Samsung Targets Gamers With 3 Extremely Fast 990 Pro NVMe SSDs

Yeah their control panel tool is a bit Tomy looking but meh, long as it does the job of firmware updates and drive info I'll be using CrystalDisk for anything extra :p

I have been using over provisioning btw too at the default 10% (Samsung drives), do people still use this these days?
 
New version of Samsung Magician out, no notes on what it includes but anyone able to update and check? Maybe it has new firmware details for the 990?
 
We're not alone guys

980 Pro drives also seem to be affected now, Samsung says some 980 pro drives have reached 0% Health due to firmware errors and because of this the drives have gone into read only mode basically bricking them and it can't be reversed

If you have a 980 pro you must urgently update your firmware but the firmware will only prevent further damage it will not reverse existing damage

If your 980 Pro is on firmware 3B2QGXA7 then you will be affected

www.pugetsystems.com

Critical Samsung SSD Firmware Update

What is Happening Despite historically being some of our most reliable parts, we have received a surprising number of reports of failing Samsung drives,
www.pugetsystems.com www.pugetsystems.com
 
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Yeah Magician is giving notifications (in general) to update firmware and there is an update for my 980s to prevent prematurely putting the drives into read only mode - but going by the stats in Magician my 980s aren't affected, though I have updated them (they are all actually showing 100% health but apparently sometimes the health doesn't update until the drive is powered off and on again).
 
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This news probably means the issues with the 990 Pro is also caused by firmware, Samsungs own firmware is killing its drives
 
Rroff said:
Which is probably a good thing - most of these firmware updates are to fix issues not enhance already good capabilities :s
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That's right enough, but I do wonder if there is a potential issue with Samsung's SSD firmware in general, given that the 980 Pro owners are also recommended to update. I will check my other 970 Pro tomorrow and I have a SATA 860 Pro that I'm now curious about.
 
darael said:
That's right enough, but I do wonder if there is a potential issue with Samsung's SSD firmware in general, given that the 980 Pro owners are also recommended to update. I will check my other 970 Pro tomorrow and I have a SATA 860 Pro that I'm now curious about.
Click to expand...

I've various drives from 840 Evo, 970 Evo Plus and various 980 models in moderate to heavy use and none are showing any issues or the common symptoms of known failures so far. Did have to apply the firmware fix to the 840 Evo though to prevent data becoming prematurely unreadable.
 
Kinda glad I went with the Seagate FireCuda 530 just before the 990 was announced. I would have held on and got the 990 and been in the same boat.

The 530 is rapid too, so no real loss.
 
darael said:
That's right enough, but I do wonder if there is a potential issue with Samsung's SSD firmware in general, given that the 980 Pro owners are also recommended to update. I will check my other 970 Pro tomorrow and I have a SATA 860 Pro that I'm now curious about.
Click to expand...
If i had to guess it's because the 80/90's are both using Samsung's Elpis controller whereas the 70's used the Phoenix controllers.
 
got some more info on the 980 issue. The issue actually seems to have started in August last year but it hasn't made it into media.

Obviously the easiest way to check if you have an issue is to check what firmware version your on and update it if you have the affected firmware.

Otherwise if you wish to do additional checks, read this

"
TL;DR: If you have a Samsung SSD, check your drive's SMART info. If 0E is not zero and/or 03 is not 100 (64 in CrystalDiskInfo), use Samsung Magician to scan your drive. If any red block appears, your drive is likely to be faulty; backup the entire drive and seek warranty immediately.

This issue was discovered earlier this year, but it suddenly went virus in August in Asian communities. People scan their Samsung SSD, then suddenly entry 0E (media and data integrity error) in the drive's SMART, which may or may not be 0 before, begin to increase in an ungodly rate. When they try to back up their data, they find some files cannot be read correctly. They also find entry 03 (available spare) to be less than 100%. (Some SMART monitoring software, including popular CrystalDiskInfo, display this entry as 64 because they display figures in hexadecimal instead of decimal, but this can be changed in the software's settings)

Most of the faulty drives are 980 PRO and newer version of 970 EVO PLUS with Elpis controller, as well as the OEM variants, PM9A1 and PM981A"
 
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Managed to find a SN850X and got a refund on the 990 pro.

Seems like a nice drive. The WD software doesn't have as many features but it's ok. Drive runs nice and cool, idles at 40c in my room and the room temp is 29c and only increases by 3c during benchmarking. Read scores in crystal diskmark aren't as high as the 990 pro but reviews show it being on at or faster in game loads anyway so seems fine to me
 
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Microcenter have pulled their shelf stock of the 990 Pro as reported by a user on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/10r8qz4/samsung_990pro_pulled_off_shelves_at_microcenter/

Also Samsung have issued a critical firmware for the 980 Pro to prevent an issue where the 980 Pro was failing and going into read only mode. The FW update stops that happening, but will not reverse a read only drive. No news on what's going on still with the 990 Pro drives though.

Edit, just checked my 970 Evo Plus and all checks out :cool:

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At the start of this i said I'd still buy a 990 because of Samsung's reputation but these events are causing me to reconsider, it's still early days so I'm in a holding pattern but the longer Samsung don't address the issue, even just a we are aware of it press release, the more my trust is them is deteriorating.
 
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