Question How concerned should I be with CRC Error Counts with Samsung SSD?

[erwin1978]

I bought two Samsung 870 EVO 250 GB SSD for two AMD computers. One motherboard is based on AMD SB850 chipset and the other AMD SB710 chipset. The Samsung EVOs are reporting SMART CRC Error Counts especially when running disc benchmarks. It is not a SATA cable issue as I have swapped it several times and the cables work without issues with harddrives. I have read threads dating back three years with this same issue with Samsung and AMD SATA controllers. There doesn't appear to be any remedy short of crippling performance by disabling NCQ. Can I ignore the CRC Error if I don't notice any performance issues or will this lead to permanent damage? Samsung doesn't appear to be bothered if this has been going on for several years.

 

[mikeymikec]

CRCs: Could lead to the filesystem being well and truly mangled. A customer's system got into such a state that Win10 chkdsk hung permanently when trying to check the file system (oddly Win7 chkdsk fixed it nicely!).

I'm curious to know just how much performance would be crippled by with just disabling NCQ. With HDDs it was meant to help to allow the drive to optimise its data access patterns, but given that the access times with SSDs are an order of magnitude or two less, I just can't see it being that much of a deal-breaker. With the customer's system (AFAIK Ph2 X2 550, Win10), I didn't notice any difference in general usage between having NCQ disabled and enabled.

At the end of the day, IMO the question comes down to "is using a Samsung SSD with NCQ disabled still way quicker than a HDD?", to which the answer is obviously yes. Even if the throughput was halved, it would still be way quicker than a HDD and makes an old system running a modern version of Windows way more responsive and usable.

 

[razel]

Do you have a SATA to USB adapter?
Try to see if the CRC errors increase when running the same benchmark over that. It'll help narrow it down to the SATA controller or SSD or filesystem.

 

[erwin1978]

I have the Samsung EVO on SATA 2 with NCQ enabled. Really good scores for SATA 2. I can't tell a difference in loading speed of Windows with either SATA 2 or SATA 3. The non queued random read and write speed is nearly identical in either SATA 2 or SATA 3.







Here the same drive with NCQ disabled. The most impact is seen with the queued random read and write scores. The non queued random read and write score remains the same. The sequential writes got a little boost now that it didn't have to contend with the CRC Errors. I think when gauging the speed that Windows loads it's the last score that is particularly important. That's roughly 40 MB of random read speed. My HDD had a random read speed of less than 1 MB to put things into perspective.







Western Digital Black 750 GB HDD. Really low scores throughout and noisy.






So I replaced my Samsung EVO drives with Crucial MX500. I get the same performance but now I don't have to think about how the CRC Errors is impacting me.

 

[Muadib]

My Samsung 840 died soon after it started have CRC errors. You should do a backup asap.

 

[Soulkeeper]

If you are getting a lot of them it could be a sign of a defective ssd.
Typically it's a sign of a bad cable, but if the pcb or connector is bad I guess the result could be the same.
It's also possible software or firmware could be causing it I suppose.