Samsung EVO 870 SSD. Never Again.

[gives19]

WD is 5yr warranty.

Best to go with an Enterprise class HD which I use for all my sound FX and other libraries. 5 yr warranty, but now they are too slow for ATMOS work. I use my internal HD for everything and I have 4TB of storage for project and some sound libraries that load super fast. 6000 mb/s vs some RAID LaCie TB 3 that are running pretty slow now even thought they have been reliable as heck. I always buy extra Segate Iron Wolf Drives and swap them out or use another Array for redundancy. The lower end Samsung stuff works well, but recently I have had great luck with the Samsung T7 Rugged line which are faster that the T7's for example and read/write I think around 1000mb/s. I have backups going all the time, so nothing lost even clones my internal Mac Studio Ultra daily. I still use the latest Alsoft Disk Warrior for directory checks occasionally once a week to make sure things don't go awry.

 

[Studio E]

Thanks for posting. Just curious because I'm trying to protect my world, had you updated the SSDs to the latest firmware with Samsung Magician? if you did, then Samsung really has an issue with the 4TBs. That problem hit the 980 Pro 2TB NVMe's, then they fixed it with a firmware update.

I had not done that. Sorry, but I am probably not the most diligent about such things. I have a tendency to install and forget hardware for the most part.

 

[PaulieDC]

I had not done that. Sorry, but I am probably not the most diligent about such things. I have a tendency to install and forget hardware for the most part.

Totally get it. The other night I discovered I had updates for Cubase, Dorico, and almost every player I use. This is why we need nice income for music, so we can hire that beloved tech assistant.

 

[ip20]

Thanks for posting. Just curious because I'm trying to protect my world, had you updated the SSDs to the latest firmware with Samsung Magician? if you did, then Samsung really has an issue with the 4TBs. That problem hit the 980 Pro 2TB NVMe's, then they fixed it with a firmware update.

I was also curious about this as I wonder if Samsung Magician would have properly reported the impending failure compared to HD Sentinel which apparently did.

 

[PaulieDC]

I was also curious about this as I wonder if Samsung Magician would have properly reported the impending failure compared to HD Sentinel which apparently did.

Yeah, I don't like extra utilities running in the background but I do fire Magician once it a while, especially with 7 Samsung drives in my rig. Thing is, Samsung doesn't always get the firmware right the first time, a few other drives have had this problem initially, but then got fixed with an update. I wonder if the 4TB has a new one to fix this issue. Feel bad for Eric, how aggravating is that, especially twice.

 

[Studio E]

Totally get it. The other night I discovered I had updates for Cubase, Dorico, and almost every player I use. This is why we need nice income for music, so we can hire that beloved tech assistant.

Agreed. Honestly, this last few years has just been so taxing on my mental health, that this part-time job is about to be a whole lot more "part-time", perhaps even just shelving the actual work part, and using the time to learn to enjoy the process again, but that's a whole other conversation. We DO indeed need enough money to not only compose and produce, but to deal with the thousands of micro tasks which eat 70% of the time.

 

[PaulieDC]

Agreed. Honestly, this last few years has just been so taxing on my mental health, that this part-time job is about to be a whole lot more "part-time", perhaps even just shelving the actual work part, and using the time to learn to enjoy the process again, but that's a whole other conversation. We DO indeed need enough money to not only compose and produce, but to deal with the thousands of micro tasks which eat 70% of the time.

Well said and very true.

 

[Jamie Hunter]

In case it saves someone else hundreds of dollars and hours or days of time. I just lost my 2nd Samsung EVO 870 4TB SSD in less than 2 months. I had used other variations of theirs for years and years with no issues, but now they are dropping like flies it seems. It definitely pisses me off, but I can guarantee I won't make the mistake of buying another of their hard drives, ever.

I hope this post helps someone.

I think that's just bad luck, I have a 1TB and 500GB Samsung EVO 870 both coming up to 4 years old now and still healthy!

 

[kitekrazy]

I just wouldn't buy an SSD larger than 2 TB as it stands, but I'm very happy with my all Samsung EVO 850/860/870 bunch (and a PRO 970 NVMe 2 TB as system drive).

Same here. The difference is I use all of my Sata ports so I don't install nvme.

 

[kitekrazy]

Best to go with an Enterprise class HD which I use for all my sound FX and other libraries. 5 yr warranty, but now they are too slow for ATMOS work. I use my internal HD for everything and I have 4TB of storage for project and some sound libraries that load super fast. 6000 mb/s vs some RAID LaCie TB 3 that are running pretty slow now even thought they have been reliable as heck. I always buy extra Segate Iron Wolf Drives and swap them out or use another Array for redundancy. The lower end Samsung stuff works well, but recently I have had great luck with the Samsung T7 Rugged line which are faster that the T7's for example and read/write I think around 1000mb/s. I have backups going all the time, so nothing lost even clones my internal Mac Studio Ultra daily. I still use the latest Alsoft Disk Warrior for directory checks occasionally once a week to make sure things don't go awry.

I was referring to WD SSDs. I usually buy Black or Gold HDDs. Unfortunately HDDs are more noisier than a decade ago.

 

[hlecedre]

You guys should setup a RAID controller on your workstations, with a minimum of 2 hard drives for data redundancy and call it a day.

 

[Crowe]

I only use Samsung EVO 4gb SSDs and have 3 right now. None of them have ever failed.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[kitekrazy]

You guys should setup a RAID controller on your workstations, with a minimum of 2 hard drives for data redundancy and call it a day.

I gave 3 systems which have the same libraries, I just transfer through the network. Not a fan of Raid.

 

[kitekrazy]

I was also curious about this as I wonder if Samsung Magician would have properly reported the impending failure compared to HD Sentinel which apparently did.

It's rare these drive apps detect anything. Many drives don't wear down as much as dying on the spot. It's always handy to have more than one drive utility to see if they all share the same opinion.

 

[Niah2]

Thank you for the heads up ! I am using Samsung SSD for the first time since 2021 EVO line but I am going to keep my eye on them and make backups.

Didn't know about the magician tool, so thank you as well to @PaulieDC

 

[musicisum]

I just wouldn't buy an SSD larger than 2 TB as it stands, but I'm very happy with my all Samsung EVO 850/860/870 bunch (and a PRO 970 NVMe 2 TB as system drive).

And what about internal drives? Still thinking about getting an Apple M2 with a 4 TB internal SSD but for sure I prefer not taking any risks on the long run!

 

[EgM]

You guys should setup a RAID controller on your workstations, with a minimum of 2 hard drives for data redundancy and call it a day.

You're gonna get increased disk IO latency with RAID. For servers, sure! But I'm pretty sure no one in the audio world wants that.

 

[mducharme]

I've always used the Samsung Magician tool to keep everything up to date and make sure that everything is good. I wonder if perhaps most people who had problems with the drive haven't installed the tool (and perhaps have older firmware as a result).

 

[EgM]

I've always used the Samsung Magician tool to keep everything up to date and make sure that everything is good. I wonder if perhaps most people who had problems with the drive haven't installed the tool (and perhaps have older firmware as a result).

The magician tool is useless, I had files that just wouldn't read/write and the tool thought the SSD was fine (EVO870). If the real SMART attributes say there are bad sectors and many CRC errors, the drive is scrap.

 

[blaggins]

I'm glad some folks are having success with the Samsung Magician. When I installed it, it didn't recognize either of my Samsung SSDS as Samsung brand devices, so it couldn't offer SMART data or firmware updates. Best part was that it did display the model and serial of each drive, and the model names literally had the word "Samsung" in them. I should have screenshotted it.