The article is wrong on this point, and on Intel's intentions, as far as I can tell. Intel has a "Supernova" feature (http://itpeernetwork.intel.com/data-integrity-in-solid-state...) which will cause some drive models to brick themselves if certain conditions are met - errors in the control path, for example, which basically mean you cannot trust the drive at all. The supernova feature is only claimed for enterprise drives, and the 335 series is not an enterprise drive.

I have a lot of experience with long-running Intel SSDs of various models, including pushing them to the same kinds of extreme that the SSD endurance experiment did, and I have never observed them to self-brick simply because they reached their flash endurance point.

What I have observed is a number of firmware bugs (or possibly just the supernova feature) that caused the drive to brick on power cycle, even for drives in perfect health.

I liked the SSD endurance articles, because they went a long way to allaying fears about SSDs, but I think it's a shame they've left this point in.