IBM Support

Specific SSDs may experience media errors and fail under light workload

Flashes (Alerts)


Abstract

A known issue exists for some SSDs which could result in media errors across multiple drives and subsequent drive failures. This affects only drives running firmware level E298, or levels 93nn as detailed in the table below. The issue is resolved in firmware levels E29C and 939A

Content

The drive models listed in the table below are exposed to a firmware fault relating to the loss of data retention information over time. The exposure is greatest on drives which experience a low I/O workload for over 6 months.

As the exposure to the issue is based on drive use and power on hours, this increases the risk of occurrence on multiple drives in the same system at the same time.

Table of affected drive models:

Feature Exposed drive code Product ID
1.92TB, Tier 1 SSD 9332, 9333, 9391, 9395, 9396, 9399 XS1920SE10103
3.84TB, Tier 1 SSD 9332, 9333, 9391, 9395, 9396, 9399 XS3840SE10103
7.68TB, Tier 1 SSD 9332, 9333, 9391, 9395, 9396, 9399 XS7680SE70103
800 GB, Tier 1 SSD E298 XS800LE70004
1.92TB, Tier 1 SSD E298 XS1920SE70004
3.84TB, Tier 1 SSD E298 XS3840SE70004
7.68TB, Tier 1 SSD E298 XS7680SE70004
15.3TB, Tier 1 SSD
E298
XS15360TE70004
400GB, Tier 0 SSD E298 XS400ME70004
800GB, Tier 0 SSD E298 XS800ME70004
1600GB, Tier 0 SSD E298 XS1600ME70004
3200GB, Tier 0 SSD E298 XS3200ME70004

IBM strongly recommends customers with these types of drives running with exposed code levels upgrade their drive firmware to level E29C and 939A or greater. The fixes are available in drive firmware packages dated 2nd March 2021 or later.

Due to the combination of media error events and drive failures, risk of data loss is higher in single redundant arrays such as RAID5

Determining the drive firmware using the GUI

  1. Click Pools > Internal Storage to display the list of installed drives
  2. Right-click on one of the table headers such as Drive ID and select the Firmware Level option

The firmware level is now added to the table.

Determining the drive firmware using the CLI

The firmware level for an individual drive can be displayed through the lsdrive Drive_ID command, where Drive_ID specifies an individual drive. The following short script will display the firmware levels for all drives in the system.

lsdrive -nohdr | while read drive etc; do echo "Drive $drive:"; lsdrive $drive | grep firmware ; echo "__________"; done
 

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Document Information

Modified date:
28 March 2023

UID

ibm16434161