What are the odds? I received a defective Intel SSD.

Ordered a 160GB G2R5 SSD to replace the 500GB 5400rpm drive in my 15" MBP and received the drive yesterday. Opened up the MBP, removed the 500GB and put in the 160GB Intel SSD. The SL installation started fine, I used the disk utility and formatted the drive (MacOS extended (journaled)) and the installation began...

When the bar was almost at the end (said 10 min remaining), a big yellow exclamation point icon appeared on the screen and said "OS installation encountered an error, please contact the software manufacturer (something along these lines)". I was surprised of course...

I re-started the machine, initiated the SL installation again, started disk utility and it took about 10 minutes (spinning beach ball) to detect the Intel drive. Once it did, I formatted it again and initiated the installation. This time, the installer quit a lot earlier (about 25% in) with the same message.

Thinking that this could be a SL related issue, I popped in the Leopard DVD and started Disk Utility. The drive was detected immediately, but it showed up as "8 MB Intel SSD". I tried formatting, etc, but it never reverted back from that 8MB stage. It was detected as an 8MB drive with the SL installation DVD as well.

I put back the 500GB drive and started the computer and attached the Intel SSD as an external. Drive info showed it as 160GB and it had two folders on it: MacOS installation files and Private. Using disk utility, I erased the drive again; once the erase process was completed, the drive was never mounted. Unplugged the USB cable and plugged it back again, nothing. Started disk utility one more time and again the drive was listed as "8MB Intel SSD".

At that point, I stopped playing with it and sent an e-mail for an RMA to replace it. After a quick Google search, it appears that it is defective. Some people saw the size of the drive to go from 160GB to 8MB in few days, but for me it was during the installation.

Anyone else experienced a similar problem with Intel G2 SSDs (80 and/or 160GB)?

 

Yep, you got a dud then. It happens every so often...

 

Does your Mac run hot? Overheating seems to be why the SSD's are failing so often in them, looking at other threads like this over at the Apple forums.

 

It seems like it, because I tried installing Windows 7 Professional to this drive using my DELL XPS410 desktop and I got several errors during format/partition stage. The installation couldn't continue with Win7 either.

 

this seems very very unlikely as SSD can withstand extended operating temperature of 0c to 70c.