AA-1105: Possible Data Integrity Issues on Intel® Embedded Server RAID Technology 2 (Intel®ESR2) with NCQ-Enabled SATA Drives
Content Type: Troubleshooting | Article ID: 000020749 | Last Reviewed: 06/09/2025
What should I be aware of?
Intel has found an issue on the Intel® Embedded Server RAID Technology 2 (ESRT2) drivers that might cause data corruption when the controller is under simultaneous heavy I/O and non-I/O workloads. The issue impacts all versions of the driver released previous to v17.01.2016.0216.
Which drives are affected?
You can only reproduce this issue on Native Command Queuing (NCQ)-enabled SATA drives. Non-NCQ SATA drives and the SAS drives are not affected.
For command queuing to function, SATA drives that support the NCQ function must be connected to a host adapter, server BIOS (Advanced Controller Host Interface (AHCI)), and ICH chipset that also support the function.
How do I fix it?
Intel has removed Windows* and Linux* ESRT2 drivers. Windows drivers that address the issue for currently supported products are available on Intel Download Center. Intel recommends that you update to v17.01.2016.0216 and above.
For a description of NCQ, see the Native Command Queuing article.
Action Alert (PDF)
Date: April 2016