Samsung 870 EVO - Beware, certain batches prone to failure!

[Gbox31]

Hello.

From what I was able to read here, this EVO 870 is cursed. No series new or old is usable.

In crystaldiskinfo, I got on 870 reallocated sector count 1159. I also have a Samsung 850EVO 256GB and 860EVO 1TB and in them no problems, reallocated sector count 0.

Initially, I wanted to ask if it makes sense to return it under warranty, because the warranty is 5 years and I bought mine in February 2021. Only even if Samsung were to send me a new drive, the next one may have the same problem and I will lose data again.

I'm more wondering what drive to buy now so that there are no problems with this EVO 870.

Currently I already have quite old MOBO msi z170a gaming pro carbon. It has one M2 connector so I thought I might buy an M2 SSD. It is true that MOBO only supports gen 3, but the price difference is small between gen 3 and gen 4, the most its potential will be used on the new MOBO in the future.

Only now I do not know which of these is worth choosing Samsung 2TB 980 PRO without heatsink or with heatsink?

However, should you bet on the 970 EVO plus gen 3, or something on SATA or M2 only from another company?

 

[amiens80]

Full diagnostic scan has finally finished. It took more than 28 hours (after 24 hours the time resets to 0, the programmers probably didn't anticipate it taking that long )
The red text at the bottom reads "Magician has found an error on the drive. A recovery is recommended." I followed their advice and let it do the recovery. It took a few minutes and now all the errors are gone. Problem solved
I won't trust it with any data anymore. Samsung already sent me a link to the RMA-form that I filled out. Now I am waiting for the shipping label. I hope the third time will be the charme and it works.

View attachment 243428

whooo you have a lot of reb boxe !
i guess i can feel lucky for mine (3 boxes only)

is it safe and reliable to make a complete long full scan on the SSD when it is OS running ?

hi, i want to make a full scan of my SSD samsung 870EVO 2TB but it takes time and my SSD is where my OS is (windows). Can i run this long scan even when my os is running ? even when i still browsing/downloading/music (but i not playing at all). Thank you for your advice. Best regards & fun...

www.techpowerup.com

"the programmers probably didn't anticipate it taking that long"
i laught a lot !
did you ever try the "recovery' (english) button after your scan ? or you just send it to rma ?

 

[GabrielLP14]

@GabrielLP14 may like to know about this one.

K9DVGB8J1B-DCK0 and K9DVGB8J1E-DCK0 are 128-Layers
B stands for 3rd Gen and E for 6th Gen, but i don't think "B" stand for their V3 Line-up which is ancient so its is most likely a different batch

 

[tavosoft]

Hello friends, has anyone bought the Samsung 870 Evo 1 tb this year with a manufacturing date of 2023 and the disk has failed? Do you recommend buying this drive today with new firmware and manufactured in 2023? With the new firmware the disk is slower or faster? Thans you.

 

[SuperConker]

I can't say I would recommend the 870 EVO at all really, too many failures on both older and newer drives.

 

[amiens80]

I can't say I would recommend the 870 EVO at all really, too many failures on both older and newer drives.

IMO i would say even if the price is very a huge temptation to resist, i would not buy it.
When i see that Amazon (real amazon, not the marketplace) stop to sale it, it means the cost of refund/return-back is too high to manage. Amazon always stop to sell bad product when the return-cost is increase or very bad.
When i see a market place or second-hand or strange good price to sell this drive, i said me "ah , another seller who try to get rig of his ***beep*** "....

But for a free price, i would take it, it good to have a test drive in a pocket in case of.

 

[Mayonnaise]

What are the next better options for SATA drives now that the 870 evo and mx500 have shown some issues? Most stuff we see recommended are only newer NVMe drives, and it's usually on performance grounds with not much to go on about durability and reliability. The Kingston KC600 looks good, but the largest option is 2tb, and there's the teamgroup, wd/sandisk and patriot ones...

 

[chrcoluk]

What are the next better options for SATA drives now that the 870 evo and mx500 have shown some issues? Most stuff we see recommended are only newer NVMe drives, and it's usually on performance grounds with not much to go on about durability and reliability. The Kingston KC600 looks good, but the largest option is 2tb, and there's the teamgroup, wd/sandisk and patriot ones...

The QLC MX500 are apparently related to ali fake drives, I think the newer controller revisions on the MX500 fixed the old rapid erase cycle problems, so MX500 is probably ok, otherwise I think WD Blue or 860 EVO.

 

[P4-630]

I would buy an 860 Evo again when needed.

Or a Corsair MX500 which has powerloss protection, which is a nice feature imo...

 

[Alcje]

I would love to buy a samsung 860 evo. But in the netherlands its hard to get in the netherlands. And if you find one they ask very high prices.

 

[GabrielLP14]

I would buy an 860 Evo again when needed.

Or a Corsair MX500 which has powerloss protection, which is a nice feature imo...

MX500 doesnt have PLP

 

[P4-630]

MX500 doesnt have PLP

It does...

Integrated Power Loss Immunity​

Avoid data loss during power outages. This built-in feature of our NAND protects your data swiftly and efficiently, protecting your work if your system unexpectedly shuts down.

Crucial® MX500 Solid State Drive

Your storage drive is vital to your computer – not just because it holds your most important files. Upgrade with the Crucial® MX500 SSD. It’s worth it.

eu.crucial.com

@GabrielLP14 you might want to update the MX500 specs in the SSD database.

 

[goms]

It does...

Integrated Power Loss Immunity​

Avoid data loss during power outages. This built-in feature of our NAND protects your data swiftly and efficiently, protecting your work if your system unexpectedly shuts down.

Power Loss Protection and "Power Loss Immunity" are NOT the same thing.

Power Loss Protection means that the drive has on-board capacitors that will hold charge in case of a sudden power outage. The purpose is to protect data in-flight (that is, data that resides on a DRAM cache or a SRAM cache). If a sudden power loss occurs, the current in the capacitors will discharge, thus offering additional power to the drive, so the controller will have time to update the mapping tables and flush any data in volatile memory to the NAND.

Regarding "Power Loss Immunity", Anandtech made a write-up on how power loss immunity works a few years ago. The purpose is to protect data at rest, that could get corrupted if a power loss happens when the controller is updating data on NAND cells. Sure, it's a nice feature, but it's not something out of this world. Data at rest is relatively safe anyway because incoming data usually hits the SLC cache first. Also, the power loss "immunity" does NOT protect data in flight. Any data on DRAM or SRAM will be lost, which is the main point of concern when we usually talk about power loss protection.

It feels like Micron is deliberately confusing customers with their obtuse marketing terms.

 

[P4-630]

Power Loss Protection and "Power Loss Immunity" are NOT the same thing.

Power Loss Protection means that the drive has on-board capacitors that will hold charge in case of a sudden power outage. The purpose is to protect data at-flight (that is, data that resides on a DRAM cache or a SRAM cache). If a sudden power loss occurs, the current in the capacitors will discharge, thus offering additional power to the drive, so the controller will have time to update the mapping tables and flush any data in volatile memory to the NAND.

Regarding "Power Loss Immunity", Anandtech made a write-up on how power loss immunity works a few years ago. The purpose is to protect data at rest, that could get corrupted if a power loss happens when the controller is updating data on NAND cells. Sure, it's a nice feature, but it's not something out of this world. Data at rest is relatively safe anyway because incoming data usually hits the SLC cache first. Also, the power loss "immunity" does NOT protect data at flight. Any data on DRAM or SRAM will be lost, which is the main point of concern when we usually talk about power loss protection.

It feels like Micron is deliberately confusing customers with their obtuse marketing terms.

The SSD also still has power loss protection. Where the MX300 series has hardware power loss protection in hardware by ceramic capacitors, the MX500 doesn't.
Crucial states they have made alterations in its program sequencing for its NAND flash, this results (they claim) into the same functionality.
So they should be able to survive a sudden power loss.

Crucial MX500 1TB SSD review (Page 19)

Just in time for Christmas, this week, Crucial announced their new MX500 series SSDs. These units are all about value for money. But they do not compromise on performance, no Sir. The MX500 remains ve...

www.guru3d.com

 

[goms]

@P4-630 The term "power loss protection" has a more specific meaning when it comes to SSDs.

This is what the industry usually refers to as "power loss protection":

How does PLP protect my data?

To protect all data, regardless of any power supply problems, users should choose the SSD product that supports PLP. When the SSD is powered on, PLP capacitors start to charge the current and, if external power is off for any reason, the charged current in the capacitors starts to discharge to offer additional power (current) to the SSD. This process holds the DRAM data and allocates time for the data flush from the DRAM to the NAND to occur, updating the latest data. This flushing task should be completed within the discharging time.

Source: Samsung_SSD_845DC_05_Power_loss_protection_PLP.pdf

The SSD also still has power loss protection. Where the MX300 series has hardware power loss protection in hardware by ceramic capacitors, the MX500 doesn't.
Crucial states they have made alterations in its program sequencing for its NAND flash, this results (they claim) into the same functionality.
So they should be able to survive a sudden power loss.

Nothing in this review indicates that the Crucial MX500 has PLP. The reviewer just made the same mistake as you, which is reading the Crucial material and assuming that whatever Crucial implemented was as capable and effective as PLP.

Notice that Crucial's marketing does not use the term "power loss protection". The feature on the Crucial MX500 is not what people usually think of when they hear "power loss protection" and offers little protection in real life.

PLP is not something that you can simply build in the NAND flash, and it has to protect data that is NOT in the NAND flash. Currently you won't find any client drive with PLP. Enterprise drives with PLP have the proper hardware for that:

Spoiler: Pictures

 

[Shrek]

Crucial states they have made alterations in its program sequencing for its NAND flash, this results (they claim) into the same functionality.
So they should be able to survive a sudden power loss.

Crucial MX500 1TB SSD review (Page 19)

Just in time for Christmas, this week, Crucial announced their new MX500 series SSDs. These units are all about value for money. But they do not compromise on performance, no Sir. The MX500 remains ve...

www.guru3d.com

My own Micron SSD firmware update (Crucial purchased Micron)
PCN_33180.pdf (digikey.com)
"Unexpected Power Loss Improvements"

perhaps this is the same "alterations in its program sequencing"

 

[P4-630]

Anyway, only Crucial seems to be bragging about this feature.

 

[ijustregisteredtopostthis]

On a related note, I bought Samsung 870 EVO SSDs recently to replace HDDs on the presumption they would be at least as reliable.

Does anyone know if there's any benefit to leaving a percentage of an SSD of this kind unallocated? ("over provisioning") Aside from potentially leaving more blocks for recovery?
I'm particularly interested from Linux, so using the Samsung Magician software isn't an option.

EDIT: I see this was partly answered in this thread already by @SPDIF so can anyone please let me know if there's some way I can over provision for a drive used in Linux, without needing Samsung Magician?

Samsung 870 EVO - Beware, certain batches prone to failure!

Yes i hoped too that TPU could shed some light on this. But it remains very very quit... Also on other tech forums, nothing. And Sammy doing as it's nose is bleeding... Hi, If you read back a little W1zzard appeared here and said he sent a memo.. about this issue and it got lost and wasn't even...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[chrcoluk]

On a related note, I bought Samsung 870 EVO SSDs recently to replace HDDs on the presumption they would be at least as reliable.

Does anyone know if there's any benefit to leaving a percentage of an SSD of this kind unallocated? ("over provisioning") Aside from potentially leaving more blocks for recovery?
I'm particularly interested from Linux, so using the Samsung Magician software isn't an option.

EDIT: I see this was partly answered in this thread already by @SPDIF so can anyone please let me know if there's some way I can over provision for a drive used in Linux, without needing Samsung Magician?

Samsung 870 EVO - Beware, certain batches prone to failure!

Yes i hoped too that TPU could shed some light on this. But it remains very very quit... Also on other tech forums, nothing. And Sammy doing as it's nose is bleeding... Hi, If you read back a little W1zzard appeared here and said he sent a memo.. about this issue and it got lost and wasn't even...

www.techpowerup.com

It will improve write amplification and the efficiency of trim. (endurance and write performance)

 

[Shrek]

Does anyone know if there's any benefit to leaving a percentage of an SSD of this kind unallocated? ("over provisioning") Aside from potentially leaving more blocks for recovery?

Imagine most of the space is occupied and that stuff just sits there, one is then working in the remaining small space and will quickly wear it out if things are not moved around on a regular basis (which takes time and itself causes some wear); this is a lot less of an issue if the working space is large.

So leaving breathing space leads to

• less slowdown
• less wear

 

[GabrielLP14]

@P4-630 The term "power loss protection" has a more specific meaning when it comes to SSDs.

This is what the industry usually refers to as "power loss protection":


Source: Samsung_SSD_845DC_05_Power_loss_protection_PLP.pdf


Nothing in this review indicates that the Crucial MX500 has PLP. The reviewer just made the same mistake as you, which is reading the Crucial material and assuming that whatever Crucial implemented was as capable and effective as PLP.

Notice that Crucial's marketing does not use the term "power loss protection". The feature on the Crucial MX500 is not what people usually think of when they hear "power loss protection" and offers little protection in real life.

PLP is not something that you can simply build in the NAND flash, and it has to protect data that is NOT in the NAND flash. Currently you won't find any client drive with PLP. Enterprise drives with PLP have the proper hardware for that:

Spoiler: Pictures

@P4-630
Thats one the reasons i didn't list it, i saw this "immunity" but i ddon't think its the same as PLP

 

[ijustregisteredtopostthis]

Does anyone know if there's any benefit to leaving a percentage of an SSD of this kind unallocated? ("over provisioning") Aside from potentially leaving more blocks for recovery?
I'm particularly interested from Linux, so using the Samsung Magician software isn't an option.

EDIT: I see this was partly answered in this thread already by @SPDIF so can anyone please let me know if there's some way I can over provision for a drive used in Linux, without needing Samsung Magician?

Samsung 870 EVO - Beware, certain batches prone to failure!

Yes i hoped too that TPU could shed some light on this. But it remains very very quit... Also on other tech forums, nothing. And Sammy doing as it's nose is bleeding... Hi, If you read back a little W1zzard appeared here and said he sent a memo.. about this issue and it got lost and wasn't even...

www.techpowerup.com

Thank you for your responses @chrcoluk & @Shrek. That's helpful!

I had edited my post before anyone replied, but my question wasn't clear. Is the firmware in modern SSD/NVMe drives intelligent enough to use unallocated space for over provisioning automatically or must you use a tool like the Samsung Magician to configure it?

I ask because I cannot use Samsung Magician on Linux, but I can easily avoid allocating an entire disk. In the case of these reportedly less reliable 870 EVO drives, I'd happily sacrifice a few percentage of capacity in order to increase longevity.

 

[chrcoluk]

All samsung magician does is move the end of the main partition so there is unallocated space at end of partition, so you can do this same process in linux manually. However just leaving the space free also works as well. Providing trim (unmap/discard) is used.

 

[ijustregisteredtopostthis]

All samsung magician does is move the end of the main partition so there is unallocated space at end of partition, so you can do this same process in linux manually. However just leaving the space free also works as well. Providing trim (unmap/discard) is used.

Thank you for clarifying that!

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

So some of you mentioned MX500 reduced Dram capacity, can you guys please mention the Dram capacity of all current storage options of the MX500.

is the 500gb version ships with 512mb dram or less?