Firmware Bug in Certain SSD Drives will Brick Hardware at Exactly 40,000 Hours

 “Neglecting to update the SSD Firmware will result in drive failure and data loss”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has warned that a firmware bug will cause SSD drives to brick after 40,000 hours (four years, 206 days and 16 hours) after the SSD has entered service. “After the SSD failure occurs, neither the SSD nor the data can be recovered,” HPE warned customer’s in a service bulletin. According to the company, drives could start failing as early as October 2020.

The drives affected are 800GB and 1.6TB SAS models and products listed in HPE’s service bulletin here. HPE provided updates to version number HPD7 that will correct the problem in affected SSDs, including instructions on how to update the firmware and check the total time on the drive.

It’s not known what the bug is related to, but if the update isn’t performed, the SSDs will become unusable and the data cannot be recovered. It’s important for all enterprises with affected SSD drives, including RAID systems where the drives can fail nearly simultaneously, to update their hardware to prevent losing huge amounts of data.

To make sure your SSDs aren’t going to be affected, inventory your SSD installs to see if you have any of the drives mentioned, and be prepared to update your firmware.