Personal computing discussed

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Chrispy_
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Tue Dec 22, 2015 9:24 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
I replaced the POS 840 in my workstation about six weeks ago. That means it's unpowered, sitting on a shelf.

If I can remember I'll plug it in and test it in the new year or something to see what it's like after 6 months.


Okay I actually want to repurpose this drive over Christmas, hence the test now after only 24 weeks instead of 26 weeks, but it should be close enough to prove any points.

Image

Well, look at that! This vanilla 840 is performing about as badly as it was before the unpowered test (don't worry about the max values of only 221MB/s, that's because I used it in a SATAII 3Gbps port). Several lows of around 100MB/s is about right for my defective 840 about a week after diskfresh, but otherwise it's exactly as it was six months ago.

This is good news for vanilla 840 owners (and presumably the 840EVO owners too) in that the voltage drift issue isn't a problem if the drive is unpowered. Your drives only go "bad" whilst they're powered on in a PC, indicating that the problem is caused by reading the data (or maybe just having the controller alive and doing it's firmware things) and that even the dubious performance of these drives does not seem to affect unpowered retention.
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IAmGhostDog
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Tue Dec 22, 2015 11:24 pm

Chrispy_ wrote:
Chrispy_ wrote:

This is good news for vanilla 840 owners (and presumably the 840EVO owners too) in that the voltage drift issue isn't a problem if the drive is unpowered. Your drives only go "bad" whilst they're powered on in a PC


Mine doesn't seem to be going "bad"

This is before and after the Advanced Performance Optimization that came with the latest firm ware in May

Image

On the left is today, on the right is September

Image
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Chrispy_
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Sun Dec 27, 2015 9:30 am

Was that an unpowered test?
I've had the SSD sitting on a shelf gathering dust since July.
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IAmGhostDog
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Sun Dec 27, 2015 11:33 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
Was that an unpowered test?
I've had the SSD sitting on a shelf gathering dust since July.

Nope. Powered. Every day use.
I guess the moral to this story is you have to use it or lose it.
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just brew it!
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Mon Jan 18, 2016 9:50 am

C'mon, Samsung... hybrid ISOs that boot from CD or thumbdrive aren't rocket science. Why do you make me burn a CD-R and hook up an optical drive just to update your firmware? :-?
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localhostrulez
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:42 pm

just brew it! wrote:
C'mon, Samsung... hybrid ISOs that boot from CD or thumbdrive aren't rocket science. Why do you make me burn a CD-R and hook up an optical drive just to update your firmware? :-?

Did you try Rufus on the ISO file?
 
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Mon Jan 18, 2016 2:26 pm

localhostrulez wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
C'mon, Samsung... hybrid ISOs that boot from CD or thumbdrive aren't rocket science. Why do you make me burn a CD-R and hook up an optical drive just to update your firmware? :-?

Did you try Rufus on the ISO file?

No, I did not. It is extra futzing either way, and my point is that it shouldn't be necessary.
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morphine
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Tue Jan 19, 2016 1:06 pm

No, but Rufus really Is That Simple.

Insert pen, choose ISO, go. Go ahead, try it out.
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just brew it!
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Tue Jan 19, 2016 1:38 pm

In my case there would be the extra step of firing up the Windows VM. :wink: (I don't normally leave it running since I typically use it only a couple of times a week.)
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morphine
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Tue Jan 19, 2016 1:46 pm

I've read about, but haven't used UNetbootin, which as a Linux version.
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just brew it!
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Tue Jan 19, 2016 4:04 pm

Looks like it is even in the repositories.

TBH it was mostly a matter of being annoyed upon realizing that the thumbdrive I created with dd didn't work.
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just brew it!
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Thu Jan 21, 2016 1:27 pm

The 840 EVOs I upgraded with new firmware (I have 4 of them total, 2 each 120GB and 250GB, all of which had been pulled from service after the bug came to light) were indeed suffering from the slowdown problem. Immediately following the upgrade, read speeds were as low as ~20MB/sec, and were all over the map. (I did not run the performance restoration tool, just flashed the firmware.)

After sitting powered up for a day they seem to have "fixed" themselves; so the background "scrub" functionality that Samsung added to the firwmare seems to be doing its job.

I guess I will add the 250GB ones to the new build, and use them for hosting VMs.
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HERETIC
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Fri Jul 01, 2016 12:02 am

Hi Guys.
Sammy has finally released firmware for the basic 840.
You need to grab Magician 4.9.7.
info
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/Sa ... ssues-Fina
Could mods please forward to news
thanks................
 
Chrispy_
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Fri Jul 01, 2016 12:03 pm

I discard a few more 840's every month.

Image

These are on my desk awaiting recycling. This firmware has taken FAR too long to arrive and I genuinely feel that the vast majority of owners won't even realise that you need Samsung's bloatware to get these things working, or even realise that the terrible performance of their PC is down to these awful, defective drives.
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localhostrulez
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Fri Jul 01, 2016 2:14 pm

Shoot, where are you getting those from? Did you install lots of them for friends/family/yourself, or do you go on wild hunts, looking for 840's to find and put out of their misery? :lol:

Yeah, I had an 840 evo at one point. Gave up and got rid of it long ago (I think that was after the first, one-time fix). I don't have time for this sort of unreliable crap that needs attention.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Fri Jul 01, 2016 2:32 pm

I bet there are plenty of people here who would love to take them off your hands, now that the firmware fix has been released.
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HERETIC
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Sat Jul 02, 2016 2:12 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
I discard a few more 840's every month.
These are on my desk awaiting recycling. This firmware has taken FAR too long to arrive and I genuinely feel that the vast majority of owners won't even realise that you need Samsung's bloatware to get these things working, or even realise that the terrible performance of their PC is down to these awful, defective drives.


Lucky you-Most of us can't afford to be on the bleeding edge of tech all the time.
Sh*t the box I'm writing this on has a 128GB C400.
Have a 120GB 840 as a boot drive in another box (It was a reluctant warranty replacement for a 830 that had gone EOL.)
Accepted the low write speed-as a boot drive the excellent read speed (at the time) was more important, and it was responsive.
Still doing it's job well-being less than a third full helps a lot.
Don't have a lot to compare with thro-C400-Plextor 5s and Sandisk ultra plus.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Sat Jul 02, 2016 5:35 pm

HERETIC wrote:
Lucky you-Most of us can't afford to be on the bleeding edge of tech all the time.

IIRC he deals with them at work. (I might be thinking of someone else though...)
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Convert
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Fri Jul 08, 2016 10:20 am

just brew it! wrote:
HERETIC wrote:
Lucky you-Most of us can't afford to be on the bleeding edge of tech all the time.

IIRC he deals with them at work. (I might be thinking of someone else though...)

Sounds like it. I too made the mistake of rolling out entire sites with these drives :o
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morphine
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Fri Jul 08, 2016 10:47 am

Chrispy_, you have 840 EVOs on the pic, which got the firmware fix ages ago. I thought your issue was with regular 840s?
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localhostrulez
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Fri Jul 08, 2016 12:51 pm

Eh, I'm not sure I'd trust them even with the fix (mainly when data integrity or stability is at stake; I refuse to compromise those). Dunno, I got rid of my 840 evo ages ago (a ways before they properly fixed it).
 
ColeLT1
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Fri Jul 08, 2016 1:37 pm

Convert wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
HERETIC wrote:
Lucky you-Most of us can't afford to be on the bleeding edge of tech all the time.

IIRC he deals with them at work. (I might be thinking of someone else though...)

Sounds like it. I too made the mistake of rolling out entire sites with these drives :o


I needed some SSDs for work, and just had my first SSD failure here (a sandisk drive bricked), so I bought a large batch (100+) of intel 535 SSDs to avoid buying "cheaper" drives. Now the 530 and 535 have that write amplification issue that I will be worrying about for years.
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Starfalcon
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Fri Jul 08, 2016 4:18 pm

Ive had an 840 as my boot drive in my rig for a few years, I have noticed recently it was taking more and more time to boot up. At one point my boot was taking over 3-4 mins to get to the desktop. Just recently have gotten the new firmware flashed and the drive seems to be doing much better, boot up times are much reduced.
 
Chrispy_
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Wed Jul 13, 2016 8:37 am

morphine wrote:
Chrispy_, you have 840 EVOs on the pic, which got the firmware fix ages ago. I thought your issue was with regular 840s?


Hah, my issue is with all of the TLC 840 series. The firmware fix is no good to us with sysprepped images, since the broken drives require the Magician utility to update. We have too much varying hardware to add all the individual utilities to the system images, so they run with nothing outside of the WHQL drivers from Windows update.

For EVERYTHING ELSE across 2000+ computers that works fine. Only Samsung require the software to un-break their broken product and it's more cost effective for us to just scrap the drive and replace with another one. 480GB drives are dirt cheap now, so we're just replacing all the 120 and 128GB models now regardless of whether they're broken Samsungs or not.

Here are today's victims. We must be getting down to less than 50x 840-series left in the offices by now....

Image
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morphine
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Wed Jul 13, 2016 5:49 pm

Chrispy_ wrote:
Hah, my issue is with all of the TLC 840 series. The firmware fix is no good to us with sysprepped images, since the broken drives require the Magician utility to update.

Not following here (honest question, not doubting you). Can't you just plug in the drives to a specific box (say, six at a time) and update the firmware on all of them?
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Firestarter
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Wed Jul 13, 2016 6:22 pm

morphine wrote:
Chrispy_ wrote:
Hah, my issue is with all of the TLC 840 series. The firmware fix is no good to us with sysprepped images, since the broken drives require the Magician utility to update.

Not following here (honest question, not doubting you). Can't you just plug in the drives to a specific box (say, six at a time) and update the firmware on all of them?

I'm no expert, but that sounds like a lot more trouble than just pushing an WHQL package to all affected machines and letting them deal with it themselves
 
Arvald
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Thu Jul 14, 2016 7:47 am

Firestarter wrote:
morphine wrote:
Chrispy_ wrote:
Hah, my issue is with all of the TLC 840 series. The firmware fix is no good to us with sysprepped images, since the broken drives require the Magician utility to update.

Not following here (honest question, not doubting you). Can't you just plug in the drives to a specific box (say, six at a time) and update the firmware on all of them?

I'm no expert, but that sounds like a lot more trouble than just pushing an WHQL package to all affected machines and letting them deal with it themselves

In a corporate environment Chrispy is right.
Trying to install Magician on more than 20 computers, cheaper to replace.
 
Chrispy_
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Thu Jul 14, 2016 9:41 am

We published Diskfresh with a quarterly schedule to the affected workstations as a band-aid until the drives were due for replacement.

Arvald gets it; It's not that installing a utility is difficult, it's that in a corporate environment everything has to be hardware-agnostic, since you never have the luxury of tailoring an OS to a specific box. You tailor the OS to a specific user group and then push that out to a variety of hardware types across a company. Diskfresh is hardware agnostic, Samsung Magician is not.

Even if we went to the effort of installing Magician on those machines, within a month or two it would be removed as it was replaced by an updated software deployment. For the EVOs that would solve the problem, as the new firmware would be applied. For the Vanilla 840's we'd be stuffed again, since they rely on the regular oftware-based page refresh like the EVOs did before Samsung finally fixed it in firmware (2 years, I might add!)

Diskfresh is an almost effortless band-aid by comparison, and the 120GB drives are now reaching the end of their useful lives (capacity limitations, not TLC NAND wear) and due for retirement.
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morphine
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Thu Jul 14, 2016 6:39 pm

Oh okay. Keep calm and replace the 120GB drives.
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emphy
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Re: Samsung 840 & 840 EVO Bug

Mon Oct 10, 2016 6:26 am

Anyone else not surprised at the way Samsung is botching their note 7 situation? The parallels with the way they handled the ssd bug are rather amazing, down to the first 'fix' not fixing anything.
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