Intel 520s showing nearly 1M hours on time

SsmB_92

Limp Gawd
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Jul 7, 2015
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Just a quick question, but my Intel 520 drives (one 480GB owned since May '12 and one 120GB since Sep '12) are showing 930,000+ hours of uptime in NZXT CAM, and my newer 240GB one only 10,000. Between 2013-2014, my rig spent much time i storage with no power on, so how can this be the case? Do they have internal batteries? They are rated for 1.2 million hours, so i'm worried about them.

Can someone explain this phenomenon plz?
 
Can I borrow your time machine?

PS: There are only 6360 hours in a year (excluding leap year).
 
Just a quick question, but my Intel 520 drives (one 480GB owned since May '12 and one 120GB since Sep '12) are showing 930,000+ hours of uptime in NZXT CAM, and my newer 240GB one only 10,000. Between 2013-2014, my rig spent much time i storage with no power on, so how can this be the case? Do they have internal batteries? They are rated for 1.2 million hours, so i'm worried about them.

No need to be worried, the power-on hours SMART attribute is known buggy in Intel 330/520 series and not according to Intel's specification. To get an approximate number, subtracting 894,815 from the SMART value shown works for some people. Apparently the device also sometimes counts 59 minutes as an hour, or 62 minutes as an hour, etc. when incrementing the counter.

For an accurate count, use smartctl (or a more user-friendly tool like hddguardian) that can view the SSD's device statistics log where it does keep a proper accurate count. Witness:

1. I has an Intel 240 too since December 2012, but it's in a laptop that's not on 24/7:
kTuYWM7.png


2. SMART tells me my SSD has been running for over a century. Subtracting the 894,800 baseline gives (913505 - 894800) = 18,690 hours.
gYWDkfV.png


3. But if I ask smartctl to look at the device stats log, it gives me the true number: 18,711 hours. Pretty close to the estimate above, but accuracy matters! :)
3irsHgz.png


If you're not familiar with smartctl and have multiple HDs, just use smartctl -i /dev/sda if that's your 520; ...sdb, sdc, etc. to find the device. Then run smartctl with the syntax in step 3 to get true POH.
 
Stereodude - I dont think Intels that good yet lol :p

izx - thanks kindly for your detailed response, very relieved to hear! Well i think i am, when Intel says 1.2 million hours, are they going by this buggy method of calculation?
 
when Intel says 1.2 million hours, are they going by this buggy method of calculation?

No, that would be a disaster! :)

The 1.2 million hours is a valid MTBF, pretty much the standard for enterprise drives from when the Intel 520 was introduced.
 
Beautiful, thanks a bunch. Here i was readying to put 400 down on a new 1TB Samsung 850 XD
 
Remember, the 520s have a FIVE-year warranty from Intel, so if does have any issues, it's an easy RMA.
 
Beautiful, thanks a bunch. Here i was readying to put 400 down on a new 1TB Samsung 850 XD


stick with Intel :)
I bought off lease ssd from ebay mostly. Intel S3500, S3700, 5X0, or 7X0..


I have runnign 520. smartctl tell me : 140 years :p...
I bought used one almost 3 years ago for $30

you need to pay attention on a simple flag:
233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
if no 0, replace ASAP :).


this the info from smartctl 6.4 2014-10-07 .

Model Family: Intel 520 Series SSDs
Device Model: INTEL SSDSC2CW060A3
Serial Number: ...........................
LU WWN Device Id: 5 001517 bb27c8de8
Firmware Version: 400i
User Capacity: 60,022,480,896 bytes [60.0 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ACS-2 T13/2015-D revision 3
SATA Version is: SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Tue Feb 16 10:40:37 2016 EST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

.....
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours_and_Msec 0x0032 000 000 000 Old_age Always - 911073h+31m+57.150s
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 156
170 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0
171 Program_Fail_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
172 Erase_Fail_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
174 Unexpect_Power_Loss_Ct 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 156
184 End-to-End_Error 0x0033 100 100 090 Pre-fail Always - 0
187 Uncorrectable_Error_Cnt 0x000f 118 118 050 Pre-fail Always - 192957074
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 156
225 Host_Writes_32MiB 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 24452
226 Workld_Media_Wear_Indic 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 65535
227 Workld_Host_Reads_Perc 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 57
228 Workload_Minutes 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 65535
232 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0
233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
241 Host_Writes_32MiB 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 24452
242 Host_Reads_32MiB 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 33261
249 NAND_Writes_1GiB 0x0013 100 100 000 Pre-fail Always - 5164
 
Nice, ill have a look for [Media Wearout Indicator]. Hope its 0!

I cannot emphasize enough - for the 520 series, please DO NOT be alarmed when the Media Wearout Indicator value decreases from 100 to 099, 098, etc. You should think about replacing the drive only after it gets to below 15 or so, which (if ever) for most users will be after the five-year warranty has expired.

The 520 series is an extremely resilient drive. Take the SSD Endurance Test on the 60GB version. After 180+ TB of writes, the MWI has gone down to 36 and the drive is chugging along just fine. That means you are good for more than 360 TBW on the 120GB version, 720 TBW on the 240GB and 1440 TBW on the 480GB.
 
Thanks for the input again izx. Ill be in front of the machine soon so ill post back with those numbers.

I bought tese drives specifically for reliability and also they were much faster than most at the time. Although they havent been showing great results in AS SSD, which made me more suspicious :/
 
I cannot emphasize enough - for the 520 series, please DO NOT be alarmed when the Media Wearout Indicator value decreases from 100 to 099, 098, etc. You should think about replacing the drive only after it gets to below 15 or so, which (if ever) for most users will be after the five-year warranty has expired.

The 520 series is an extremely resilient drive. Take the SSD Endurance Test on the 60GB version. After 180+ TB of writes, the MWI has gone down to 36 and the drive is chugging along just fine. That means you are good for more than 360 TBW on the 120GB version, 720 TBW on the 240GB and 1440 TBW on the 480GB.
I read from Intel PDF spec...before .

Basically. If not zero. You need to be cautious.

This is important on single ssd configuration.

Rule of thumb. Not zero. Get a replacement ASAP or possible. Make a clone to new ssd.

I am not really worried on waiting when is on raid 1.
 
I read from Intel PDF spec...before .

Basically. If not zero. You need to be cautious.

This is important on single ssd configuration.

Rule of thumb. Not zero. Get a replacement ASAP or possible. Make a clone to new ssd.

Here is what Intel says:

VfbzfTT.png


This is the same normalized value I mentioned in my previous post. I'd say to be safe consider replacement when this value goes down from 100 to around 10, don't wait for it to reach 1.

Per the Intel SSD spec, the lowest the number will go is 1. The raw value that you're talking about will always remain zero.

qmR91hv.png
 
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