Info [UPDATED] Samsung SSDs reliability :: Firmware fix available for 990 Pro, other drives potentially afected

coercitiv

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[Update 2] More drives and multiple controllers potentially affected.
[Update] Firmware fix available via Samsung Magician utility

A number of concerning reports regarding 990 Pro drives have been popping up the web since December 2022. The drives are apparently losing serious chunks of drive health after only a few TB of writes. The issue is getting serious with more and more reports from users. Samsung themselves have recently announced they're looking into it while also getting more receptive towards product returns.


Until this gets figured out and fixed via software or some type of recall, I would suggest avoiding the new 990 Pro. If I had to guess I'd say it's probably a firmware bug that manifests under specific situations or system configurations. It's a pity they didn't ctach this during internal testing though, for obvious reasons.
 
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coercitiv

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Samsung has already released a new Firmware for the 990 Pro SSDs.
Unfortunately the update is a mixed bag: it stops the degradation (real or not) but does not help with whatever has occurred already. Samsung uses strange wording in their release notes, we can't even tell whether the degradation was real or just a reporting bug that cannot be easily reversed.

Samsung has been investigating customer inquiries about anomalies related to the SMART of the 990 PRO SSD.
These anomalies were found to be caused by issues with the 990 PRO SSD’s firmware.accordingly, a firmware update was released today, February 13, 2023, that fixes these anomalies.
(SMART values are not restored to factory settings after firmware update. Actual SMART values of each SSD vary depending on user environment and usage conditions).
 

Ranulf

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I'll just add to this thread, a list of affected drives from about a month ago:



Short version: It might just be drives from 1 month of April 2022 for the 980pro, 970 Evo Plus as well as maybe the 870 evo sata drives.

ArsTech article as well:

 
Jul 27, 2020
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Are newer 990 Pros shipping with the updated firmware? Or are users still expected to update the firmware manually?
Even if the answer is yes, are you still gonna entrust the new and reckless Samsung with your data?

I just noticed that the kit I have that won't go above DDR5-4600 with Z790, happens to have Samsung memory chips.
 
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Ranulf

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Are newer 990 Pros shipping with the updated firmware? Or are users still expected to update the firmware manually?

I don't know. It was just this week that I caught the news that it wasn't just the 980/990 pro drives that had problems. I have a 970 Evo Plus from last year that was not in the list of problem serial numbers. It is eventually going to just be a games drive anyway but I won't trust these models to be a OS drive for a long while now.

But I've never been a big Samsung ssd fan since I had a couple of 840 Evo drives. I've had a 850 Evo running for 3-4 years as a daily laptop drive just fine though.
 

DrMrLordX

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Even if the answer is yes, are you still gonna entrust the new and reckless Samsung with your data?

About as much as I trust anyone else. If the problem is fixed - and apparently it is - then it's about the best drive available if I can't get a PCIe 5 drive in an acceptable timeframe. Though I could grab an SK Hynix P41 perhaps. Haven't seen them go head-to-head but I'm pretty sure the 990 Pro is faster.
 
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I haven't seen any on the market.

Ready to buy now:
 

Shmee

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Both the 980 Pro 2TB and SK Hynix P41 Platinum 2TB seem to be great drives, with really good pricing recently. The 990 Pro is really fast, but last I checked it had quite the price premium for that.

EDIT: looks like the SK Hynix P41 Platinum 2TB is no longer on sale, so not a great deal anymore.
 

Super Spartan

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About as much as I trust anyone else. If the problem is fixed - and apparently it is - then it's about the best drive available if I can't get a PCIe 5 drive in an acceptable timeframe. Though I could grab an SK Hynix P41 perhaps. Haven't seen them go head-to-head but I'm pretty sure the 990 Pro is faster.
I have the SK Hynix Platinum P41, here are the benchmarks on my laptop, the Random 4K Read speed is not impressive as reviews state online (I know they are using desktop computers but still):

SK hynix Platinum P41 2TB

SK hynix Platinum P41 2TB SSD.png

SK hynix Platinum P41 2TB 3DMark Storage Benchmark.png

For reference, here are benchmarks on the same laptop for WD SN810 1TB

WD SN810 1TB SSD (AHCI).png

WD SN810 3DMark Storage Benchmark.png

Since I need a 2TB decent drive, I am going to order a WD SN850X 2TB to replace the SK Hynix P41 2TB
 

coercitiv

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I'm on the fence, I could use an upgrade in terms of total storage space, but the recent issues with Samsung drives are making me consider other options, including cheaper ones.

So far I've narrowed my list down to these two possible alternatives (Hynix drives not available locally):
  • Kingston KC3000 - this is the much cheaper alternative that can still perform very well in light consumer loads.
  • Seagate Firecuda 530 - this is only the slightly cheaper or equal cost alternative, though it performs just as well in random 4 writes, only falling behind the 990 Pro in 4k reads. The big upside of the Firecuda is TBW rating, with twice the rated endurance at ISO capacity.
1678536772311.png
1678536785026.png

I also saw the recent teaser for the new Sabrent gen 5 drive, and although I don't care about the sequential speed upgrade, random 4K was very nice.

1678537801876.png

I guess I'll wait some more, not in a real rush atm.
 
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Jul 27, 2020
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The crappy thing about 990 Pro is that it will be limited to 1.4 GB/s writes once the SLC cache runs out. In that regard, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus is better that it at least tries to recover the write speed during extended writes.
 

coercitiv

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The crappy thing about 990 Pro is that it will be limited to 1.4 GB/s writes once the SLC cache runs out.
I don't care about these things. I only care about performance in workloads that reflect my usage, and writing 200+ GB at 6GB/s is not something I need.

If I had more write intensive jobs then Firecuda 530 would look even better.
 
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Jul 27, 2020
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If I had more write intensive jobs then Firecuda 530 would look even better.
Yeah. The Firecuda 530 does surprise me. How did Seagate come up with a solid product at a good price? For almost a decade, they had this reputation of having cheap/unreliable products. But seems WD has taken that crown and Seagate is trying to rebuild its image.
 

WilliamM2

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Yeah. The Firecuda 530 does surprise me. How did Seagate come up with a solid product at a good price? For almost a decade, they had this reputation of having cheap/unreliable products. But seems WD has taken that crown and Seagate is trying to rebuild its image.

It shouldn't. It uses a Phison E18 controller, in fact if it's like my Zotac Phison drive I used to use, they are actually made by Phison. There are several drives using this controller and design, they all perform about the same. Here's an example:


Same as the Kingston above, and the Sabrent drives. All E18:

 
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