Hewlett Packard reveals issues with SSD longevity

The company has released a firmware upgrade and is advising users to install it as soon as possible.

Experts at Hewlett Packard have released a warning for SSD users, advising them to upgrade the firmware on their devices. Due to outdated algorithms, the disks had a limited shelf life of 32 768 hours (3 years, 270 days, and 8 hours). 

Customers using HPE SAS disks with firmware below the HPD8 version run the risk of losing all functionality. According to developers, a new patch can solve this problem. However, if the disk has already been active for over 32 768 hours and broken down, data recovery will not be possible. The company has published a complete list of models with this issue on their website.

When solid-state storage devices first became popular, many people expressed their reservations about the negative effect of the processing speed on their shelf life. However, manufacturers assured customers that despite the reduced shelf life of SSDs in comparison to traditional hard disks, regular users shouldn’t be worried about the available number of overwriting cycles, claiming that there would be enough. 

A similar vulnerability was previously discovered in Intel solid-state storage devices, which were blocked after over 1700 hours in standby mode.