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

[2BitNandBand]

Just run a full scan in Samsung Magician, it should uncover any new bad sectors.

Ah, Magician can't see the drive over USB, and that's the only way I have to connect it now that it's been replaced. But I know it said 0 when I initially got it, so it increased from 0 to 1. That's an infinity percent increase, which is a lot.

 

[CiTay]

That's an infinity percent increase, which is a lot.

Hehe, that's one way to look at it. I'm sure Samsung won't agree though when it comes to an RMA. You need a bit more than one bad sector for that.

 

[xorbe]

I bought a 4TB 870 EVO in Apr '21 ... guess I'll have to have a look, sigh. Yup, manuf Jan 2021 ... well, shoot. Mine is still looking good at 1,316H and 2,571GB written. Copied my precious data off, just a bunch of non-precious multimedia left. Though the log says one failed LBA after 800H. Will full scan ...

Yup I have a red square on the scan already, and the drive hasn't even been through 1 complete write cycle (2.5TB written on 4TB drive). Not sure what drive to switch to. It says 1 reallocation event, 5 ecc errors. Is that marked for death, or is that a one-off failed cell.

 

[iddqd]

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.

 

[chrcoluk]

@iddqd not english, but I assume you was doing the full LBA test which is basically the same as a read only badblocks run. I would for sure RMA that, dont trust a drive that cant pass that assuming its nothing to do with cabling, DMI signal integrity etc.

Basically external problems that cause errors would increase the SMART CRC value (C7 in this case), so if only that changes it can be caused by something external to the drive, but the easy way to test if this is the cause is swap with another SSD, usually cabling or or external signal integrity issues will affect everything, so would be easy to know. e.g. back when I had a too high system agent voltage, every SSD I put in this PC that didnt have modern error correction would error like crazy simply from running chkdsk.

I am guessing this is an actual problem with your SSD though given the rep the 870 EVO now has, luckily for me mine so far is still ok, and has also fixed a problem I had with my MX500 (with the MX 500 in my laptop would freeze when screen off on battery power, it was devsleep crashing the MX 500 I think).

I also so far have no erase cycles, a very refreshing change from the MX 500 behaviour. Sadly though I expect I will be posting in this thread in a few months with the same problems as you guys. So making sure my backups keep rolling.

 

[Yraggul666]

Oh sure, just my EFFFing luck, just ordered a 870 2TB yesterday evening. Hasn't arrived yet.
That's what i get for not sticking with WD or Crucial, only ordered it because WD/Crucial weren't in stock at the time and i'm in a hurry.
I'll try to change the order to anything else.
Fucking sammy......

 

[tabascosauz]

Oh sure, just my EFFFing luck, just ordered a 870 2TB yesterday evening. Hasn't arrived yet.
That's what i get for not sticking with WD or Crucial, only ordered it because WD/Crucial weren't in stock at the time and i'm in a hurry.
I'll try to change the order to anything else.
Fucking sammy......

I mean......as long as you buy from a big retailer, what are the odds you'll get a problem drive manufactured back in Q1 2021...in Q2 2022?

 

[Shou Miko]

My 850 EVO is still rocking and kicking without a bleep

 

[Yraggul666]

I mean......as long as you buy from a big retailer, what are the odds you'll get a problem drive manufactured back in Q1 2021...in Q2 2022?

I know, you'd think the odds would be slim to none, but i know myself, i'm that guy ordering a pint and the barrel is empty, i have to wait for the barrel to be replaced with a full one......

 

[2BitNandBand]

Hehe, that's one way to look at it. I'm sure Samsung won't agree though when it comes to an RMA. You need a bit more than one bad sector for that.

I submitted an RMA request and just told them "reallocated sectors > 0" was the issue. They approved it. Maybe because they know it came from that problem batch? I have a number of Samsung SSD's aside from just the 870 models, and none of them have showed reallocated sectors > 0, so it was pretty concerning to me, especially since it was manufactured in that Q1 2021 window. I didn't trust it for continued use.

 

[CiTay]

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.

I'm actually German, so i can read it fine, but yes, we want to keep things in English on an English forum, obviously. That is an epic amount of ECC errors now, but it was to be expected. And what's taking so long is the drive retrying and stalling for seconds on each sector it can't read. The SSD basically tried more than half a million times to read the sectors, unsuccessfully!

 

[xorbe]

The data is protected by ECC, which means chunks are failing fast enough to even render the ECC correction useless, only detection.

 

[Pwnstix]

I just came across this thread after I had just happened to take a look through my Samsung Magician status. Freaked out and found this thread.

Full info:
-Samsung 870 EVO 4TB
-Made in Korea
-Product Date: 2021 03 03
-S/N: S6BBNG0R30xxxx (and CrystalDiskInfo also shows a D at the end of what are the last four digits as shown on the package.
-Firmware: SVT02B6Q and there are no further updates, also latest version of Magician
-Bought March 27, 2021 and installed and in used since early April, 2021.
-Use: Internal SSD. I have some personal stuff on it that I do back up, and the rest is currently being used as game storage.

I have not yet run a full diagnostic scan on the drive.

I have this registered on Samsung's support site, but it was difficult for me to double check that I did have it registered, because it didn't initially come up in my list of registered products...I had to find a different way to get to it through Google, so I could get to the actual support page. Seems kind of confusing.


Here's my screenshots from Magician and CrystalDiskInfo.

 

[CiTay]

Here's my screenshots from Magician and CrystalDiskInfo.

Yes, another case of this problem. I would RMA it. Please keep us informed about the RMA process, like what they want you to do to prove it's RMA-worthy etc.
They are probably gonna make you do a full scan with Magician, for example.

 

[PhilR]

Just FYI, we've tried RMAing multiple drives here in Europe, it's a joke. The disks started failing, we pulled them out of the server, stuck them on a desktop machine, ran Magician *before* and *after* the firmware upgrade. SMART does say there are errors, but the full test from Samsung M. just shows all green. Which means they won't take disks for RMA...

Here's the list of things they ask you to provide *for each disk*:


• A brief description of the problem you have with your drive.
• Please provide us with screenshots of any error messages or error codes.
• Please provide us with a short video clip showing the problem you are
experiencing with your drive and any troubleshooting steps you may have
performed, if possible.
• A screenshot of the Samsung Magician Drive Details page
• A screenshot of the results of the Diagnostic Scan (Please note that the
Diagnostic Scan is only possible on the following models: 860 PRO, 860/870
EVO, 860/870 QVO, 970 EVO PLUS, 980 PRO, 980).
• The SMART test result from the Samsung Magician.
Samsung Magician can be downloaded via the following link: https://
www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/
Please note that the software is only compatible with Windows and the SSD
must be connected directly to the motherboard.
To obtain the SMART result, simply click on the 'SMART' button located at
the top-right corner of the Samsung Magician Drive Dashboard page.
• A copy of your proof of purchase*
• What is your country of residence?*
• Where was the SSD being used? Server, Nas, Desktop PC, etc?
• Are you an end-user or re-seller of this drive?*
• Photos of the front and backside of the entire SSD clearly indicating the
serial number on the label on the drive.**
• A close-up photo of the connector of the SSD.**

We have 20+ drives in production, but you can clearly tell they're not going to help out.

 

[Tetras]

Just FYI, we've tried RMAing multiple drives here in Europe, it's a joke. The disks started failing, we pulled them out of the server, stuck them on a desktop machine, ran Magician *before* and *after* the firmware upgrade. SMART does say there are errors, but the full test from Samsung M. just shows all green. Which means they won't take disks for RMA...

Here's the list of things they ask you to provide *for each disk*:

Mine doesn't pass any of the diagnostics tests, so I'm surprised that yours do, how many TB have they written? By the time they get to 10TB, I'd be surprised if the scans still pass.

 

[iddqd]

SMART does say there are errors, but the full test from Samsung M. just shows all green.

When I RMA'd the first drive last year I had the same results. I formatted the disk because there was a linux filesystem on it and for some tests Magician needs a Windows-compatible filesystem.
This time I ran the tests without touching the filesystem and it found lots of errors (see post #79).
But I started the RMA process before the full scan finished and submitted only the SMART data. Without any more questions the sent me the unique link to the RMA form. Now I am waiting for the shipping label which should have already arived (the say within 48 hours).

 

[Tetras]

When I RMA'd the first drive last year I had the same results. I formatted the disk because there was a linux filesystem on it and for some tests Magician needs a Windows-compatible filesystem.
This time I ran the tests without touching the filesystem and it found lots of errors (see post #79).
But I started the RMA process before the full scan finished and submitted only the SMART data. Without any more questions the sent me the unique link to the RMA form. Now I am waiting for the shipping label which should have already arived (the say within 48 hours).

As far as I know, formatting the drives scrubs the errors on a full scan, even on Windows.

 

[Pwnstix]

I ran into some problems trying to access Samsung's support site...apparently, I'd had my products registered on either the Singapore or India side of the site, and I am in the US. I wondered why my registered products continued to not show up, and I guess that's why... But I don't remember registering them on the non-US site... I could swear I did everything correctly.

Anyway, I just made sure I'm logged into the US support site and I re-registered them and re-submitted my proofs of purchase. I guess they'll get back to me on that...and hopefully they do, because my option to 'Request Service' is currently greyed out while I wait for them to approve those. I may be SoL here if they decide I've registered them outside of a certain time window, even though I had already registered them (most importantly, my 860 EVO 4TB drive) last year, just...on the wrong country site, or something...

 

[2BitNandBand]

I ran into some problems trying to access Samsung's support site...apparently, I'd had my products registered on either the Singapore or India side of the site, and I am in the US. I wondered why my registered products continued to not show up, and I guess that's why... But I don't remember registering them on the non-US site... I could swear I did everything correctly.

Anyway, I just made sure I'm logged into the US support site and I re-registered them and re-submitted my proofs of purchase. I guess they'll get back to me on that...and hopefully they do, because my option to 'Request Service' is currently greyed out while I wait for them to approve those. I may be SoL here if they decide I've registered them outside of a certain time window, even though I had already registered them (most importantly, my 860 EVO 4TB drive) last year, just...on the wrong country site, or something...

Going through samsung.com is a pain. Email the memory product email address here and tell them you want an RMA.

 

[Captain Danger]

Can someone confirm if registering the product on their website is a requirement for RMA?

 

[iddqd]

Can someone confirm if registering the product on their website is a requirement for RMA?

I didn't have to (Germany).

 

[Pwnstix]

Going through samsung.com is a pain. Email the memory product email address here and tell them you want an RMA.

Awesome, thanks for the link. Does that email work for any consumer? I'm not a business owner or anything--just using this drive on a personal PC.

I guess I'll still run a full diagnostic just in case they need it. I've got all my invoice info, as well. And I guess pointing out the Uncorrectable Error Count and ECC Error Rate (and the Reallocated Sectors greater than zero) is enough to start the process.

Update: just submitted a repair ticket with TTS (I was given a link to them from a Samsung chat rep). Hopefully I can get the ball rolling on this. Also, here are the results from my full diagnostic scan:

 

[cafu1000]

Here goes another one ... this time it's a 1TB

• EVO 870 1TB
• Label says 01.2021, Korea
• in use in desktop since April 2021 ... and only 1.6 TB written so far
• Firmware SVT02B6Q (but only since yesterday)
• starting in February 2022, "Reallocated Sector Count" started to climb, it's at 90 now (66% of it "achieved" yesterday)
• while trying to copy data (in addition to regular backups ;-)) and performing diagnosis yesterday, "Uncorrectable Error Count" now increased to 17044
• at least three files can no longer be accessed

Let's see how the RMA will go ... would be good to hear from Samsung about this somewhen. Sounds like general problems.

 

[pinkmonkeybird]

Just noticed my 870 EVO 1TB starting down this path after doing some work with partitions - luckily I think I've caught it fairly early. When I first noticed, it was 9 bad sectors and 49 uncorrectable errors, and now a day later it's risen to 12 bad sectors and 1700 uncorrectable errors.

• Manufactured 2021-01-21 in Korea
• Been using as my Linux desktop drive since about July 2021
• About 7.8 TB written
• Latest SVT02B6Q firmware only since I noticed the issue starting, it was SVT01B6Q for almost all of my time using it

This has slightly soured me on this model, even later batches - I'll be replacing this with a Crucial MX500, I think.