Patch Firmware On These HPE SSDs Now Or Risk Drive Failure And Data Loss
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is advising customers to update the firmware on certain Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) solid state drives to prevent them from failing after 32,768 hours of use, which equates to 3 years, 270 days, and 8 hours. If that should happen, the data on the drive(s) would be permanently lost and unrecoverable.
"HPE strongly recommends immediate application of this critical fix. Neglecting to update to SSD Firmware Version HPD8 will result in drive failure and data loss at 32,768 hours of operation and require restoration of data from backup in non-fault tolerance, such as RAID 0 and in fault tolerance RAID mode if more drives fail than what is supported by the fault tolerance RAID mode logical drive. By disregarding this notification and not performing the recommended resolution, the customer accepts the risk of incurring future related errors," HPE says.
This bug has the potential to be disastrous. As HPE further warns, affected SSD models that were put into service at the same time are likely to fail simultaneously. Customers could potentially be looking at massive data loss without the critical firmware update in place. Having a backup routine could mitigate the impact, but at the very least, it's a major headache in the making.
An unnamed SSD maker notified HPE of the firmware defect that could cause so much trouble. It affects a bunch of SAS SSD models used in HPE server and storage products, such as HPE's ProLiant, Synergy, Apollo, JPOD, D3xxx, D6xxx, D8xxx, MSA, StoreVirtual 4335, and StoreVirtual 3200 products.
Firmware versions prior to HPD8 are problematic. There are 20 SSDs affected in all, including the following models...
- VO0480JFDGT (480GB)
- VO0960JFDGU (960GB)
- VO1920JFDGV (1.92TB)
- VO3840JFDHA (3.84TB)
- MO0400JFFCF (400GB)
- MO0800JFFCH (800GB)
- MO1600JFFCK (1.6TB)
- MO3200JFFCL (3.2TB)
- VO000480JWDAR (480GB)
- VO000960JWDAT (960GB)
- VO001920JWDAU (1.92TB)
- VO003840JWDAV (3.84TB)
- VO007680JWCNK (7.68TB)
- VO015300JWCNL (15.3TB)
- VK000960JWSSQ (960GB)
- VK001920JWSSR (1.92TB)
- VK003840JWSST (3.84TB)
- VK003840JWSST (3.84TB)
- VK007680JWSSU (7.68TB)
- VO015300JWSSV (15.3TB)
The threat of drive failure is not a theoretical one, either. Over on Reddit, a forum member claims to have seen half a dozen SSDs give up the ghost in the span of 15 minutes. HPE told The Register that once it was made aware of the issue, it "immediately began working around the clock" on a firmware fix.
Hit the link in the Via field below to for more information on where and how to obtain the latest firmware release for the affected models listed above.
