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

[Sora]

Vendor tools are designed to prevent you from acting on defects warranting smart errors by telling you nothings wrong.

 

[Belfaborac]

Link to sources?

 

[SuperConker]

The only tool that doesn't give you accurate information on Samsung 870 EVO failures is CrystalDiskInfo.

With CrystalDiskInfo the drive-health will appear with a blue "Good" icon plus 99% Health,
even if the drive is already failing.

Use Hard Disk Sentinel if you want to see what's really going on with your 870 EVO.

Using the wrong tool on the 870 EVO might in worst case cost you your data as you won't be warned properly.

 

[Sora]

CrystalDisk works based Threshold passing Worst, you can have lots of errors and not have the worst threshold be passed.

Other tools treat these fields as any value above 0 as a failure.

 

[SuperConker]

Other tools treat these fields as any value above 0 as a failure.

Which is exactly what you would want in the case of the 870 EVO.

You don't really want to wait until it gets really bad
(in which case, it might be too late for your data).

 

[SPDIF]

They are good again at the moment. There wil be here and there some bad ones on the shelves left. Until now Samsung replaced them all, but without word's.
Now you can buy an 870EVO safely, they stay the best SATA you can get. There is no reports anymore anywhere, not me or other shops i know, not on forum. Samsung Fixed the problem.

But as with many manufacturer's without many word's. I stay with what i said earlier; It's no coincidence that it al happened in the pandemic, or slightly after...

Like any other forum, you can fill thousand page's with yes or no, you have hater's and you have lover's. Even if they are good again, some will hate them forever... Everyone makes mistakes, it does not mean that they are ALL bad from now on. I haven't seen any bad one at moment.

But i do agree that Samsung could give more info at that time.

 

[tavosoft]

Is it true that the Samsung 870 Evo and the 980 Pro have the same controller and the same memory?

 

[Belfaborac]

To answer that all you need to do is spend 2 minutes on Google. 870 EVO: 128-level NAND, Metis S4LR059 controller. 980 Pro: 128-level NAND, Elpis controller.

 

[chrcoluk]

On vendor tools here is my observation.

On NVME, there is a critical warning value which is set to 0 by default, I suspect magician will only flag the drive as bad (based on smart data) if this is set to 1.

What makes it to change to 1?

Well there is Available spare threshold which is set to to 10%, so I will speculate if that falls below 10, then the critical warning will flip to 1, and then the Samsung vendor tool will finally tell you hey something is up. When the drive is literally on its last legs with barely any spare left.

But I think Samsung would also accept an RMA, if a drive fails any of the tests magician can run assuming they rule out external causes, like the smart tests and the LBA test.

When I RMA'd a WD hdd, it had a rapidly growing reallocated sector count and loads of pending, when I first loaded their tool it said nothing is wrong, but then it failed its own diagnostic tests, which got the RMA approved.

On Crystal diskinfo I just use it to read the actual values, its health status is a guide at best, but I do have some observations.

Crystal diskinfo when it collects data, it will record these values on to disk, so it creates a history for the drive, these graphs can be viewed if desire within the app. For the health %, I believe two things drop the number, it will go down if available spare is used up on NVME (but only if its recorded this via historical data), it will also go down if on SATA based on the erase cycle value (it cant do this on NVME as vendors hide erase cycles now).

NVME 2.0 might bring visible erase cycles back as they made changes to improve drive management.

All these tools that can read smart, if you using them just to check their drive rating, you are using it wrong, the value in these tools is the reading the raw values.

 

[bluestang]

Hard Disk Sentinel is my go to instead of CrystalDisk anymore.

 

[SPDIF]

There's a new version of Samsung Magician out, just now. V8.0.0
They also have a new 870QVO out with 8TB of space.

Crystal disk info is not bad, it's doing what it should do. I didn't see many differences with the Samsung Magician tool. There's a lot of updates for Crystal, meaning it still gets better with time. So good to know they still work on it, and don't abandon it like many other's out there.

Using the wrong tool on the 870 EVO might in worst case cost you your data as you won't be warned properly.

That's why you always have a backup ready with ANY drive you use! HDD drives fail also, i've had drives, both HDD and SSD that died instantly, new out the box.
If you have Ransom on your computer, you also will not be warned properly... And in 90 percent of the cases, you can kiss your data goodbye.
Before trying to rescue data, make an backup first!!! Then you can do anything what you want.

 

[ijustregisteredtopostthis]

Interesting. I can't see Samsung Magician version 8 on their website.
My copy of 7.3 was failing to start, so I downloaded and reinstalled that and have now been offered version 8.

I lied and said I was in the EU for privacy reasons!

EDIT: Wow the fonts are all very big!

 

[SPDIF]

Nothing changed fonts are the same for me. Ah yes that GDR crap is because in the US they still can gather any data they want, but not in EU they risk a very big fine in that case.

 

[ijustregisteredtopostthis]

I'm seeing this. Must be around size 20 font! That window takes up most of a 27 inch 1440p monitor.

 

[SPDIF]

It was always like this, i don't see anything wrong.

 

[amiens80]

since yesterday, samsung release a new version of Magician software, is there new feature to manage failure of ssd ?

 

[AleXXX666]

lol. sorry for you. but i think it's because large storage. 250gb office pc evo 4tbw lives great, but, already 99%, yeah. but zero trouble markers.

 

[SuperConker]

Hard Disk Sentinel is my go to instead of CrystalDisk anymore.

Here i will show a good example of why CrystalDiskInfo is not good for catching problems early.

Here you can see CrystalDiskInfo gives a first-impression that there is not much wrong with this SSD:

(most people who only sees this would think the SSD is fine still, even though it's actually failing).


But if you check the same SSD under Hard Disk Sentinel you can clearly see that the drive is failing:

As you can see, one of these programs tells you straight up what's actually going on with this SSD
(these screenshots were also taken at the same time).


Furthermore, Samsung's own Samsung Magician software agrees with Hard Disk Sentinel that something is wrong:

As for the drive in these screenshots, it was no longer possible to backup the data on it at that point
(even though CrystalkDiskInfo said the drive was at 99% Good Health).

So i can no longer recommend CrystalDiskInfo for catching issues with a drive early on (before it's too late).

 

[amiens80]

Here i will show a good example of why CrystalDiskInfo is not good for catching problems early.

Here you can see CrystalDiskInfo gives a first-impression that there is not much wrong with this SSD:
As for the drive in these screenshots, it was no longer possible to backup the data from it at that point
(even though CrystalkDiskInfo said the drive was at 99% Good Health).

So i can no longer recommend CrystalDiskInfo for catching issues with a drive early on (before it's too late).

well, crystallDisk is free whereas the other is not. Moreover Crystalldisk is neutral whereas Sentinel spurs to purchase new drives (link/partnership with brands is possible...)
And i see Sentinel speaks about waranty whereas there is no field in the interface to store date of each drive, so how can it provide advices on it....

When someone alarms you of a danger, do not look at his finger, look at the danger and think yourself. And ask yourself why he did that...

 

[agent_x007]

Always show RAW in [DEC], instead of [HEX].
400 [HEX] is NOT 400 [DEC]

 

[SPDIF]

Samsung's new Magician program has now build-in support for an new 990EVO SSD and maybe a new 990PRO PCIe 5.0. Heard from some supplier and other shop.

CrystalDiskInfo just shows that the disk is still usable and not dead. Men should always look to the real SMART data reported. And yes, one should select DEC in the menu. I never look to what an program desides anyway, i learned to always look to the real smart data reported. Simple and effective in any program you choose.

 

[chrcoluk]

Here i will show a good example of why CrystalDiskInfo is not good for catching problems early.

Here you can see CrystalDiskInfo gives a first-impression that there is not much wrong with this SSD:

View attachment 315333
(most people who only sees this would think the SSD is fine still, even though it's actually failing).


But if you check the same SSD under Hard Disk Sentinel you can clearly see that the drive is failing:

View attachment 315334

As you can see, one of these programs tells you straight up what's actually going on with this SSD
(these screenshots were also taken at the same time).


Furthermore, Samsung's own Samsung Magician software agrees with Hard Disk Sentinel that something is wrong:

View attachment 315335

View attachment 315336

As for the drive in these screenshots, it was no longer possible to backup the data on it at that point
(even though CrystalkDiskInfo said the drive was at 99% Good Health).

So i can no longer recommend CrystalDiskInfo for catching issues with a drive early on (before it's too late).

Unless I am mistaken crystaldiskinfo is showing the reallocated sectors, so why is it misinforming you.

As I said, read the raw values, if you just looking at its health status, you using it wrong, crystaldiskinfo should probably remove the health status as its confusing folks like you.

Disk sentinel is better if you need your hand holding though.

 

[SPDIF]

I always look to the SMART data table to know if one's disk is still okay, that count's for any program you use. No need to pay anything.

 

[Assimilator]

Moreover Crystalldisk is neutral whereas Sentinel spurs to purchase new drives

Citation needed - HDS has never suggested that I purchase anything.

 

[SPDIF]

Also noted here...

Samsung 990 Evo Magically Appears on Magician Software Support Page

The first Evo drive since the Gen 3-based 970 Evo Plus

www.tomshardware.com