devices "fix" problems most users don't have or don't know exist. This update seems to be primarily a performance update, which I am never against. As the enhanced protection on data loss is not a issue, as if you has sensitive data on a computer you should have a UPS installed anyways.
All products have this sort of cycle. Motherboard BIOS, video card drivers, cellphone firmware. Even mechanical hard drives have regular firmware updates, though most people aren't aware of them. It simply is not possible to create a golden, perfect product that will work correctly from day one for the millions of different systems and use combinations that users throw at them.
You mean all products rushed to market - have these issues.
Reputable companies properly validate their products before selling them. PC makers have determine that PC consumers are dumb sheep and so they just dump crap into the marketplace for the naive people to buy while the mfg. waits to see if they will be sued and forced to fix their defective goods. It's appalling IMO and an unscrupulous Biz model. if they can't properly validate their products before releasing them for sale, they are in the worng business.
There are so many manufacturers of motherboards, SATA controllers, power supplies and other components that directly affect the SSD that you can't test it all. Also, some errors happen so rarely that it's simply not possible to find them. You can't produce millions of drives just for testing. It costs money, you have to actually sell most of them.
You also have a limited time for your tests, otherwise the competition will release their next gen devices before you get yours out. Sure, yours might be better tested, but how many really cares? If you're concerned, just wait the same amount of time that you would've wanted them to spend on extra testing before release.
Never, ever, ever, EVER have I updated the firmware on a hard drive until SSDs appeared on the scene. I had to update my C300 to stop stuttering and let's not forget the terrible M4 'black screen boot' issue. They really need to step up their game...
Hard drives and CD/DVD burners were getting firmware updates during their first few years on the market, just like the SSDs right now.
Every new products are going to go through the growth pains.
In a couple of years, the firmware updates for SSD will die down as companies continues to learn and adjust their validation.
As for the guys who mentioned "rushing to market" because they didn't *take the time to validate*. Intel is one of the best validators on the planet and even their SSDs needed a couple of firmware updates.
How young is he? :p Firmware updates for optical drives were fairly common as little as 2-3 years ago, even if you weren't hacking yours to add features... And there's been recent examples of HDDs with firmware bugs in wide distribution too (with no path for user updates, which is worse), Seagate 7200.10 wasn't it?
At least any issues that arise on SSD are unlikely to cause physical harm to the drives, unlike mechanical drives.
7200.11, mainly the 750GB - 1TB drives from that time.
I don't see much firmware updates for CD-RW/DVD-RW drives but BD-ROM/RW drives are getting updated quite frequently but thats due to Blu-Ray enhancements, changes, etc.
The BBC Micro Model B and Acorn Electron are in my list of owned computers along with a g7000 videopac. I'm 37 and can recall 20Gb hard drives on the Amiga along with the obvious floppy on the Acorn.
Exile, Pipeline, Repton... those were the days.
P.s. Never, ever, EVER have I had to update a hard drives firmware until SSDs appeared.
Because a HDD is a stone age device in comparison, you never updated your floppies firmware, but you did your optical drive, because you are asking more of it.
Okay Mr. Perfect design a SSD that works perfectly and lasts 20 years for the rest of us mortals. If you cannot any reasons you give are just "excuses"
You not having update firmware on a HDD doesnt mean they didnt need it. Old dead drives arnt always just dead. A firware update could of fixed the issue.
You also need to realize this is new technology. If you dont want to have any issues, stay away from cutting edge.
I recall my Nintendo and my Super Nintendo. How is it that these machines and their game carthridges, which seems to me quite complicated, never had to be updated? Could it be that updates were impracticable at that time and proper testing was done consequentially?
Uh, no. Those old-school game consoles were not somehow more complicated than current hardware. Cartridges are not ultra-sophisticated marvels of engineering compared to SSDs. Even as simple as they were, anyone who actually used those systems, like myself, can remember having plenty of issues with those goddamn things. The software side is pretty much the same. You may as well be comparing a horse-drawn cart to a modern car.
If people want to stick with their "trouble-free HDDs" (as though HDDs never have problems), then they're free to do so. Meanwhile, the rest of the population can move on to SSDs which offer a far superior user experience in every way and not bitch and moan about a firmware update here and there.
Your comparison is flawed. Ignoring the fact that carts and consoles are far, far simpler machines than modern day computers (and modern day consoles).
The NES and SNES were created by one manufacturer, with one possible combination of hardware and ROM.
To test your cart against this one combination requires little testing.
PCs are constructed of many bits of hardware and firmware (ROM), that can be assembled in an almost limitless number of combinations.
To test for the near unlimited number of combinations requires an near unlimited amount of testing.
As kyuu has posted, you are comparing a horse drawn carriage to a modern day super car.
Aside from the claim that graphics cards don't disagree with motherboards being rather inaccurate, you may have noticed graphics card drivers come out quite often.
It's amusing because you assume those games did not go through code revisions -after- release. The only issue was they had no way of updating the original carts, they just had to supply the updated ones.
Now we have firmware, and people still find ways to bitch. Ignorant assholes.
To a degree some of what you say is true, but your accusations are very one sided. Consumers are at least equally to blame. For most consumers purchasing decisions are based on the hip-factor, performance and price. In comparison security, stability and compatibility are barely even an afterthought. As this is how consumers behave, it would be irrational for companies to invest any more than absolutely necessary in the later properties of a product, as doing so would cost a lot, but not net them a single additional sale. The enterprise market has different priorities, and is also willing to pay more for higher quality offerings.
Your comments also indicate that you have a limited understanding of software development. All PC subsystems involve a LOT of software. The URL below refers to a document written over 10 years ago at Carnegie Mellon University. It explains a little about why it is practically impossible (theoretically it is possible) to rule out software defects completely. This applies not just to the PC industry, but to any industry involved in non-trivial software development:
Obviously, flight control systems will undergo a lot more validation testing than a consumer grade SSD. However, even then the best we can hope for is that we won't ever encounter those defects that invariably will remain. That is simply a fact of any software system of non-trivial complexity.
No, he means ALL products have this issue. Rushed to market is just something your simply mind has latched onto to explain this away. Sorry kid, the world is more complicated than that. The only dumb sheep around here is you.
Idiots trying to make constant updates and support into a BAD THING are just that; idiots. In the old days they wouldent provide firmware updates. They would just have you send the drive back to them and get it replaced by a newer revision of the same drive IF you were under warranty . If not, you were screwed.
Today you dont have to send it back in for such reasons, and can do a firmware update yourself in about 5 min. How in the fuck is that worse? Or are you so delusionally dense you think older HDD were without programming errors?
What's wrong with that? You humans are so used to your big-endian notation. Crucial's versioning is simply AABB where AA is the minor version in hexadecimal and BB is the major version in hexadecimal. So this is version 15.0, if you want to convert it into human-friendly decimal big-endian. :P
I work in engineering and rely heavily on documents maintaining a standard sequential method of naming. With version 0001, 0002, 0009, 0309 you always would know where you stood and everybody knows what is the latest version. Then as always someone throws out there "new version" or "000F" which follows none of the previous numbering system. Then you find 2 weeks later you have a major issue because people have been working to different documents because the numbering system got shagged up by somebody. I just don't get it. Surely it is easier for them to continue a logical method.
I have two C300 SSDs that suffer from BSODs - the 'help' one gets on the official forums is the same: Try installing Intel SATA drivers. When told that they are in AMD based boxes, there's silence ...
I guess my next SSD will be an Intel, dont want to experiment with Crucial anymore ...
You guys blame the SSD when it could be any number of issues with your systems. The fact that the vast majority of people are running the m4 and C300s with updated firmware just fine kind of says all that needs to be.
I had to go back to 11.9's for my Media Center to boot on Win7 x64. AMD 750 SB in AHCI mode. Something with the 12.x versions just don't work, at least with my Vertex2 60GB.
Took me about 30 secs all in all to update. Im really surprised it was that easy. Just double clicked the .exe and it rebooted, updated and restarted the computer and things were back to normal.
No performance issues before or after update regardless.
Prior to my M4 I had a C300 and never had any issues with that either.
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40 Comments
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webmastir - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
thx for the heads up!Beenthere - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Virtually all SSD makers are having to provide firmware updates on a regular basis to address issues that should not exist in consumer grade SSDs. These are akin to Microsucks doing monthly security upgrades for defective code - these folks are rushing-to-market, crap for profit. :(Litzner - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Would you rather then not improve things over time. Most of the updates that are released for devices "fix" problems most users don't have or don't know exist. This update seems to be primarily a performance update, which I am never against. As the enhanced protection on data loss is not a issue, as if you has sensitive data on a computer you should have a UPS installed anyways.Mr Perfect - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
All products have this sort of cycle. Motherboard BIOS, video card drivers, cellphone firmware. Even mechanical hard drives have regular firmware updates, though most people aren't aware of them. It simply is not possible to create a golden, perfect product that will work correctly from day one for the millions of different systems and use combinations that users throw at them.Beenthere - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
You mean all products rushed to market - have these issues.Reputable companies properly validate their products before selling them. PC makers have determine that PC consumers are dumb sheep and so they just dump crap into the marketplace for the naive people to buy while the mfg. waits to see if they will be sued and forced to fix their defective goods. It's appalling IMO and an unscrupulous Biz model. if they can't properly validate their products before releasing them for sale, they are in the worng business.
ajp_anton - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
There are so many manufacturers of motherboards, SATA controllers, power supplies and other components that directly affect the SSD that you can't test it all.Also, some errors happen so rarely that it's simply not possible to find them. You can't produce millions of drives just for testing. It costs money, you have to actually sell most of them.
You also have a limited time for your tests, otherwise the competition will release their next gen devices before you get yours out. Sure, yours might be better tested, but how many really cares? If you're concerned, just wait the same amount of time that you would've wanted them to spend on extra testing before release.
damianrobertjones - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Never, ever, ever, EVER have I updated the firmware on a hard drive until SSDs appeared on the scene. I had to update my C300 to stop stuttering and let's not forget the terrible M4 'black screen boot' issue. They really need to step up their game...MikhailT - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
That's because you're not old enough.Hard drives and CD/DVD burners were getting firmware updates during their first few years on the market, just like the SSDs right now.
Every new products are going to go through the growth pains.
In a couple of years, the firmware updates for SSD will die down as companies continues to learn and adjust their validation.
As for the guys who mentioned "rushing to market" because they didn't *take the time to validate*. Intel is one of the best validators on the planet and even their SSDs needed a couple of firmware updates.
Impulses - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
How young is he? :p Firmware updates for optical drives were fairly common as little as 2-3 years ago, even if you weren't hacking yours to add features... And there's been recent examples of HDDs with firmware bugs in wide distribution too (with no path for user updates, which is worse), Seagate 7200.10 wasn't it?At least any issues that arise on SSD are unlikely to cause physical harm to the drives, unlike mechanical drives.
Glibous - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
7200.11, mainly the 750GB - 1TB drives from that time.I don't see much firmware updates for CD-RW/DVD-RW drives but BD-ROM/RW drives are getting updated quite frequently but thats due to Blu-Ray enhancements, changes, etc.
damianrobertjones - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
The BBC Micro Model B and Acorn Electron are in my list of owned computers along with a g7000 videopac. I'm 37 and can recall 20Gb hard drives on the Amiga along with the obvious floppy on the Acorn.Exile, Pipeline, Repton... those were the days.
P.s. Never, ever, EVER have I had to update a hard drives firmware until SSDs appeared.
Meaker10 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Because a HDD is a stone age device in comparison, you never updated your floppies firmware, but you did your optical drive, because you are asking more of it.damianrobertjones - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Excuses if you ask me. Devices should simply work at they usually doUltraTech79 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Okay Mr. Perfect design a SSD that works perfectly and lasts 20 years for the rest of us mortals. If you cannot any reasons you give are just "excuses"UltraTech79 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
You not having update firmware on a HDD doesnt mean they didnt need it. Old dead drives arnt always just dead. A firware update could of fixed the issue.You also need to realize this is new technology. If you dont want to have any issues, stay away from cutting edge.
pzkfwg - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I recall my Nintendo and my Super Nintendo. How is it that these machines and their game carthridges, which seems to me quite complicated, never had to be updated? Could it be that updates were impracticable at that time and proper testing was done consequentially?kyuu - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Uh, no. Those old-school game consoles were not somehow more complicated than current hardware. Cartridges are not ultra-sophisticated marvels of engineering compared to SSDs. Even as simple as they were, anyone who actually used those systems, like myself, can remember having plenty of issues with those goddamn things. The software side is pretty much the same. You may as well be comparing a horse-drawn cart to a modern car.If people want to stick with their "trouble-free HDDs" (as though HDDs never have problems), then they're free to do so. Meanwhile, the rest of the population can move on to SSDs which offer a far superior user experience in every way and not bitch and moan about a firmware update here and there.
Navvie - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
Your comparison is flawed. Ignoring the fact that carts and consoles are far, far simpler machines than modern day computers (and modern day consoles).The NES and SNES were created by one manufacturer, with one possible combination of hardware and ROM.
To test your cart against this one combination requires little testing.
PCs are constructed of many bits of hardware and firmware (ROM), that can be assembled in an almost limitless number of combinations.
To test for the near unlimited number of combinations requires an near unlimited amount of testing.
As kyuu has posted, you are comparing a horse drawn carriage to a modern day super car.
Filiprino - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
Graphics cards work on every motherboard without problems.If hardware vendors just commited with the standards without strange hacks, the vast majority of headaches would disappear.
But you have all those hacky firmwares and chipsets that you must not buy or use until their manufacturers get their issues solved.
Galcobar - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
Aside from the claim that graphics cards don't disagree with motherboards being rather inaccurate, you may have noticed graphics card drivers come out quite often.UltraTech79 - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
It's amusing because you assume those games did not go through code revisions -after- release. The only issue was they had no way of updating the original carts, they just had to supply the updated ones.Now we have firmware, and people still find ways to bitch. Ignorant assholes.
a5cent - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
To a degree some of what you say is true, but your accusations are very one sided. Consumers are at least equally to blame. For most consumers purchasing decisions are based on the hip-factor, performance and price. In comparison security, stability and compatibility are barely even an afterthought. As this is how consumers behave, it would be irrational for companies to invest any more than absolutely necessary in the later properties of a product, as doing so would cost a lot, but not net them a single additional sale. The enterprise market has different priorities, and is also willing to pay more for higher quality offerings.Your comments also indicate that you have a limited understanding of software development. All PC subsystems involve a LOT of software. The URL below refers to a document written over 10 years ago at Carnegie Mellon University. It explains a little about why it is practically impossible (theoretically it is possible) to rule out software defects completely. This applies not just to the PC industry, but to any industry involved in non-trivial software development:
http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/des_s99/sw_testing...
Obviously, flight control systems will undergo a lot more validation testing than a consumer grade SSD. However, even then the best we can hope for is that we won't ever encounter those defects that invariably will remain. That is simply a fact of any software system of non-trivial complexity.
UltraTech79 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
No, he means ALL products have this issue. Rushed to market is just something your simply mind has latched onto to explain this away. Sorry kid, the world is more complicated than that. The only dumb sheep around here is you.damianrobertjones - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Is Microsucks a new company or is your keyboard broken?P.s. You do have a valid point with regards to SSDs but you blew it with your Microsucks
nwrigley - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
I agree. When people use lame joke names for companies, I can't help but devalue anything else they might say.UltraTech79 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
They are just angry kids regurgitation hate because their friends/brother/parents. Ignore the sheep.UltraTech79 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Microsucks? What are you 14?Idiots trying to make constant updates and support into a BAD THING are just that; idiots. In the old days they wouldent provide firmware updates. They would just have you send the drive back to them and get it replaced by a newer revision of the same drive IF you were under warranty . If not, you were screwed.
Today you dont have to send it back in for such reasons, and can do a firmware update yourself in about 5 min. How in the fuck is that worse? Or are you so delusionally dense you think older HDD were without programming errors?
HURR HURRR
Coup27 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
0001, 0002, 0009, 0309, then 000F. Seriously?cscpianoman - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
They're Game Genie codes:)leexgx - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
nice comment (if you know what he is talking about)code65536 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
What's wrong with that? You humans are so used to your big-endian notation. Crucial's versioning is simply AABB where AA is the minor version in hexadecimal and BB is the major version in hexadecimal. So this is version 15.0, if you want to convert it into human-friendly decimal big-endian. :Pkyuu - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
It's called hexadecimal. Look it up.What does it matter anyway? It's a version number for some firmware. It's not like they named their next-gen SSD the Crucial 000F.
Coup27 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I work in engineering and rely heavily on documents maintaining a standard sequential method of naming. With version 0001, 0002, 0009, 0309 you always would know where you stood and everybody knows what is the latest version. Then as always someone throws out there "new version" or "000F" which follows none of the previous numbering system. Then you find 2 weeks later you have a major issue because people have been working to different documents because the numbering system got shagged up by somebody. I just don't get it. Surely it is easier for them to continue a logical method.UltraTech79 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Seriously? Does it really matter to you what a SSD firmware revision numbering scheme is like? How much free time to you have?harshw - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I have two C300 SSDs that suffer from BSODs - the 'help' one gets on the official forums is the same: Try installing Intel SATA drivers. When told that they are in AMD based boxes, there's silence ...I guess my next SSD will be an Intel, dont want to experiment with Crucial anymore ...
damianrobertjones - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Cor blimey! I've a Probook 6465b in front of me that refuses to boot with a 128Gb M4 SSD. AMD chipset... latest firmware, bios and drivers!UltraTech79 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
You guys blame the SSD when it could be any number of issues with your systems. The fact that the vast majority of people are running the m4 and C300s with updated firmware just fine kind of says all that needs to be.The12pAc - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
I had to go back to 11.9's for my Media Center to boot on Win7 x64. AMD 750 SB in AHCI mode. Something with the 12.x versions just don't work, at least with my Vertex2 60GB.faizoff - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
Took me about 30 secs all in all to update. Im really surprised it was that easy. Just double clicked the .exe and it rebooted, updated and restarted the computer and things were back to normal.No performance issues before or after update regardless.
Prior to my M4 I had a C300 and never had any issues with that either.
SteveLord - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
I don't mind the firmware updates. I have several M4 drives between home and work. They all work well.