For the second time in two years, HPE is warning of a firmware bug in its SSD drives that will brick them unless an update is applied.

In a support advisory, HPE details the issue involving HPE SAS SSDs running firmware older than HPD7. Those drives running the earlier firmware will completely fail once they reach 40,000 hours of operation.

“IMPORTANT: This HPD7 firmware is considered a critical fix and is required to address the issue detailed below,” reads the advisory. “HPE strongly recommends immediate application of this critical fix. Neglecting to update to SSD Firmware Version HPD7 will result in drive failure and data loss at 40,000 hours of operation and require restoration of data from backup if there is no fault tolerance, such as RAID 0 or even in a fault tolerance RAID mode if more SSDs fail than can be supported by the fault tolerance of the RAID mode on the logical drive. Example: RAID 5 logical drive with two failed SSDs.”

HPE says it was “notified by a Solid State Drive (SSD) manufacturer of a firmware defect affecting certain SAS SSD models” that were used in HPE server and Storage products. The company also makes it clear that, because the failure only occurs after “40,000 hours of operation and based on the dates these drives began shipping from HPE, these drives are NOT susceptible to failure until October 2020 at the earliest.”

Even so, IT professionals should begin upgrading the firmware on impacted drives as soon as possible to ensure no data loss when the 40,000 hour threshold is crossed.