OCZ Confirms Vertex 3 and Agility 3 Firmware Issues
A few days ago, we reported that solid state drives based on the SandForce SF-2000 controllers are facing some severe problems that may range from Windows blue screens to the BIOS' inability to detect the SSD and recently OCZ has confirmed that Vertex 3 and Agility 3 models are affected by these issues.
This information was posted on the company's official forums by Eric Ryder, forum support manager at OCZ.
“OCZ is aware of firmware issues that have been reported in the field that are potentially causing bluescreens on all SF2000 based drives, this issue affects a very small percentage of Vertex 3 and Agility 3 SSDs, and currently less than 1% of all our customers are affected,” said Ryder.
However, he was quick to point out that OCZ doesn't suffer from the same problems that made Corsair recall its 120GB Force 3 SSDs, and that these issues can be fixed with a simple firmware update.
“This hard to replicate issue is a completely different issue than what some other drive manufacturers are experiencing, which may have similar symptoms but is caused by a hardware issue.
“Unlike other brands OCZ does not use a reference design, and we design and manufacture our SSDs in-house, and are NOT affected by the hardware problems which are unique to other drive vendors.”
OCZ is currently working with SandForce to develop a new firmware version that could solve these problems, but nobody knows at this point in time how long it will take until this arrives.
As a result, users who are facing any blue screen issues with their Vertex 3 and Agility 3 SSDs are encouraged to contact the company's customer service team for immediate support (link here).
The 120GB Corsair Force 3 SSDs which were recalled earlier this week suffered not only from firmware issues, but also had a defective PCB design.
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