Intel Halts Shipments of 32nm SSDs

Online retail outlets including Newegg have pulled Intel's brand-spanking-new 32nm X25-M G2 "Postville" SSDs from their websites just days after becoming publicly available, according to a blog from OEM system builder Puget Systems. The company said that removal of the SSDs stem from a firmware defect discovered in the first batch shipped last week.

Unfortunately, consumers who already purchased the new 32nm SSDs may experience data corruption when adding, deleting, or modifying the drive's password in the system BIOS. "Initially we were told this might require a complete reworking of the drives, and that those we had gotten in were effectively unusable, but Intel was able to work out a firmware fix for the problem," the said Puget's William George. "That won’t be available immediately, but should be showing up in about two weeks."

Currently Intel has halted shipments of the Postville SSDs until the problem is resolved. However, for consumers who have already purchased the drive with no plans to use a BIOS password on the drive, there ultimately should be no problems. Still, Intel advises consumers not to alter, delete, or create BIOS passwords until the drive is flashed with the update firmware.

"It made sense to pause shipments and implement the changes ourselves and via customers versus asking consumers to do so," Intel told Tom's in an email earlier today. "Keep in mind the fix has been identified and validation is undergoing completion this week."

The firmware can be downloaded here when it eventually goes live.