So I just saw the news SK Hynix launched the Platinum P51, was thinking it was about time the platinum standard in SSDs got an update! Then I saw the top comment in the reddit thread which mentioned a known performance degradation issue I hadn’t heard of it before, and sure enough my own P41 was affected. I found numerous posts scattered across online forums and reddit on the issue… apparently the fast-write cache on SK Hynix P41 & Solidigm P44 Pro drives bugs out and will cease clearing, permanently dropping write performance down to the bare metal TLC-NAND write speeds.
Nothing but a secure erase seems to resolve it, but the drives will quickly redevelop the issue. People have RMA’d affected drives, but the models received back have the same firmware and exhibit the same problem within weeks to months. SK Hynix has not issued a single firmware update in the lifespan of the Platinum P41 drive, affected users can expect write performance to stay around 1,500-2,500 MB/s when it should be 6,000 MB/s.
The good news is the P41 is a three year old product with a five year warranty. The bad news is replacement units exhibit the same defect. Some owners were able to secure refunds during the RMA and I was curious if anyone here has been able to do so.
Interesting i wonder if SK is working on a fix. Or a replacement. However unless you are using it in a NAS or a server. How much does it really effect you? Most of the time your interent connection is going to be the bottleneck. But SK should be fixing the issue or discontinuing the model.
There are reddit threads on this issue dating back to 2023, so SK Hynix has known about this problem for over a year.
As you say it’s not the end of the world, I noticed writes were capping at 2-3GB/s and didn’t really think anything of it at the time. But if I had wanted this level of performance I could’ve saved some real money by buying the cheaper P31 Gold instead. Incidentally SK Hynix did issue firmware updates for the P31 Gold to address bugs, which makes the lack of any firmware update on the P41 all the more unusual.
As SK Hynix continues to sell the P41 Platinum and Solidigm P44 Pro, its very disingenuous on their part to continue selling known defective products, when these concerns were raised with them in 2023.
@ozlay : while that significantly reduced write speed is not an issue with downloads from the internet, it can be one whenever really fast saves are wanted, be it editing videos, gaming or (hot right now) running AI models. I don’t have this particular SSD from SK Hynix, but when I pay good money for the promise of good performance, I expect that the manufacturer holds up their end of the deal. That SK Hynix hasn’t issued any firmware fix for this performance degradation for three years is a disgrace. IMHO, if they can’t fix it, they really should offer an exchange for a newer version or a refund. I had a high opinion of their SSDs, and was unaware of this issue, so now it’s definitely “had”, and no longer “have”.