Avoid Samsung SSD at all cost

[DVT80111]

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techreport.com

 

[tkbslc]

It would seem you didn't read the words and just misinterpreted the graph.

The 840 Series reported its first reallocated sectors after 100TB of writes, and it's been burning through flash steadily ever since. After 500TB of writes, the 840 Series is up to 1722 reallocated sectors. Meanwhile, the other SSDs have only a handful of flash failures between them. And two of the drives, the Neutron GTX and the HyperX 3K being tested with compressible data, haven't logged a single reallocated sector.

Samsung won't confirm the size of the 840 Series' sectors, but we're pretty sure it's 1.5MB. That means the drive has lost 2.5GB of its total flash capacity already. Fortunately, those flash failures haven't affected the amount of user-accessible capacity. The 840 Series has extra overprovisioned spare area specifically to offset the lower endurance of its TLC NAND. So far, at least, those flash reserves seem to be sufficient.

Although the 840 Series is clearly in worse shape than the competition, these results need to be put into context. 500TB works out to 140GB of writes per day for 10 years. That's an insane amount even for power users, and it far exceeds the endurance specifications of our candidates. The HyperX 3K, which has the most generous endurance rating of the bunch, is guaranteed for 192TB of writes.

So basically it's not an issue because they over provision the space by a fair margin to account for endurance rating. It's a lot of sectors on a graph, but it only works out to 2.5GB of actual space. Also, it was only ONE of the Samsung models and only after 100TB of writes, which would be almost 60GB of writes daily for 5 years of use. That's like formatting your drive and re- installing everything including the OS every single day for 5 years. And even then, you just barely start into the excess flash Samsung has included to maintain endurance. So you've totally panicked without understanding what is going on.

 

[teseg]

There are very few posts of Samsung 840 Pro endurance testing on the web but lots on the Samsung 840, the later being TLC so estimated to be much less durable(1K-1.5K cycles) than the MLC Pro version (3K+ cycles). Nonetheless, there is plenty of data that indicates that under heavy use of 50GB - 75GB writes per day a 256GB 840 Pro should last well over 10 years and under typical use should last 20 - 60 years. Many other things will cause it to break before than.

http://www.vojcik.net/samsung-ssd-840-endurance-destruct-test/

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand

http://ssdendurancetest.com/ssd-endurance-test-report/Samsung-840-EVO-120?rdt

Of, course the bigger the drive, the longer it will last (relative to write cycles).

 

[Manzur Fahim]

Interesting.

Except I am using Samsung 840 SSDs for over a year now in my desktop and laptop without any issues, or even any SMART flag. It is just probably their copy of SSD.

 

[gs85739az]

Most Samsung SSD's will still be working fine, years after ALL the other parts to your PC have died!

 

[Austinian]

Interesting.

Except I am using Samsung 840 SSDs for over a year now in my desktop and laptop without any issues, or even any SMART flag. It is just probably their copy of SSD.

The workload those SSD's were subjected to was far beyond what the individual user is likely to demand.

My 840 Pro and two 830 SSD's have been perfect, but under that load I wouldn't have been surprised if they all gave up!

 

[BG454]

Most Samsung SSD's will still be working fine, years after ALL the other parts to your PC have died!

Plus how long would have a "conventional" magnetic hard drive have lasted under the same test conditions?

 

[Pictus]

It is more complicated...

 

[kelpdiver]

Most Samsung SSD's will still be working fine, years after ALL the other parts to your PC have died!

Plus how long would have a "conventional" magnetic hard drive have lasted under the same test conditions?

Probably better. Their problem is not with the write activity, just that they have a lot of mechanical parts. Most of us have DVRs. The first few generations of Tivos never stopped writing. For a single tuner, this could be 50gbs/day, and dual ones 100. (The more recent models like my DTV one has 5 tuners, but it doesn't record in standby mode when there's nothing scheduled, so the write rate is down substantially, even with HD).

 

[teseg]

FYI. To further improve Samsung Pro and EVO SSD durability make sure to enable RAPID through Samsung Magician.

http://www.thessdreview.com/daily-n...e-1gbs-speeds-samsung-magician-free-download/

My system is now on fire with speed.

 

[Michael Firstlight]

Man, someone needs to learn to read - that or he/she is troll!

 

[soloryb]

I have the same Geni 5 tuner setup that you have, with the addition of a mini client box. DTV's site claimed that it would record in standby mode - with nothing scheduled - on whatever channel it was previously on. This is so you could tune in late and roll back to the beginning of a show. The old DVR system they had did this just fine. This new system does it sometimes and not other times. DTV is aware of the glitch but they haven't fixed it yet. BTW, I've been heavily using DTV's DVR recorders for many years and have yet to see a drive failure. Now, if they only would go to SSD..............

soloryb

Most Samsung SSD's will still be working fine, years after ALL the other parts to your PC have died!

Plus how long would have a "conventional" magnetic hard drive have lasted under the same test conditions?

Probably better. Their problem is not with the write activity, just that they have a lot of mechanical parts. Most of us have DVRs. The first few generations of Tivos never stopped writing. For a single tuner, this could be 50gbs/day, and dual ones 100. (The more recent models like my DTV one has 5 tuners, but it doesn't record in standby mode when there's nothing scheduled, so the write rate is down substantially, even with HD).

 

[kelpdiver]

BTW, I've been heavily using DTV's DVR recorders for many years and have yet to see a drive failure. Now, if they only would go to SSD..............

I've seen drives getting increasingly glitchy, suggesting bad sectors. One was bad enough to require replacement. But there's no doubt these get a much greater beating than the typical home PC, or even the atypical one.

SSDs - I don't see them working out too well here unless you greatly overprovision the storage capacity. Even these days, but especially years back, people tended to fill up their drives with shows. Many would feel the need to catch up to flush out the old, others would more sensibly just delete them, but commonly you'd be nearly full. With Tivo and others filling spare space with suggestions, you'd always been running nearly full. The consequence of this would be that the live buffer would be overwriting the same sectors over and over. Terrible for SSD.

For it to work on SSD, I think you have to give up live buffer when the TV isn't on, and make sure the wear leveling is solid. If so, I think the 1TB drives have enough endurance to be attractive to those who want a quiet or tiny DVR.

But what we may move to instead is what I think some of them are already trying to do: stream all of the common popular stuff on their side, and only record locally the outliers. With that sort of model, you can stick it in the TV just like the netflix app, and a small 2.5" drive can do the local storage. Obviously you're now network dependent. And no OTA recordings, though I already lost that two models ago with DTV.

 

[soloryb]

I've seen drives getting increasingly glitchy, suggesting bad sectors. One was bad enough to require replacement. But there's no doubt these get a much greater beating than the typical home PC, or even the atypical one.

SSDs - I don't see them working out too well here unless you greatly overprovision the storage capacity. Even these days, but especially years back, people tended to fill up their drives with shows. Many would feel the need to catch up to flush out the old, others would more sensibly just delete them, but commonly you'd be nearly full. With Tivo and others filling spare space with suggestions, you'd always been running nearly full. The consequence of this would be that the live buffer would be overwriting the same sectors over and over. Terrible for SSD.

For it to work on SSD, I think you have to give up live buffer when the TV isn't on, and make sure the wear leveling is solid. If so, I think the 1TB drives have enough endurance to be attractive to those who want a quiet or tiny DVR.

But what we may move to instead is what I think some of them are already trying to do: stream all of the common popular stuff on their side, and only record locally the outliers. With that sort of model, you can stick it in the TV just like the netflix app, and a small 2.5" drive can do the local storage. Obviously you're now network dependent. And no OTA recordings, though I already lost that two models ago with DTV.

I regularly purge the 1-TB DTV drive and try not to fill it more than 50%. If they could employ a large enough SSD (I'm thinking future) that would sure speed access up considerably. I don't really need that live buffer so I'd be willing to give it up. Or, maybe they can stick an extra spinner in just for that feature?

Unfortunately I'm currently stuck with Fairpoint DSL which sucks at its best (downloads at about 3-4 megabits/sec.)

soloryb

 

[teseg]

I've had 2 DTV/TIVO HDDs fail on me over 10 years (making funny grinding sounds and all). DTV is responsive in sending a replacement for $20.

Disclaimer: I have 4 operating in my house.

 

[soloryb]

I've had 2 DTV/TIVO HDDs fail on me over 10 years (making funny grinding sounds and all). DTV is responsive in sending a replacement for $20.

Disclaimer: I have 4 operating in my house.

I can see your house has become a de facto testbed for DTV DVR

I've been lucky so far.

Why not invest in DTV's insurance? I have it and it covers every device in my possession capable of showing DTV content. That includes all of my receivers, wiring, hardware as well as all of my computers and tablets. It even covers my Kindle reader but not any iPhones, etc. There's a $50 deductible (if you need a repair) and a $20/monthly fee, but it becomes worth it when you consider that you have permanent device insurance and don't have to worry about breakdowns and failures. They also provide no-charge telephone trouble shooting for everything and will replace a device if they can't repair it - with a current equivalent or better - no device age limits. They'll even sent out a tech to your house for large things like towers and TVs. Check it out on DTV's site, or give them a call. It's really a nice deal.

soloryb

 

[kelpdiver]

I've had 2 DTV/TIVO HDDs fail on me over 10 years (making funny grinding sounds and all). DTV is responsive in sending a replacement for $20.

Disclaimer: I have 4 operating in my house.

Why not invest in DTV's insurance? I have it and it covers every device in my possession capable of showing DTV content. That includes all of my receivers, wiring, hardware as well as all of my computers and tablets. It even covers my Kindle reader but not any iPhones, etc. There's a $50 deductible (if you need a repair) and a $20/monthly fee, but it becomes worth it when you consider that you have permanent device insurance and don't have to worry about breakdowns and failures.

How is that worth it? 10 years at $20/month + $50 x 2 incidents equals $2500. He paid $40. That is some of the worst, unnecessary insurance I've ever heard of.

 

[soloryb]

The DTV insurance covers all computers, and monitors - everything in them and almost every peripheral attached to them. That means all HDD, SDD, motherboards, power supplies, processors, RAM, etc. It covers all tablets. It covers all the components of a home network. Check out what the insurance cost is for a single desktop or laptop and you can understand the bargain.

I have a great deal of computer hardware, TVs and tablets - and I've experienced a number of expensive (a lot more than $40) component and device failures of all kinds in the past - to warrant such coverage.

The failure rate of all electronics is %100. If you own enough gadgets, you'll eventually get expensively stung.

soloryb

I've had 2 DTV/TIVO HDDs fail on me over 10 years (making funny grinding sounds and all). DTV is responsive in sending a replacement for $20.

Disclaimer: I have 4 operating in my house.

Why not invest in DTV's insurance? I have it and it covers every device in my possession capable of showing DTV content. That includes all of my receivers, wiring, hardware as well as all of my computers and tablets. It even covers my Kindle reader but not any iPhones, etc. There's a $50 deductible (if you need a repair) and a $20/monthly fee, but it becomes worth it when you consider that you have permanent device insurance and don't have to worry about breakdowns and failures.

How is that worth it? 10 years at $20/month + $50 x 2 incidents equals $2500. He paid $40. That is some of the worst, unnecessary insurance I've ever heard of.

 

[Sean Nelson]

The failure rate of all electronics is %100.

Over past 30 years I'd say my experience with electronics is that they have a failure rate of closer to something like 10%. The rest just get obsolete and discarded or handed down to other people. And that includes electromechanical devices such as hard drives, VCRs, etc. My in-laws are still using the first TV set I bought way back in 1978.

Most electronic devices fail within the first year or two, which is covered by the manufacturer's warranty and the extended warranty provided by my Visa card. Any additional warranty or insurance (beyond a standard household policy) is a waste of money, IMHO.

 

[williamio]

I do have a couple Samsung SSD Evo 840 at work, they seem to be working just fine so far. About 2 months from now.

@W