Understanding SandForce's SF-1200 & SF-1500, Not All Drives are Equal
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 16, 2010 11:30 AM ESTWhere Do We Go From Here?
Corsair is under no obligation to ship drives with the 3.0.5 firmware. Assuming there are no other problems with the 3.0.1 firmware, Corsair could presumably keep shipping the higher performing OCZ-like firmware. The problem is that if you ever need to upgrade your firmware, you could lose performance.
As I've mentioned in the past, customers of whatever company or companies work closest with the controller manufacturer will undoubtedly get access to firmware quicker than anyone else. We've seen this work both in favor of and against the best interests of the consumer. Sometimes you get features/performance early (e.g. TRIM support for Indilinx drives) and other times you get early, untested firmware. Your best bet at this point is to hold off on any SF-1200 purchases unless you're willing to accept the risks that comes with.
The case isn’t closed on this issue however, not by a long shot. It’s my understanding that the SandForce/OCZ exclusivity agreement is currently only a short term agreement. While the companies are in the process of negotiating a long term agreement, nothing is final yet.
There are some measures in place to ensure that you can’t flash an OCZ firmware on a non-OCZ drive (and vice versa) but there’s nothing saying that at some point this won’t change either.
We also don’t know what the real world impact of the standard SF-1200 firmware will be. I’m hoping to have a standard SF-1200 drive with production firmware very soon and I will report my findings as soon as possible.
I’ve also communicated to SandForce that this should have never happened. It was well aware that there would be a performance difference between the Vertex 2 and all other SF-1200 drives, and there’s absolutely no reason any company other than OCZ should have had 3.0.1 with that exclusivity agreement in place. It’s simply not right to give your partners performance that you know for a fact will later be taken away. SandForce indicated to me that everyone was aware that performance could change between firmware revisions, but in my opinion this is still not being totally transparent. The moment a review based on Corsair’s Force drive went live, SandForce should’ve had a discussion with Corsair and the reviewer. We weren’t the first to review the Force drive, but it wasn’t until after our review went live that SandForce contacted us.
SandForce is a very young company and this just sounds like a bad case of partner mismanagement. Thankfully there haven’t been that many SF-1200 drives sold, but if you’re considering one you have to keep in mind that you could see performance drop in one metric with a firmware update. Note that the drive will still perform as specified, the SF-1200 controller is only rated for 10,000 sustained 4K random write IOPS.
There’s also the issue of SSD makers shipping drives based on firmware that’s not MP ready. I’ve established a more direct line with SandForce so I’ll at least be made aware of what firmware is ready for shipping and what isn’t. I’ll also be putting more pressure on manufacturers to only ship MP ready firmware. Let this serve as a warning to SSD manufacturers. I haven't been keeping close tabs on shipping firmware revisions since I never recommend any brand new, unproven SSD controller. But clearly I'm going to have to start docking points for not following controller manufacturer guidance. This stuff is serious guys, you're playing with our data here - I can't stress that enough.
As I keep mentioning in my coverage of SandForce and any other new SSDs, if you jump on board you’re assuming a risk. These drives and controllers are largely unproven. While I’m doing my best to put them through their paces, I can’t test every system combination. On top of that, many of these companies are newcomers to the industry and as an early adopter, you might find yourself in the middle of a situation like this.
This is unfolding in real time so I’ll keep you posted as I come across any new developments.
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Crypticone - Friday, April 16, 2010 - link
Remember this is the same company that asked reviewers to NOT open the product. They started out with one product, got it reviewed favorably then switched to a lesser and much less expensive chip and left prices and model numbers the same.If that is not bait and switch in your mind, I am not sure what is..
ggathagan - Friday, April 16, 2010 - link
After re-reading willscary's comment, I have to agree that I was wrong on the bait-and-switch aspect of it.If OWC had sent an email stating that there had been a spec change and asking if the drives were still desired, that would be one thing.
Since they were not upfront with the change to customers who had already purchased, but had not yet received their drives, you are correct; clearly duplicitous.
529th - Friday, April 16, 2010 - link
So, Corsair found that a power saving feature on the Sandforce controllers was the culprit to it's reliability stigma?Then they went ahead and fixed it with their own firmware thus negating the "MP" released by Sandforce thereby maintaining Vertex 2 like performance?
My main concern is for my 2 OCZ Vertex LE SSD drives. One in the machine I have now: firmware 1.0; and on that should be delivered the 19th. So, if Sandforce borrows the idea from Corsair, if indeed that is the reliability problem, then the next time you put the OCZ Vertex LE on the 2mb power consumption it should relatively read the same as the Corsair Force 100 (Sandforce 1200) SSD drive right? Anand, could you do that for us? Thanks
529th
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, April 16, 2010 - link
I'm not sure what the 3.0.5 fix is for the power state bug. I've been meaning to put that fw on my Vertex LE but haven't had the opportunity to yet. As soon as I do, I will let you know :)In light of all of these issues, both drives with their latest firmware will be going in mission critical systems in my office. Gonna try and break em :)
Take care,
Anand
GullLars - Saturday, April 17, 2010 - link
Putting them into mission critical systems in order to try to break them... Sounds kind of reckless if the systems are indeed mission critical. If they are riggs that simulate servers/workstations that typically require mission critical storage, it would be an entirely different scenario.Great reporting on this kind of stuff BTW, keep it up ;)
It makes me kind of sad to see this kind of sketchy an unorganized behaviour from a company that seems to have great engineering skills. I've been impressed with their tech and architecture since they came out of stealth mode last spring, and the benchmarks didn't disappoint (only the price tag :P). IMO they should not cripple the drives if it's not neccesary due to the lack of the supercap, and even then, providing the full performance FW to enthusiasts willing to take the risk of dataloss would be a good idea to gain goodwill.
I hope manifacturers will provide enthusiasts with the 3.0.1 FW with the power savings feature disabled (modded FW), even if they decide to go for the reduced performance MP FW SF-1200 drives off the shelves.
nycromes - Friday, April 16, 2010 - link
Anand,I was highly critical of you in another review the other day. That being said, articles like this are what I have come to expect from Anandtech. In depth explanations of what is going on with new tech, and as evidenced here, sometimes what is going on in the business as well. Thanks for digging deeper into this situation and letting us all in on what is going on. Its sad to see companies do this to both trusted partners, customers, and the industry.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, April 16, 2010 - link
The criticism is always welcome - I take everything to heart. I am trying to do the best job possible here and you guys really help me in doing that. You give me encouragement when you feel that I've done a good job and you give me pointers on how to be better when you feel that I haven't. It's free feedback from you all and I do appreciate it, regardless of tone :)Take care,
Anand
SANDAR - Friday, April 16, 2010 - link
Anand Shimpi: proving once again that the pen may be mightier than the sword, but having a highly trafficked website is akin to a boatload of Hellfire Missiles.Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, April 16, 2010 - link
You rock :)willscary - Friday, April 16, 2010 - link
After this change, I have decided to go back to Crucial 128GB M225s for the two lesser machines. I have been using these with great success for a couple months now. Instead of the 200GB OWC, I am now torn between the 200GB OCZ Vertex LE and the Crucial offerings. The new Crucial 300 looks much faster, but the M225 is much cheaper and has a 5 year warranty.This is a quickly changing technology, I know. However, I feel that each manufacturer and supplier MUST be truthful about the products they are selling. As said above, a simple email and perhaps a slight refund would have done wonders in my case, but I sure don't want to pay for a much more expensive product and get less. As I said earlier...to me, that is the definition of Bait and Switch, even if the above poster was correct and Sandforce shipped a different controller. I, however, doubt that OWC did not know, or at least that they would not have either rejected the shipment when they found out or demanded credit for the cheaper controllers.