# Samsung 860 EVO wear level question.



## dmitche3 (May 7, 2020)

I have a Samsung 860 Evo 500GB which is showing 13% wear level yet only 13TB of data written.  The warranty claimed " 8x the TBW than ... 2400TBW"  this isn't making sense.  13% of 2400 would be 312 TBW, not 13TB.

Is there a reason that the wear level is so, hmm, unnerving?  This is my main drive for the OS and software.  All work is still written to my HDD.  I had been using a RAM drive even to reduce temporary files until it became a nightmare one day trying to do a Windows update where 6GB wasn't enough. 

Thanks.


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## tabascosauz (May 7, 2020)

500GB 860 EVO has a rated endurance of 300TBW.

I'm not sure who told you it's rated for 2400TBW, but you've most definitely been had, and I'm very sorry if you bought this drive with that in mind.

The 8x better statement is in comparison to the 850 EVO. The higher capacities have better endurance, so it probably comes from comparing the 2TB 860 to the 128GB 850. 

EDIT: ah okay, I see where Samsung got you. Every size capacity of the a given drive is rated differently on endurance, as well as speed. The monstrously large 4TB 860 EVO _is _rated for 2400TBW. Your 500GB is not. It can be misleading because the difference between the endurance ratings is precisely the difference in capacity; the bigger drive has literally that much more NAND. The DWPD figure remains identical.

A little ironic that the marketing statement also holds true when comparing the larger _860 EVO_ to the smaller _860 EVO_.


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## Dinnercore (May 7, 2020)

I also have a 860 EVO with 500GB, it shows 1% wear after 7,5 TBW. Your 13% still sounds a little high.


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## delshay (May 7, 2020)

I have the 850 512GB pro version in my laptop & it shows 33.3TB written. Can't remember when I got the drive but it's many years ago. I have over provisioning enabled & I don't fill the drive up near to the max capacity. At this rate the drive may possibly outlast my Lifespan. Most of the writing to the drive are OS, virus updates.


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## jsfitz54 (May 7, 2020)

@dmitche3 

I hope you are on the newest firmware, right.  I didn't see it stated anywhere.


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## Zareek (May 7, 2020)

dmitche3 said:


> I have a Samsung 860 Evo 500GB which is showing 13% wear level yet only 13TB of data written.  The warranty claimed " 8x the TBW than ... 2400TBW"  this isn't making sense.  13% of 2400 would be 312 TBW, not 13TB.
> 
> Is there a reason that the wear level is so, hmm, unnerving?  This is my main drive for the OS and software.  All work is still written to my HDD.  I had been using a RAM drive even to reduce temporary files until it became a nightmare one day trying to do a Windows update where 6GB wasn't enough.
> 
> Thanks.


The bigger question to me is how long have you had the drive that you've written 13TB? A year, 6 months, less than that??? I've had my boot drive for a little over 9 months and written 3.9TBs to it. At my current usage the drive rated for 600TBW will last me 115 years!!! I don't anticipate using it more than 5 years, maybe 10 at the absolute max!

I wouldn't get too hung up on those TBW numbers anyway. They are more of an educated guess than anything, probably insanely conservative as well.


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## dmitche3 (May 8, 2020)

tabascosauz said:


> tabascosauz said:
> 
> 
> > 500GB 860 EVO has a rated endurance of 300TBW.
> ...



First let me say, thank you for your pleasantly polite and professional response.

The 2400TBW actually comes form multiple marketing searches that included Samsung's home page along with a 5 year warranty.    This is for the 500gb drive.  I'm not upset only wanting to know if the so-called wear level was being measured by something other than TBW.  I monitor the temperature of the drive using HDSentinel which I bought and the daily temperature is 27c degrees. So it doesn't appear to be some method based on heat.

I see that the advertisement is very misleading as having selected the 500GB it shows 2400TBW.  I hope that Samsung will correct it soon so that others don't get upset and decide to be spiteful and sue them.  Yes, they do clarify this in the * small print.  Typical of the most manufacturers who don't believe that their product is good enough to stand up on the products on qualities. 

The drive is rated according to Samsung at 300tbw.  But at 13% wear-level and only 13 TBW the numbers are not correct. LOL. 

For others that have asked questions, I have had the drive for about 12 months. It has the latest Magician software. I do use the over provisioning which I'm starting to believe may be the cause of the extensive wear level.  I'm turning it off at this time so see if that over time it increases as fast as it has.
I'm all good. Thanks.

EDIT. again. LOL. Yea, I had the 850Pro which was much better than this. I ran tests on both drives and found that what Samsung advertised on write speeds were half of  what they claimed, which btw was close to that of the 850Pro that I had.  Disappointing but nothing to get upset about as I don't personally store data on the drive, only applications, browsers, and the OS writes to it.








						SSD 860 EVO 2.5" SATA III 500GB Memory & Storage - MZ-76E500B/AM | Samsung US
					

Discover the latest features and innovations available in the SSD 860 EVO 2.5 inches SATA III 500GB. Find the perfect Memory & Storage for you!




					www.samsung.com


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 8, 2020)

dmitche3 said:


> First let me say, thank you for your pleasantly polite and professional response.
> 
> The 2400TBW actually comes form multiple marketing searches that included Samsung's home page along with a 5 year warranty.    This is for the 500gb drive.  I'm not upset only wanting to know if the so-called wear level was being measured by something other than TBW.  I monitor the temperature of the drive using HDSentinel which I bought and the daily temperature is 27c degrees. So it doesn't appear to be some method based on heat.
> 
> ...


If you turn over provisioning off and use all available space that will just ruin the partition quicker possibly killing the drive , it'll fill up over time at which point a dead cell will become a data loss and big issue.


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## dmitche3 (May 8, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> If you turn over provisioning off and use all available space that will just ruin the partition quicker possibly killing the drive , it'll fill up over time at which point a dead cell will become a data loss and big issue.


Thanks for the advice.
On a side note, the drive is actually 13% wear level with only 6.1TBW according to Samsung Magician.   13.1 by the SMART informational. Annoying. I’ll belief the SMART data.


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## tabascosauz (May 8, 2020)

@dmitche3 Samsung is generally pretty good with providing comprehensible SMART data that can be read by your average monitoring program such as Crystaldiskinfo and HWInfo. Thus, I don't think I've ever installed Magician while using a Samsung drive. Other manufacturers like WD are not so great on some of their drives, where all the SMART data just comes out as nonsensical gibberish that only their own toolbox software can comprehend.

My 850 EVO, however, just has a drive life estimation that doesn't ever dip below 100% in third party software like Crystaldiskinfo, while my MX300 is correctly down to about 92%. My MX300 has about 27TBW and my 850 EVO about 20TBW. I would only keep a vigilant eye on endurance if I had a QLC drive like the 860 QVO or 660P. The memory of the endurance of 840 EVOs with new-for-their-time planar TLC is still painfully vivid in my mind; QLC probably has a ways to go.

Some software will report Host Writes and Total Writes, which may not be the same. Drive life is usually estimated based on TBW, but Samsung probably does their own thing.


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## toilet pepper (May 8, 2020)

It is a far fetch but is it running hot or is it not ventilated? I'm thinking some of the cells might have died causing it to display that.


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## CubanB (May 29, 2020)

Looking at my own numbers.. 19000 hours powered on, 23.6TB written, 97% lifetime remaining.  500GB version, using older firmware.  I don't like newer firmware unless there is a specific issue to solve.. too often tech companies compromise their hardware over time and slow it down, encouraging users to think it's faulty and buy a new one.  I've even seen Samsung users complain of this specifically although I have no personal experience with this.


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## Zareek (May 30, 2020)

CubanB said:


> Looking at my own numbers.. 19000 hours powered on, 23.6TB written, 97% lifetime remaining.  500GB version, using older firmware.  I don't like newer firmware unless there is a specific issue to solve.. too often tech companies compromise their hardware over time and slow it down, encouraging users to think it's faulty and buy a new one.  I've even seen Samsung users complain of this specifically although I have no personal experience with this.



I thought that tactic was exclusive to Apple...


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## puma99dk| (May 30, 2020)

My NVME is doing great I think concidering that my computer is almost always on and been in a couple of boards already.


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## cucker tarlson (May 30, 2020)

don't worry about readings,samsung's vnand is super durable


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## at3ckguy (Jul 29, 2020)

I’ve had my 2.5” Samsung SSD Evo 1TB and M.2 Samsung SSD Evo 250GB for almost 2 years now and they’re both looking good and normal. I run Windows on the M.2 and use the 2.5” to store or other important data. Samsung S.M.A.R.T. data is always pretty accurate.


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