Disk Read error with Samsung SSD... How do I replace the drive whilst keeping content intact?

[aoaaron]

Hi!

So I have a 1TB Samsung EVO SSD drive which is driving me crazy. Every so often my PC will completely crash, windows unresponsive, sometimes a white screen.

I think its the SSD because everything else is working okay, I'm not doing taxing work on the PC. All the other drives access data fine and play it back okay.

I go similar symptoms when I left my SSD with <10% capacity I've cleared the capacity now, its a bit more snappy but it still has the relaibility issues. I have reseated cables. As its my OS drive, I don't think I can do many windows based SSD checks.




So... I'm thinking of buying a new drive. Which drives are more reliable in your guys opinions? I was thinking of going NVME but my motherboard is assembled and heatsink in place so not sure if its too much hassle for my dad as we are really busy with other stuff and he's the one who does this stuff.

Also, how do I go about copying all my data from my current SSD to a new one? I have REALLY customised nvidia drivers with 3D support and MADVR settings I want to keep.

Thank you for the help and assistance.

 

[Undesirable]

The jury's out on whether it's your SSD. I haven't heard anyone bad-mouth the Samsung EVO, and it doesn't particularly have a reputation as a drive to be avoided. Of course, if the drive has been abused by filling it to capacity and rewriting to oblivion, you would expect something to go wrong at some point. Try and retrieve S.M.A.R.T info and have a look at how much total data has been written and the 'health' of the drive.

The fact that you can access your data is good news; a lot of SSDs take the data with them when they conk out. You can make a clone of your files, if you really believe the SSD is the culprit, by installing a piece of software like Macrium Reflect, selecting the partition(s) you want an exact copy of, press the Clone button and follow the dialogs, choosing a destination drive that has 1TB free to copy your stuff across.

What do I recommend for a replacement SATA SSD, since you may not be able to go with NVMe? Probably Samsung 970 EVO , but at least 2TB so you have more provisioning space.