"Sandy Bridge" is a bad metaphor

From the Intel Newsroom:

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 31, 2011 - As part of ongoing quality assurance, Intel Corporation has discovered a design issue in a recently released support chip, the Intel® 6 Series, code-named Cougar Point, and has implemented a silicon fix. In some cases, the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives. The chipset is utilized in PCs with Intel's latest Second Generation Intel Core processors, code-named Sandy Bridge. Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories. Intel has corrected the design issue, and has begun manufacturing a new version of the support chip which will resolve the issue. The Sandy Bridge microprocessor is unaffected and no other products are affected by this issue.

The full press release is here.

PC Perspective provides some additional perspective insight:

First, only the SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports are potentially affected, NOT the 6.0 Gb/s ports that are the latest addition to the platform.  The "performance degradation" is actually a potentially increased bit error rate that could eventually result in a disconnected channel.  You know that error you get on your system where a hard drive can't be found?  Yeah, that.

Apparently Intel doesn't think that a single user has been affected by this problem as of today and that if they are that data loss isn't a problem.  If you are using a retail motherboard you can just switch to another SATA channel but obviously on notebooks that isn't feasible.  Intel estimates that the failure rate over a 3-year system life would be about 5% - that is a HUGE number of potential problems and thus the extreme caution with a halt and recall.

Put your wallet away.