OCZ Discovers Bug in Onyx SSD, Acts Quickly to Stop Shipments



A week ago I got a shipment of a bunch of new SSDs including OCZ's long awaited Onyx. This is based on the Indilinx Amigos controller, which is basically a cost reduced version of the Barefoot controller with only half the channels. A 32GB Onyx should sell for around $99.

The first drive I received showed CRC errors during a Windows install. I told OCZ to stop shipment two Fridays ago. OCZ responded by saying that they wouldn't stop shipments after only one bad drive. Their mistake.

In my experience, I never get a "bad drive", it's either DOA or has a firmware/controller bug. Three days later OCZ issued a recall on the drive and got in touch with its customers directly to make sure they were taken care of.

OCZ had the bug fixed within a week and sent me a new drive (as well as posted an updated firmware on their site). I've been testing the fixed Onyx and while it doesn't exhibit the same issues as the first drive, I am seeing an unexpected CRC error in one particular test that shouldn't be there. I just got off the phone with OCZ and they are going to be pulling back all drives until the problem is squashed.

Building SSDs is a challenging business. I stressed to OCZ that this could have been avoided if they just sent out samples a week before shipping to etailers. I have to at least hand it to OCZ for acting quickly to pull the drives, especially after today's warning. 

If you want a value SSD today, I'd suggest Intel's X25-V.



http://www.anandtech.com/show/3698/o...stop-shipments