Kingston Releases New V100 Firmware to Address Data Loss Bug

While I was at CTIA last week I ran into a friend from Kingston who let me know about an issue with the JMicron JMF618 based SSDNow V100 SSDs that were released last year. We never formally reviewed the V100 here on AnandTech but I've tested the drive and we've occasionally included scores from it in our reviews.

With the original firmware on the V100 there's apparently a chance you could lose data. Kingston wouldn't go into specifics other than the usual "this only impacts a small percentage of users" line we typically get with things like this. Kingston has an updated firmware that apparently fixes the problem available here.

Note that I never saw the original issue and I just now got access to the fixed firmware, so approach with caution. If you own a V100 drive back up and give this thing a try.

The full release from Kingston is below:
We have learned that a small percentage of our SSDNow V100 sold in the past has experienced a technical issue on the firmware. Kingston strongly recommends that a firmware update be applied to all SSDNow V100 drives to prevent possible data loss.

The firmware update to fix the technical issue is available via Kingston Technical Support. As with any firmware update, we recommend that you back up your data prior to applying the firmware revision.

Customer satisfaction and producing high quality products is the key to Kingston’s success, so we want to make every effort to ensure that our customers are aware of this firmware revision and have the opportunity to patch their V100 drive(s).

The firmware update can be downloaded from our dedicated support page: www.kingston.com/support/ssdnow/v100_firmware.asp

Customers can also contact our customer service hotline at 888.484.9125 for more information.

Affected Part Numbers are:

SV100S2/64GZ, SV100S2D/64GZ, SV100S2N/64GZ
SV100S2/128GZ, SV100S2D/128GZ, SV100S2N/128GZ
SV100S2/256GZ, SV100S2N/256GZ, SV100S2N/256GZ

It is important to note that none of Kingston’s other SSDNow products -- with part numbers beginning with SNE, SNM, SS, SNV, SNVP and SVP -- are affected by this potential issue.