Chip giant Intel has confirmed that it is “pausing shipments” of SSD drives because of a password problem on its 34 nanometer NAND flash based drives.
The firm said it had “found a sighting” that will affect people who set a BIOS level password on the drive that will mean the SSD won’t work.
Intel elaborated. “If the user has not set a BIOS drive password then there is no issue. This erratum does not apply to a computer, network or operating system password.”
Intel uses the word “issue” to describe a problem, and the word “erratum” to refer to a bug.
The chip giant said that the root cause has been spotted and it is going to fix it soon. People with the problem will get a firmware update to fix the bug within two weeks.
Said Intel: “If a user has enabled their BIOS drive password, we are advising them not to disable or change their BIOS drive password. If they have not enabled their BIOS drive password, we are advising them not to enable a BIOS drive password.” If you understand that.
Intel said: “It made sense to pause shipments and implement the changes ourselves and via customers versus asking consumers to do so. Keep in mind the fix has been identified and validation is undergoing completion over the next week.”
A consumer is a person too, a bit like a customer. If an SSD fails, it is a tragedy, particularly so if there’s a book that’s gone west.
