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

[SPDIF]

Yes the 990EVO is DRAM-less and uses HMB option instead. With DRAM it would be at almost the same speed as a 980PRO, and Samsung does not want that, it is meant to fill up the hole between the 970EVO Plus and the 980PRO. But for your laptop the 970EVO Plus is an excellent and faster upgrade.

HMB option; Avoid the expense of adding DRAM cache to an SSD by employing the DRAM memory that's already installed in your computer.

 

[Alcje]

Again thanks for your Help, I go for the 970 evo Plus 2 tb. . Would been nice if there was a 4 tb version. But I see 2 tb is the max. But that will do. Already got 1 samsung evo 870 sata 4tb. And will add another 4tb evo 870 in my lap.

 

[esa66]

Dear,
I just have the same issue on my drive. Buy it on 12/2022 and this week, it was not possible to copy a big file (VM). I use the tool recommended in this post. I only have 11 TBW.
Disk warranty give 600 TBW and 5 years.

Question 1 :
is it a way to get a RMA without going to the shop ? Because they ask the disk to check it and I need to buy another disk before. So I'll have two disks which I can't use (Laptop with one disk emplacement).

Question 2 :

• How bad block are managed by the disk ? Is it automatically excluded ? Or I need to run a tool (chkdsk) ?
• When I try to repair my disk with chkdsk /R , it stops at 50% and never repair it (also at reboot)

Question 3 :
After reading a lot in this post, can I ask to summarize and advise for a new disk type M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive (I'll use another Laptop DELL P7530).

• What kind of disk can I take for VM ? Normally 870 EVO was fine. Now I'll switch to PCI M2. What is better ?
• It is better to get a SSD with more free space to avoid writing always the same cell and get better TBW. Correct ?
• I suppose it is better to create partition on the disk to separate OS, DATA, Install file, Virtual Machine.
• Partition with VM : I need to have 50% free space.
• I see disk with better TBW with the same size 1TB : 860 PRO is 1200 TBW and other like 870 EVO is 600 TBW. Why ?

Thank a lot for your advise
Eric

 

[ACME]

esa66, First of all provide a full screenshot!

Like this

No, your Raw Values must look like in my screenshot. Go to Function - Advanced Feature - Raw Values - 10 [DEC]

 

[SPDIF]

You both (ACME and esa66) have a dying 870EVO SSD in hands with the older firmware.

A good 870EVO should look like this;

This 870EVO i use has the new NAND with new firmware SVT03B6Q

You have reallocated sectors already. You can't upgrade to new firmware as it is only for new NAND on the SSD.

Question 1; The fastest way is directly RMA it to Samsung on their website.

Question 2; Bad sectors are handled by the controller on the SSD, and uses spare sectors to replace them. But anyway have a good backup ready, bad sectors should not happen at this time.
Your SSD is dying slowly, and it will get worse until you can't read or write anymore. Replace asap and take a backup! You can not repair them at any way... A dead sector stays dead. They just make it a little invisible, but they stay there and more are coming until the spare sectors are used up. Then you have a big risk of losing data.

 

[ACME]

SPDIF, that was the old screenshot I already received the new ssd some time ago.

 

[SPDIF]

Ach ok!

I think for esa66 that the 970EVO Plus M.2 SSD will be the best option for a laptop. Same as for Alcje posted here.
Sadly the prices are getting expensive at moment for any SSD around, and many of them are out of stock even!

I don't know in other country, but here many SSD i can't get anymore and some are minimum 100 Dollar for 1TB. It's really crazy...

Lucky i did buy enough of them when they where so cheap. I have SN850X, 970PRO, 980PRO and 990PRO. I knew they would go up later in price, so now I'm good for the future.

 

[esa66]

Hi SPDIF,

My shop only give 2 years of support. I'm in the delay but I contacted Samsung directly who give me the procedure for the RMA.

About the SSD, I compared different M2 and I'll certainly go for a 990 PRO MZ-V9P2T0BW because it is the same price and with more capacity.
It will work as a PCIe V3, but I suppose it will be better

Thank for support

 

[SPDIF]

Just keep in mind it sucks more power out your battery, so less working time. It can become very hot in a laptop and then it will throttle down it's speed to cool down. In that case it is slower then the EVO. I have seen temperatures idle in laptops from about 50-60 degrees Celsius!

As soon you really work with it, temperature ramps up to about 70 or 80 degrees. So make sure your laptops cools good this hot SSD! This heat also shortens the life of your expensive SSD.

Here in Belgium, 990PRO 2TB; 180 euro
990EVO 2TB; 174 euro
980PRO 2TB; 160 euro
970EVO Plus 2TB; 180 euro

 

[VulkanBros]

Mine seems fine

 

[SPDIF]

You have one with the new NAND and new firmware, these are all good. None returned here in my shop.
But at moment so expensive, here you pay 332 euro for 4TB SSD. about 357 US dollar!

 

[VulkanBros]

You have one with the new NAND and new firmware, these are all good. None returned here in my shop.
But at moment so expensive, here you pay 332 euro for 4TB SSD. about 357 US dollar!

Holy cow....332 € - I live not far away from you (Denmark) and I bought it on Black Friday for 250 €

 

[SPDIF]

Prices for SSD are going fastly up like rocket everywhere now!
180 euro's for 2TB SSD.

101 euro's for 1TB...

 

[ACME]

Those prices should be half. Greedy bastards!

 

[SPDIF]

57 euro for 870EVO 500GB...

 

[P4-630]

I only buy when I need it, of course hopefully at a fair price then...

 

[SPDIF]

I am lucky to have enough of them when the price was low, but now yes this is really greedy... For myself i have enough for the next years coming.

But for people that now need a new one, they pay almost double the price...

 

[esa66]

Just keep in mind it sucks more power out your battery, so less working time. It can become very hot in a laptop and then it will throttle down it's speed to cool down. In that case it is slower then the EVO. I have seen temperatures idle in laptops from about 50-60 degrees Celsius!

As soon you really work with it, temperature ramps up to about 70 or 80 degrees. So make sure your laptops cools good this hot SSD! This heat also shortens the life of your expensive SSD.

Here in Belgium, 990PRO 2TB; 180 euro
990EVO 2TB; 174 euro
980PRO 2TB; 160 euro
970EVO Plus 2TB; 180 euro

Hi,
The spec for the 990 PRO concerning the heat :

So, I suppose the new hardware for 990 PRO is better.
As 990 PRO can transfer at higher rate, it will certainly use more power and dissipate more heat.
In my case, it will be use it in a PCIe 3 slot : MAX speed limitation of 3500 MB/s as the 970 EVO plus which have an old technology (so dissipate more at same speed).

Is it correct or I'm on the wrong way ?

 

[CiTay]

I have more than a year's worth of backlog on reading the replies, i think i stopped getting eMails for new replies and then didn't keep track of it anymore.

However, i wanted to post an update on my "failed" 870 EVO 4TB that caused me to write this thread. As a reminder:

Funny thing though: I did not RMA my drive (the failed one from the first post) yet, to see how it develops, and so far, it hasn't developed any new bad sectors. Maybe the newest firmware SVT02B6Q prevents that somehow. I filled the drive to the brim a couple times (0 bytes free space), but it seems that once you have deleted the files which contained the bad sectors, those bad sectors are indeed mapped to intact ones and are not written to again. This is how i never got another bad file to this date, and the bad sector count remained the same at 329 for that drive.

I will RMA it eventually, but i thought this is an interesting observation. I purposely use this drive more heavily than before (of course only for files i can easily download again), but ever since i deleted the bad files, the drive is behaving. Bad sectors seem reallocated to good ones and no new bad ones developing.

So yes, i kept using this failed SSD the whole two years since i posted this thread.

This was the initial state:

I should note that "Uncorrectable Error Count" and "ECC Error Rate" both went to 4819 shortly thereafter, as i was trying to pull my data off the drive and it got stuck on the files with the bad sectors. Once i had moved off all the data from the drive, and deleted the files i couldn't read out anymore (the ones driving up the two aforementioned values), those bad sectors got remapped. And with the newer firmware, it didn't develop any new ones.

Fast-forward to present day:

The same drive, but with 54 TBW more and loads more hours of runtime. None of the values that are critical for this error have increased from then until now. As i explained, shortly after the first screenshot, "Uncorrectable Error Count" and "ECC Error Rate" both went to 4819, so they were already like that two years ago.

I can honestly say, i didn't spare this drive, i used it for downloads, extracting files, i filled it completely (0 Bytes free) many times, i operated with less than 2 GB free for a long time, downloading stuff into the same 2 GB of free space over and over. And i didn't have a single problem again.

The POR (Power-on Reset) Recovery Count is completely benign, it just means that the PC shut off hard (no Windows shutdown), which for example happens several times during or after a BIOS update, this is nothing too important, just a log entry. The mysterious "FC" value at the bottom rose by a grand total of eight, still not sure what it means, but doesn't seem to be too important, all the files seem to be ok still. I have copied many TB off the drive and never had another read error.

Now, don't get me wrong, the original fault was horrendous, i would have never expected it from such a drive. It is inexcusable, and the handling of the issue from Samsung is poor, they are just silently doing RMAs and no public word about it, at least i didn't see anything. So i guess we all agree on that.

What i just want to say is, if someone doesn't want to or can't do an RMA of the drive, mine has fully recovered, it seems just as good as the unaffected drives now. With the five years of warranty, i can still RMA it when the time is right.

In the meantime, i have purchased several other Samsung drives, a 990 PRO 1TB as my main boot drive, an 870 QVO 8TB for storage, and another three 870 QVO 4TB. So i haven't given up on Samsung just yet. Although i am not nearly as enthusiastic about them, and i also have a WD Black SN850X 4TB now.


BTW, a family member's SanDisk Ultra 3D suffers from a known problem which was first observed on the identical WD Blue 3D, that the oldest files become extremely slow to read out because the controller fails to refresh them (article in German, Google-translated). He is currently reading out his files over the span of weeks, at under 2 MB/s! We estimated that he needs about 100 hours to read out the remaining files. At least the files themselves all seem to be ok...

 

[erokube]

Interesting behaviour from Samsung.

They told me, that I should contact SELLER, because the SSD is 2.5years old and the warranty is 2 years, and after this period I must deal with SELLER.
First thing I did is, before RMA attempt, I did contact the SELLER, and they told me, that they cover first 2 years and if manufacturer offers 5 year warranty, I must contact MANUFACTURER.

So no one (seller nor samsung) is willing to help with this, interesting. Like a hot potatoe.

Of course I will keep asking them where do they get this info from..

Or is there any other way how to escalate this issue?

 

[ACME]

In the meantime, i have purchased several other Samsung drives, a 990 PRO 1TB as my main boot drive, an 870 QVO 8TB for storage, and another three 870 QVO 4TB. So i haven't given up on Samsung just yet. Although i am not nearly as enthusiastic about them, and i also have a WD Black SN850X 4TB now.

Yeah, you bought a bunch of new SSDs. Keep the faulty SSD until it is out of warranty as you can afford it anyway.

Interesting behaviour from Samsung.

They told me, that I should contact SELLER, because the SSD is 2.5years old and the warranty is 2 years, and after this period I must deal with SELLER.
First thing I did is, before RMA attempt, I did contact the SELLER, and they told me, that they cover first 2 years and if manufacturer offers 5 year warranty, I must contact MANUFACTURER.

Strange story. Where are you from?

 

[CiTay]

Yeah, you bought a bunch of new SSDs. Keep the faulty SSD until it is out of warranty as you can afford it anyway.

Huh, are you suggesting i should not have mentioned my newly purchased Samsung SSDs in a thread i made about Samsung SSDs? I only mentioned it as proof i haven't given up on Samsung yet, they are not on my "blacklist" (by now i had problematic electronics from many big brands, including Crucial and Sandisk, so the blacklist idea is silly anyway, i always look at inidivual products). Yeah, they have messed up bigtime here, but when i can get it at the right price (and i got good deals on all those drives, not the normal price), i will still accept a Samsung SSD. I would even get another 870 EVO, of course only from recent batches.

Also, this was never about being able to afford an SSD or not, it was about the drive not being able to hold the data safely, but after the bad blocks getting remapped, it being able to do so again for the last two years. I thought some owners of this type of SSDs will appreciate that information, i didn't mean to provoke any sarcastic remarks like this. Affording or not doesn't matter, i need the storage space for the work i'm doing, this is where a lot of money goes, but i'm not buying much other stuff, i drive an 18-year-old car... anyway, you get the idea. Didn't mean to brag about SSDs.

First thing I did is, before RMA attempt, I did contact the SELLER, and they told me, that they cover first 2 years and if manufacturer offers 5 year warranty, I must contact MANUFACTURER.

Usually correct. Manufacturer's warranty (a warranty that the product is free from defects in materials and workmanship, and if not, will be fixed or replaced by the manufacturer) is a voluntary assurance which often goes way beyond the mandatory time period of the seller's/vendor's warranty. In most countries, after two years, the seller/vendor will just shrug and refer you to the manufacturer, because it's the manufacturer's warranty that goes on for way longer.

Now, there can a difference according to your country, if Samsung has an official representation for that area or not. In some countries, they might have an agreement that the seller should handle the RMA with Samsung for you. Here is an example from MSI for an African country:

So they can mean that they will still honour the warranty, but it has to be handled by the seller on your behalf, not by you directly. However, the reaction of the seller suggests otherwise.

 

[erokube]

Thank you for info, hm,nice. I am from Slovakia.
I think I will contact them again with "CC" so they can communicate it out together..

 

[SPDIF]

Only accept SSD from the year 2023/2024 and you should be good to go, NEVER accept an old SSD lying on the shelves for years. Send or give it back right away. Specially those from 2021 should be avoided at all times! During the pandemic, no one could find chips, so they used what was available on the market with bad consequences.

 

[erokube]

Samsung told me, that 5years warranty ONLY possible IF I buy it from samsung official store, NOT from another sellers.. Samsung told me, twice, that in my case, I do not have wany warranty, only 24month.
That seller I did buy if from is large online seller, not some shady or aliexpress one. Even another large seller has 60 months warranty on their website.
Seems like Samsung is giving me false information,and I do not know why.