From what I can remember, the 990 had issues upon release so a manual firmware update was needed to fix the issues. Sad to see that there's still issues with them.
When I built my new DAW/Gaming PC last year I didn't want to buy a 4 TB M2 drive because in case of failure this is too much data lost, so I prefered buying 4 disks of 1 TB and each disk has his own purpose. I bought Crucial P3 plus Gen 4 (1 TB) for the OS and 3 Crucial MX500 for the datas/games I have been very happy for the moment.
Very interesting! i'm running two 980PRO's in my machine for C and D drives. Just 1TB drives and no problems with them at all, after 3 years since I built it.
Similar situation. I have two 1TB 980 Pros in separate PCs with no problems in 2 different PCs, one an Asrock AM4 motherboard and the other an Intel Nuc Extreme 11. No problems but I do remember them having similar problems on release which would be fixed with a firmware update. I run Linux on both and was able to update the firmware easily.
You are just a GeeK's GEEK their Canard Man...... An Electronic Genius in my approximation & the humble nature you sport will have you saying you don't know too much but none of really know much. But you are a one man wrecking crew in the way you move thru life. It's rather impressive from where I sit. Guess that's why I subb'd up..... peace man & GB ALL
Bummer on your SSD issues. On the other hand, I also upgraded to Cubase 14, but I just have the Elements version. For me it's perfectly adequate though. Really enjoy using it.
Thanks for the tipo! My frist thought was heat as well. But as you did everything you could to mitigate the heat, and it made no difference, that is definitely a problem with the drive componants. I, too, am a fan of Samsung SSDs, but they are on the expensive side, and I find comparable drives by other manufacturers at better prices, such as the WD drive you mention.
I have Samsung ssd's and luckily no problems. But i don't buy any Samsung products anymore. They had great customer service but lately the don't honour anything anymore. They even cut tv screens to not have to pay or repair the tv
I use Macrium as well, it's awesome and I do the exact same backup sequence procedures you do. I'm an IT guy and musician too. MOST people are not as through as you and me.
Wow good to know, thanks for your analysis and sorry for your troubles! Similar to you, I'm using Samsung SSDs exclusively, but my newest m.2 types are only 970 and 980 models and they work flawlessly since many years (Ryzen and Intel based machines). Love your channel and looking forward to every new video. Cheers, Mike
This is a well know issue and all it was is bad firmware that was falsely reporting bad sectors when in fact the drive is just fine. Samsung Magician software go to the update tab and check for new Firmware. Do not know if this is your issue, but it has been fixed for some time now if you still own the drive that is. As long as you can get the drive to show up you can apply the fix and all will be fine. I do not know what you can do if it will not even show up. JayzTwoCents did a good video about this very issue and worth the watch.
@@ScottsSynthStuff Sorry about that. I had the same problem (more or less) as the drive would go in to read only mode which the OS will not deal with as it's writing all the time (sort of a limp mode for the SSD) but this was on a 980 pro and not the 990, but both were affected. Just a shot in the dark.
2 years ago I bought a Samsung 1TB 870 EVO. After a half a year of usage, my PC would start to intermittently crash. Reason: The fairly new Samsung drive had bad blocks. I checked the internet if this was a known problem. It was. The internet was full of complaints from users facing similar issues. That was when I started to avoid Samsung drives. Recently I was thinking to maybe return to Samsung again as I was thinking they may have fixed the problem. But this video tells me to continue avoiding Samsung drives. And now it will be for a long time to come. And not only for drives, because if a company fails so hard, then it must be due to company internal issues that go way beyond the product itself.
I got 2 Samsung SSD Drives in one of my systems but luckily not the same number. They have been running for about a year now so fingers crossed it won't happen. You are way more patient that me Scott by sticking the same drive back in 4-5 times :D I use WD drives as well so good choice there.
Oooooo, reducing the price ! Discount garbage is still garbage. P.S. thanks so, so much for telling us about this !! Scott, you just saved a lot of people from this defective product and the grief it inflicts. 'Like'd and 'Subscribed'.
I can vouch for the WD drives. I get the ones with built on hear sync. Have 2 of them and they've performed great and still kicking. I really appreciate this video. We need to know about hardware that repeatedly fails like this.
I'm a computer guy that is also a musician and have built many DAWs. Been running 3 990 Pro m.2 drives, 2 4tb and 1 2tb, for a couple years now in my daily driver (not my DAW), not a single issue. I too use Macrium Reflect to make backups once a week. Make sure you're checking that the firmware has been updated as one of the earlier firmware versions was indeed causing issues. My first 990 Pro was from the faulty time period, but a firmware update later and she's still chugging along fast as ever. Check the dates on those posts you're referencing about failures, quite possible they're all from the time of the faulty firmware. It's also possible to buy from a vendor where stock has been sitting for a while that might still have the old firmware. Again, it's fine as long as you update the firmware. So, I'd say no, your blanket "guaranteed failure" is not accurate. I'd be gun shy too after all those issues though.
@@ScottsSynthStuff Interesting. Did you happen to try them out in another PC to see if they were recognized? Or in an m.2 enclosure. I ask wondering if it's an incompatibility issue with that particular motherboard. It seems odd that you'd have such extremely bad luck with these drives. I've yet to have any m.2 NVME drive fail, and I've built countless PCs with them including many 990 Pros. I've had some brands that are god awful slow, but not fail. Again, I don't blame you for moving on to another brand, I'd definitely do the same in your situation.
Thanks for sharing as I'm in the market for a new ssd/m2. I had a nice Sabrent Rocket m2 drive suddenly fail after only about a year of average use. I'm hesitant to buy larger drives anymore as they all eventually die. I've usually had great luck with Samsungs but i might avoid this particular model.
I also use Samsung NVME SSDs, but 970, 980 and 980 Pro since they came out. No 990. All work fine after a few years. Obviously the 990 series is not the quality you expected. So you just got unlucky in choosing your SSD. I hope you have better luck with your new WD SSD. But remember that WD is not really different from others and things can go wrong with their parts too.
Fingers crossed, but the 2 TB 990 Pro in my Ryzen 9 3950X system runs without any problem. It's currently at 29°C, but it's embedded within the cooling mechanism of the ASRock motherboard. Next to it is a 2 TB 990 EVO, currently at 35°C (no heatsink), which is meant to replace a 2.5 inch 1 TB 850 Pro, running at 24°C. Just yesterday, I copied around 750 GB from the EVO to the Pro and back, after deciding that 64 KB blocks don't make a lot of sense, and reformatting it with 4 KB blocks. All in all, it took around two, two-and-a-half hours. Still, it's good to know that these drives have problems. Luckily it didn't lead to catastrophic data loss for you.
You're not using Windows 11 are you? There are issues with BSOD's with WD nVme drives. Google Windows 11 WD Drives. I myself had tonnes of issues with BSOD's Windows 11 is riddled with bugs Grab yourself Windows 10 LTS IoT enterprise. I have. Such an improvement.
They reason is that WD drives use RAM in the system than having ram in the SSD. Similar with old IGPUs that use system ram than dedicated GPUs with have ram onboard. but the actual cause for BSOD is either HW issue with your system, or Windows issue. Either way WD SSD are inferior compared to Samsung Pro line (besides the defective 990 series)
@@dfloper Eh, based on reviewers who have taken the stickers off from sn850x, there is 2gb of DRAM. Anyways based on benchmarks etc. I wouldn't call that inferior, or at least it is not significant. Especially when it is m.2
I have the WD Black SN850X, super happy with it, never heard a bad word about it. Fast, doesn't run too hot, I recommend it. Almost got a Samsung, glad I didn't. Both the 980 and 990 had issues on release where the SSD health would prematurely drop very rapidly, they worked that out with a firmware patch, but damage done couldn't be fixed. Never heard of this issue, but there are some serious issues with these drives for sure. Sad thing, Samsung is generally a very good brand.
I built my DAW PC earlier this year. I was looking at Samsung M.2 drives but wound up getting the Team Group M.2 drive. Thank god, I really dodged a bullet by the sounds of it.
Solid-state flash memory (SD cards or SSD drives) in general hasn't proven itself to be highly reliable. Older spinning magnetic hard disk drives in my experience have proven to be more reliable over time. Good job on keeping backups!
Wow. I work in storage so I know no drive manufacturer is perfect, but I would expect more from Samsung. Outright failure on pure read workload is pretty concerning. Temp was a good first guess but sounds like you've tested that. Could be a firmware issue, but that should be fixable and not fixed yet... NAND? I mean all SSDs have >0 bad cells, but to become unreadable? Jeez. As someone about to embark on my next build, glad I saw this vid. Might have to go back to mirroring the system drive.
Sorry to hear about your struggles with Samsung. I guess I've been fortunate to have never used any of that brand. But thanks for the heads up. There are pros and cons with all equipment. Defective materials in a bad batch run, who knows. I've been using Seagate storage external hard drives 1TB+ for a long time and never had any problems. All-flash arrays will probably replace hard drives at some point in the future.
I have 2Tb 990 Pro in my DAW partitioned into C and D drives containing about 1,8 Tb of data. Never had any problems using Macrium Reflect backup or otherwise.
Very strange! I used and use the evo 970 and 980 for the last 6 years with no issues what so ever. Maybe the 990 has a problem or you got a lemon one? Regarding Western digital I also have one for backup, They are cheaper but their lifespan is shorter, so I preferred to use them for backup compared to the Samsung which is a workhorse in terms of speed and write/delete circles. Thank you for the info, the more people report the more The accuracy of the reviews 👍
Interesting. I used to use Western Digital mechanical drives 20 yrs ago and they always failed, so I started using Maxtor which I never had a problem with. Now with SSD's maybe the game has changed. I do think there is a lot of voodoo with RAM and drive users. One guy swears by a brand and another says he's only had problems. I'm in the market for some new SSD's so I'll be taking this advice into consideration. Thanks!
I looked and mine is a 990 4TB I partioned as C and E a bit over a year ago when I received it. No issues yet, but I do upgrade the firmware with magician every time it says to do so. Now I am worried. edit: after reading some comments, I just thought of something that would be different (could be) is that I am still gen 3. If you are using Gen 5 that has notorious issues from what I read and so much so people fall back to gen 4 and take the speed hit (and less heat, but that is not the issue with your problem).
Your experience really sucks. Glad you did make the video. I have also been a regular Samsung SATA SSD user for years on various Macs and PCs; but, have not tread into NVMe territory, so this is a great heads up. I’ve looked into the WD Black drives and feel more confident in their technology. I have dealt with defective Samsung Large Flat Screen TVs before that have also been prone to failures. This has pushed Samsungs products off on a side plate for me. I don’t like the replacement with the same defective parts. Samsung EVO 990 Class Action Suit? It could very well happen with the volume of users that have suffered from this defect, especially over and over again. Leep your eyes peeled to Top Class Action Suites and other sources that help track lawsuits like this.
Sounds like the infamous Sandforce bug. The controller was the fastest and preferred by drive manufacturers due to benchmarks and good press, but it had a firmware bug which killed them after somewhere between a handful months and a couple years of use and which wasn't resolved very quickly or not sure if it was ever fully fixed or just partially. It was a contributor to bankruptcy of OCZ memory company. When re-initialised to factory condition, the drives would fail the same after the same amount of time, so the issue may have been with allocation/wear data handling not silicon degradation. During the same time, drives with Marvell controller were available too, and those run just fine, they still do. The lower benchmarks turned out to be of no consequence since after some real-world usage they'd degrade less than Sandforce.
Had the exact same problem w/ Crucial T700. This is a terrible issue to troubleshoot for a system drive because any logs you would normally get are not saved (bc the drive is already dead). The BSOD error message is only there for a microsecond so even if you happen to catch it in the act, you can't read the error code. It turned out that the T700 was too "fat" (it's a double-sided SSD) to fit in the m2 bay I was using. The drive was not making good contact, overheating frequently and probably disconnecting at the slightest vibration. I switched to a different bay with space for a thicker M2 AND a double-sided heatsink for good measure (heat spreader makes contact on both sides of the SSD) and the problems went away. Not to say this approach would fix the Samsung drive - I see that they have firmware problems of their own. Just throwing this out there in case anybody else has these issues and wants to try this as a fix.
Still running my almost 13 year old computer that i built with its original Samsung 830 SATA SSD without any problems and i have been spending way to much time on this computer. I guess they could make them then, maybe not anymore, the tech has of course changed a lot though.
I haven’t had any failures yet, but I have a few 2.5 inch Sata SSDs that are essentially worthless because the performance drops below that of a hard disk on sustained writes. I thought I had lost my laptop m.2 drive recently, but pulling it and reseating it fixed it.
Make sure you have Samsung Magician installed, and let it update the Samsung Firmware. There was a problem with the 990 Pro that a firmware update fixed. Anyway, I'm still using a 980 Pro NVMe because of all the complaints I hear about the 990 Pto NVMe.
I use this drive for 3 years now. This is a well known problem of this drives. It was delivered with old/bad firmware, but all you had/have to do is to update to the latest firmware. Take 2 minutes. If they are fail before the firmware update, they are finally dead.
If you keep CLONING ... you are ALSO CLONING the PROBLEM! ... it's may be a sector error that you are cloning or a Windows problem (Software) ... FORMAT and REINSTALL the System.
Even worse - Cubase 14 Pro isn't optimized for latest Intel Ultra 9 285K too. In fact it works even worse than with Ryzens because there are just cracks and glitches with latencies up to 512 samples. Studio One Pro (even v6) works just fine :)
I wonder if it's a 990pro 4tb problem, I'm running 4x 2tb 990 PROs for a year so far and apart from 1 needing a firmware update out of the box they've been flawless, I have one booting for daw and 1 for gaming/work etc and the other 2 for samples/projects, As an IT guy I have fitted loads of these and so far haven't had one fail, but they were all 2tb.
They are junk in the sense that they are not upgradable, and much more expensive than a custom PC. If you are lazy buy a mac, but it is best to put the effort and build an AMD system. It will be much better.
@ typical answer 🤣 ps: if it has a cycle of min 5 years with plenty of resources, with very stable hardware and os, no noize, no heat, why to bother, thats called evolution my friend ;)
I've got 870 SSDs (2 x 2TB) and 2 x 1TB NVMe (970 and 980) plus 2 x 2TB HDDs I backup to two external 7TB HDDS via R-Drive software That's a real bummer with those 990s. I hope it's not catching 😷
I've been running the 970 Evo Plus for about a year now with no problems. Noe i'm thinking of cloning it to Solidigm. They used to be Intel, but are supposed to be rock solid.
since your using only 800 of 1TB try a 2TB drive maybe something with that size spec? have you considered running RAID NVMe primary drives? help with downtime and performance thanks for this vid !! I bought a 1500 95SE and it seems quicker than my 88 1500. only paid $800, just needs windshield (have) tires, battery (got for 10$ from a guy that works at battery factory) and seat recovered. ❤🎉
Samsug SSDs have been poor for a while now,, there's been known issues on 970 Evo, 980 Pro, 870 Evo with rapid drive degradation and high failure rates. Stop buying them and use SK Hynix, WD, Crucial or Sabrent.
I got one of those drives and I updated the firmware when I first got it due to reports on the web, maybe lucky but I have not experienced any major issues with this Samsung model or any of their other ones for that matter. Touch wood it remains like that.
Cubase 14 Pro still isn't optimized for latest (7k and 9k) Ryzens. I'm getting 2x better cpu efficiency in Studio One testing Yamaha Montage M Expanded Softsynth Plugin
Maybe don’t run windows on it. It might not be a good OS drive. Running into something similar for Mac OS X but it’s not a bad sector thing it’s the installer not seeing the drive so I can’t install the OS at all to it. It’s a WD same series you showed i think. Still booting from Sandisk SATA SSD .
Sounds unlikely to be the hardware more so the storage.sys drivers badly coded causing any back up utility to unload driver when using any volume shadow copy utility. I use acronis or veeam app aware backup and never get any issues, but i only use samsung ssds externally. I use an asus rog strix motherboard with x3 nvme slots and use nvme drives for all volumes, OS, plugins,scratch recordings. 9 TB in total.
It's definitely a hardware design issue. Why would it work perfectly for three months, then start failing consistently? And SO many people are having this same problem with this drive.
Samsung quality has dropped significantly. I literally had a washing machine, stove, and refrigerator go out within 6 months of each other. They were less than 3 years old.
I have a Feeling that we are paying premium for Brand naming these days and not for Better Quality. That is the Reason why I have started to buy Lower priced products that work just as good without A Brand Tax 🤗 My favorite Brand has always Been Kingston when it comes to SSD and M.2 Drives and Ram and they have been rock solid for years in my PC.
I am in the AV industry and work in the IPTV environment for large venues and the amount of issues we have with Samsung TVs, soundbars, etc, would not recommend at all
Class action, LOL. I think you are overreacting a bit here. This problem is a common occurrence in the hi-tech electronics sector and it has always been like that. There are problematic batches / product lines that have double digit failure rates within 0-2 years of use. I have a completely different m2 ssd and have the same / similar issue as well as multiple other people did and have posted about it on the Internet. I am not a fan of the m2 socket, sometimes the problem might be connected to the ssd not sitting properly in the socket.
I don't understand that complaints about Samsung SSD's. I have three of them in two different computers, two gen 4's and one older gen 3. Thousands of hours on all of them, and never a problem. The gen 4's are in my video editing computer, and the gen 3 is in the HTPC on which I am writing this comment. It's a 970 EVO Plus 2TB, with 8,578 hours on it, 49TB written, and it reports 99% life left. Maybe the ones that are failing are not being properly cooled?
@@ScottsSynthStuff Haha sorry for being a smartass :D Personally I'm still on the 970 Evo 2 tb never had an issue. It's always bad if a brand that you trusted for years lets you down like that. I also used almost exclusively Samsung professionally as well
Don't panic, I'm running 4x 990pro 2tb and been fine for the last year, I've fitted loads of them and not one has failed, might be a 4tb problem, just make sure you have the latest firmware on it.
Common misconception - ask Louis Rossman, who has made a career of fixing dead Macs. The main difference is that when the hard drive fails in your Mac, it's permanently soldered to the main board, so you have to replace the entire computer. Obsolescence by design.
Apple Mac.... NEVER give you this trouble, plus, its midi AIC built in is GREAT. Here is a setup that works great: - "Samsung T7" 2TB for music production - MacStudio M2Max.... - Some things go straight into the iCloud drive and other straight into DropBox - For SSD, use CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) to clone the SSDs once a week (2 SSD Samsung T7 of 2TB for redundancy) -ONLY INCREMENTAL (no need to erode re-writing everything) - The T7 only has all the Music Libraries.... so it works super fine. - I have another T7 setup 4 TB for Video files.... it is another arrangement that only needs another USB-C Port on the Mac. So... it's 1TB for the MacStudio, and 4+2 TB for SSD storage connected at all times, flawlessly. (knock on wood!!!) Cheers, mate! 👍
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Tom's Hardware made a news about this : Samsung 990 Pro SSDs Report Rapid Health Degradation on January 23, 2023.
They were never fixed.
agreed. Have used my WD Black 1TB for two years now no problems. Glad you got your system back up and running.
That's what I use
WD black is the way to go.
I used mine maybe the same or more time and now is has been passed on to another PC.
From what I can remember, the 990 had issues upon release so a manual firmware update was needed to fix the issues. Sad to see that there's still issues with them.
After 1 drive fail i would already jump onto a different brand. Esp when the internet is complaining about failures. Thats just what you should do.
When I built my new DAW/Gaming PC last year I didn't want to buy a 4 TB M2 drive because in case of failure this is too much data lost, so I prefered buying 4 disks of 1 TB and each disk has his own purpose. I bought Crucial P3 plus Gen 4 (1 TB) for the OS and 3 Crucial MX500 for the datas/games I have been very happy for the moment.
I think as a gaming PC it's ok to install games and other unimportant data so long as game files and user files are separate.
Very interesting! i'm running two 980PRO's in my machine for C and D drives. Just 1TB drives and no problems with them at all, after 3 years since I built it.
Similar situation. I have two 1TB 980 Pros in separate PCs with no problems in 2 different PCs, one an Asrock AM4 motherboard and the other an Intel Nuc Extreme 11. No problems but I do remember them having similar problems on release which would be fixed with a firmware update. I run Linux on both and was able to update the firmware easily.
You are just a GeeK's GEEK their Canard Man...... An Electronic Genius in my approximation & the humble nature you sport
will have you saying you don't know too much but none of really know much. But you are a one man wrecking crew in the
way you move thru life. It's rather impressive from where I sit. Guess that's why I subb'd up..... peace man & GB ALL
Bummer on your SSD issues. On the other hand, I also upgraded to Cubase 14, but I just have the Elements version. For me it's perfectly adequate though. Really enjoy using it.
Thanks for the tipo! My frist thought was heat as well. But as you did everything you could to mitigate the heat, and it made no difference, that is definitely a problem with the drive componants. I, too, am a fan of Samsung SSDs, but they are on the expensive side, and I find comparable drives by other manufacturers at better prices, such as the WD drive you mention.
LG washing machines and driers are similar. Koreans don't acknowledge manufacturing defects.
Similar issues with the batteries in Kia and Huyndai. EV's.
I have Samsung ssd's and luckily no problems. But i don't buy any Samsung products anymore. They had great customer service but lately the don't honour anything anymore. They even cut tv screens to not have to pay or repair the tv
I use Macrium as well, it's awesome and I do the exact same backup sequence procedures you do. I'm an IT guy and musician too. MOST people are not as through as you and me.
Wow good to know, thanks for your analysis and sorry for your troubles! Similar to you, I'm using Samsung SSDs exclusively, but my newest m.2 types are only 970 and 980 models and they work flawlessly since many years (Ryzen and Intel based machines).
Love your channel and looking forward to every new video. Cheers, Mike
This is a well know issue and all it was is bad firmware that was falsely reporting bad sectors when in fact the drive is just fine. Samsung Magician software go to the update tab and check for new Firmware. Do not know if this is your issue, but it has been fixed for some time now if you still own the drive that is. As long as you can get the drive to show up you can apply the fix and all will be fine. I do not know what you can do if it will not even show up. JayzTwoCents did a good video about this very issue and worth the watch.
No, I was running the latest firmware on all the drives that failed.
@@ScottsSynthStuff Sorry about that. I had the same problem (more or less) as the drive would go in to read only mode which the OS will not deal with as it's writing all the time (sort of a limp mode for the SSD) but this was on a 980 pro and not the 990, but both were affected. Just a shot in the dark.
2 years ago I bought a Samsung 1TB 870 EVO. After a half a year of usage, my PC would start to intermittently crash. Reason: The fairly new Samsung drive had bad blocks. I checked the internet if this was a known problem. It was. The internet was full of complaints from users facing similar issues. That was when I started to avoid Samsung drives.
Recently I was thinking to maybe return to Samsung again as I was thinking they may have fixed the problem. But this video tells me to continue avoiding Samsung drives. And now it will be for a long time to come. And not only for drives, because if a company fails so hard, then it must be due to company internal issues that go way beyond the product itself.
I got 2 Samsung SSD Drives in one of my systems but luckily not the same number. They have been running for about a year now so fingers crossed it won't happen. You are way more patient that me Scott by sticking the same drive back in 4-5 times :D I use WD drives as well so good choice there.
Very good to know. Thank you. It isn't a direct synth topic but I think it is safe to say many of us have DAW/Multimedia PCs.
Oooooo, reducing the price !
Discount garbage is still garbage.
P.S. thanks so, so much for telling us about this !!
Scott, you just saved a lot of people from this defective product and the grief it inflicts.
'Like'd and 'Subscribed'.
I just about ready to buy one. Thanks for the heads up!
Cubase 14 is the coolest thing ever. I love how it takes from Logic and Bitwig and makes it it's own thing
Thanks for this warning. I was on the point to buy one because i have never a problem with Samsung SSDs.
Scary!!! My main drive is a Samsung M2 Evo plus. It's been flawless since 2020.
I can vouch for the WD drives. I get the ones with built on hear sync. Have 2 of them and they've performed great and still kicking. I really appreciate this video. We need to know about hardware that repeatedly fails like this.
I'm a computer guy that is also a musician and have built many DAWs. Been running 3 990 Pro m.2 drives, 2 4tb and 1 2tb, for a couple years now in my daily driver (not my DAW), not a single issue. I too use Macrium Reflect to make backups once a week. Make sure you're checking that the firmware has been updated as one of the earlier firmware versions was indeed causing issues. My first 990 Pro was from the faulty time period, but a firmware update later and she's still chugging along fast as ever. Check the dates on those posts you're referencing about failures, quite possible they're all from the time of the faulty firmware. It's also possible to buy from a vendor where stock has been sitting for a while that might still have the old firmware. Again, it's fine as long as you update the firmware. So, I'd say no, your blanket "guaranteed failure" is not accurate. I'd be gun shy too after all those issues though.
All of the drives that failed were running the latest firmware, unfortunately.
@@ScottsSynthStuff Interesting. Did you happen to try them out in another PC to see if they were recognized? Or in an m.2 enclosure. I ask wondering if it's an incompatibility issue with that particular motherboard. It seems odd that you'd have such extremely bad luck with these drives. I've yet to have any m.2 NVME drive fail, and I've built countless PCs with them including many 990 Pros. I've had some brands that are god awful slow, but not fail. Again, I don't blame you for moving on to another brand, I'd definitely do the same in your situation.
Thanks for sharing as I'm in the market for a new ssd/m2. I had a nice Sabrent Rocket m2 drive suddenly fail after only about a year of average use. I'm hesitant to buy larger drives anymore as they all eventually die. I've usually had great luck with Samsungs but i might avoid this particular model.
I also use Samsung NVME SSDs, but 970, 980 and 980 Pro since they came out. No 990. All work fine after a few years.
Obviously the 990 series is not the quality you expected.
So you just got unlucky in choosing your SSD.
I hope you have better luck with your new WD SSD.
But remember that WD is not really different from others and things can go wrong with their parts too.
Fingers crossed, but the 2 TB 990 Pro in my Ryzen 9 3950X system runs without any problem. It's currently at 29°C, but it's embedded within the cooling mechanism of the ASRock motherboard. Next to it is a 2 TB 990 EVO, currently at 35°C (no heatsink), which is meant to replace a 2.5 inch 1 TB 850 Pro, running at 24°C.
Just yesterday, I copied around 750 GB from the EVO to the Pro and back, after deciding that 64 KB blocks don't make a lot of sense, and reformatting it with 4 KB blocks. All in all, it took around two, two-and-a-half hours.
Still, it's good to know that these drives have problems. Luckily it didn't lead to catastrophic data loss for you.
what is your display? kinda jealous seeing so much daw fit on screen :D
You're not using Windows 11 are you?
There are issues with BSOD's with WD nVme drives.
Google Windows 11 WD Drives.
I myself had tonnes of issues with BSOD's
Windows 11 is riddled with bugs
Grab yourself Windows 10 LTS IoT enterprise.
I have.
Such an improvement.
main reason to go dawless
Windows 11 and WD NVME and zero problems for me
They reason is that WD drives use RAM in the system than having ram in the SSD. Similar with old IGPUs that use system ram than dedicated GPUs with have ram onboard. but the actual cause for BSOD is either HW issue with your system, or Windows issue. Either way WD SSD are inferior compared to Samsung Pro line (besides the defective 990 series)
@@dfloper Eh, based on reviewers who have taken the stickers off from sn850x, there is 2gb of DRAM. Anyways based on benchmarks etc. I wouldn't call that inferior, or at least it is not significant. Especially when it is m.2
I have the WD Black SN850X, super happy with it, never heard a bad word about it. Fast, doesn't run too hot, I recommend it.
Almost got a Samsung, glad I didn't. Both the 980 and 990 had issues on release where the SSD health would prematurely drop very rapidly, they worked that out with a firmware patch, but damage done couldn't be fixed. Never heard of this issue, but there are some serious issues with these drives for sure. Sad thing, Samsung is generally a very good brand.
That's weird, I have multiple Samsung SSDs for a long time, and have never ever experienced a failure. Also use WD Blue Nvme and Intel Nvme drives.
Wouldn’t corrupt software be more likely rather than a failed drive?
I built my DAW PC earlier this year. I was looking at Samsung M.2 drives but wound up getting the Team Group M.2 drive. Thank god, I really dodged a bullet by the sounds of it.
Solid-state flash memory (SD cards or SSD drives) in general hasn't proven itself to be highly reliable. Older spinning magnetic hard disk drives in my experience have proven to be more reliable over time. Good job on keeping backups!
Wow. I work in storage so I know no drive manufacturer is perfect, but I would expect more from Samsung. Outright failure on pure read workload is pretty concerning. Temp was a good first guess but sounds like you've tested that. Could be a firmware issue, but that should be fixable and not fixed yet... NAND? I mean all SSDs have >0 bad cells, but to become unreadable? Jeez.
As someone about to embark on my next build, glad I saw this vid. Might have to go back to mirroring the system drive.
After the 2nd one went bad I would have said “see ya!” to those drives. I learned decades ago to avoid Samsung products.
Sorry to hear about your struggles with Samsung. I guess I've been fortunate to have never used any of that brand. But thanks for the heads up. There are pros and cons with all equipment. Defective materials in a bad batch run, who knows. I've been using Seagate storage external hard drives 1TB+ for a long time and never had any problems. All-flash arrays will probably replace hard drives at some point in the future.
I have 2Tb 990 Pro in my DAW partitioned into C and D drives containing about 1,8 Tb of data. Never had any problems using Macrium Reflect backup or otherwise.
Very strange!
I used and use the evo 970 and 980 for the last 6 years with no issues what so ever. Maybe the 990 has a problem or you got a lemon one?
Regarding Western digital I also have one for backup, They are cheaper but their lifespan is shorter, so I preferred to use them for backup compared to the Samsung which is a workhorse in terms of speed and write/delete circles.
Thank you for the info, the more people report the more The accuracy of the reviews 👍
- Good to know about these drives.
Interesting. I used to use Western Digital mechanical drives 20 yrs ago and they always failed, so I started using Maxtor which I never had a problem with. Now with SSD's maybe the game has changed. I do think there is a lot of voodoo with RAM and drive users. One guy swears by a brand and another says he's only had problems. I'm in the market for some new SSD's so I'll be taking this advice into consideration. Thanks!
I looked and mine is a 990 4TB I partioned as C and E a bit over a year ago when I received it. No issues yet, but I do upgrade the firmware with magician every time it says to do so. Now I am worried. edit: after reading some comments, I just thought of something that would be different (could be) is that I am still gen 3. If you are using Gen 5 that has notorious issues from what I read and so much so people fall back to gen 4 and take the speed hit (and less heat, but that is not the issue with your problem).
Your experience really sucks. Glad you did make the video. I have also been a regular Samsung SATA SSD user for years on various Macs and PCs; but, have not tread into NVMe territory, so this is a great heads up. I’ve looked into the WD Black drives and feel more confident in their technology. I have dealt with defective Samsung Large Flat Screen TVs before that have also been prone to failures. This has pushed Samsungs products off on a side plate for me. I don’t like the replacement with the same defective parts.
Samsung EVO 990 Class Action Suit? It could very well happen with the volume of users that have suffered from this defect, especially over and over again. Leep your eyes peeled to Top Class Action Suites and other sources that help track lawsuits like this.
In the early days of SSD ATA drives I had three ones fail one me, all different brands.
Now years without any issues
Sounds like the infamous Sandforce bug. The controller was the fastest and preferred by drive manufacturers due to benchmarks and good press, but it had a firmware bug which killed them after somewhere between a handful months and a couple years of use and which wasn't resolved very quickly or not sure if it was ever fully fixed or just partially. It was a contributor to bankruptcy of OCZ memory company.
When re-initialised to factory condition, the drives would fail the same after the same amount of time, so the issue may have been with allocation/wear data handling not silicon degradation.
During the same time, drives with Marvell controller were available too, and those run just fine, they still do. The lower benchmarks turned out to be of no consequence since after some real-world usage they'd degrade less than Sandforce.
The only way I would buy an Intel/AMD system again would be if Scott was my neighbour ❤😂 that’s crazy Scott, thanks for sharing!
Dom, you have a Massive weapon now...lol, but i really still love my 7950X with my X670 and 128Gb Ram...:)
@ of course! I am joking hahaha
Had the exact same problem w/ Crucial T700. This is a terrible issue to troubleshoot for a system drive because any logs you would normally get are not saved (bc the drive is already dead). The BSOD error message is only there for a microsecond so even if you happen to catch it in the act, you can't read the error code.
It turned out that the T700 was too "fat" (it's a double-sided SSD) to fit in the m2 bay I was using. The drive was not making good contact, overheating frequently and probably disconnecting at the slightest vibration. I switched to a different bay with space for a thicker M2 AND a double-sided heatsink for good measure (heat spreader makes contact on both sides of the SSD) and the problems went away.
Not to say this approach would fix the Samsung drive - I see that they have firmware problems of their own. Just throwing this out there in case anybody else has these issues and wants to try this as a fix.
As first action, right after formatting, update the Samsung SSD's firmware using the Samsung Magician software.
I've had two nvme failures early this year: a Samsung in one machine, and a Crucial in the other.
Still running my almost 13 year old computer that i built with its original Samsung 830 SATA SSD without any problems and i have been spending way to much time on this computer. I guess they could make them then, maybe not anymore, the tech has of course changed a lot though.
Thanks Scott, this is great to know
I haven’t had any failures yet, but I have a few 2.5 inch Sata SSDs that are essentially worthless because the performance drops below that of a hard disk on sustained writes. I thought I had lost my laptop m.2 drive recently, but pulling it and reseating it fixed it.
Make sure you have Samsung Magician installed, and let it update the Samsung Firmware. There was a problem with the 990 Pro that a firmware update fixed. Anyway, I'm still using a 980
Pro NVMe because of all the complaints I hear about the 990 Pto NVMe.
All of the drives that failed were running the latest firmware.
I use this drive for 3 years now. This is a well known problem of this drives. It was delivered with old/bad firmware, but all you had/have to do is to update to the latest firmware. Take 2 minutes. If they are fail before the firmware update, they are finally dead.
I was running the latest firmware on all the drives that failed.
@ScottsSynthStuff Oh, that's quite bad in this case. Often users don't look at this, but that is alarming then. 😥
The replacement units from the manufacturer RMA should have newest firmware on them.
If you keep CLONING ... you are ALSO CLONING the PROBLEM! ... it's may be a sector error that you are cloning or a Windows problem (Software) ... FORMAT and REINSTALL the System.
That’s what I suspect.
Even worse - Cubase 14 Pro isn't optimized for latest Intel Ultra 9 285K too. In fact it works even worse than with Ryzens because there are just cracks and glitches with latencies up to 512 samples. Studio One Pro (even v6) works just fine :)
I wonder if it's a 990pro 4tb problem, I'm running 4x 2tb 990 PROs for a year so far and apart from 1 needing a firmware update out of the box they've been flawless, I have one booting for daw and 1 for gaming/work etc and the other 2 for samples/projects, As an IT guy I have fitted loads of these and so far haven't had one fail, but they were all 2tb.
and it’s ironic how an IT guy is overlooking just how next-level the M-chip Macs are, especially for creating music and video. :)
They are junk in the sense that they are not upgradable, and much more expensive than a custom PC. If you are lazy buy a mac, but it is best to put the effort and build an AMD system. It will be much better.
@ typical answer 🤣 ps: if it has a cycle of min 5 years with plenty of resources, with very stable hardware and os, no noize, no heat, why to bother, thats called evolution my friend ;)
Are but... is cubase 14 as good as ableton live 12.1? ❤
I've got 870 SSDs (2 x 2TB) and 2 x 1TB NVMe (970 and 980) plus 2 x 2TB HDDs
I backup to two external 7TB HDDS via R-Drive software
That's a real bummer with those 990s.
I hope it's not catching 😷
I've been running the 970 Evo Plus for about a year now with no problems. Noe i'm thinking of cloning it to Solidigm. They used to be Intel, but are supposed to be rock solid.
since your using only 800 of 1TB try a 2TB drive maybe something with that size spec?
have you considered running RAID NVMe primary drives? help with downtime and performance
thanks for this vid !!
I bought a 1500 95SE and it seems quicker than my 88 1500. only paid $800, just needs windshield (have) tires, battery (got for 10$ from a guy that works at battery factory) and seat recovered. ❤🎉
You may want to apply the 3 strikes and your out model. Four times is approaching the definition of insanity.🤔
They did have a bit of a stumble with the 980 and 990 Pro drives.
Samsug SSDs have been poor for a while now,, there's been known issues on 970 Evo, 980 Pro, 870 Evo with rapid drive degradation and high failure rates.
Stop buying them and use SK Hynix, WD, Crucial or Sabrent.
What kind of (computer) keyboard is that behind you?
It's a new wireless Proto-Arc keyboard. I really love it! amzn.to/4eyIaNN
usually the larger M.2 SSD's fail, i have 2 1 terabyte ones from HP and never had an issue
I have those 990 samsungs that is strange WDs are good too but damn that sucks
I have the 970 1tb it's working in my laptop for 2.5 years. I think the 990 version with bigger capacity 2 and more tb has problems.
I got one of those drives and I updated the firmware when I first got it due to reports on the web, maybe lucky but I have not experienced any major issues with this Samsung model or any of their other ones for that matter. Touch wood it remains like that.
Cubase 14 Pro still isn't optimized for latest (7k and 9k) Ryzens. I'm getting 2x better cpu efficiency in Studio One testing Yamaha Montage M Expanded Softsynth Plugin
Maybe don’t run windows on it. It might not be a good OS drive. Running into something similar for Mac OS X but it’s not a bad sector thing it’s the installer not seeing the drive so I can’t install the OS at all to it. It’s a WD same series you showed i think. Still booting from Sandisk SATA SSD .
cool info - would love to be editing video in cubase but not there yet...
Thank you
Sounds unlikely to be the hardware more so the storage.sys drivers badly coded causing any back up utility to unload driver when using any volume shadow copy utility. I use acronis or veeam app aware backup and never get any issues, but i only use samsung ssds externally. I use an asus rog strix motherboard with x3 nvme slots and use nvme drives for all volumes, OS, plugins,scratch recordings. 9 TB in total.
It's definitely a hardware design issue. Why would it work perfectly for three months, then start failing consistently? And SO many people are having this same problem with this drive.
I’ll buy one of those drives from you !!!!! I’ll pay for shipping too !!!
Buy the 980Pro it is flawless if you can find it.
About as reliable as a Hotpoint washing machine except Hotpoint UK deny any responsibility.
It happened to me with a Samsung SSD 870 evo. I will never buy Samsung again. Yamaha Montage Sucks, sounds like a cheap arranger.
Samsung quality has dropped significantly. I literally had a washing machine, stove, and refrigerator go out within 6 months of each other. They were less than 3 years old.
I have a Feeling that we are paying premium for Brand naming these days and not for Better Quality.
That is the Reason why I have started to buy Lower priced products that work just as good without A Brand Tax 🤗
My favorite Brand has always Been Kingston when it comes to SSD and M.2 Drives and Ram and they have been rock solid for years in my PC.
My samsung 990 pro stopped working after 11 months!
Long life WD. NVMe is not SSD. Namastè.
Send the crap SSD back Scott and get your Money back$$$$
I always check the reviews before buying any storage device.
I am in the AV industry and work in the IPTV environment for large venues and the amount of issues we have with Samsung TVs, soundbars, etc, would not recommend at all
Class action, LOL. I think you are overreacting a bit here. This problem is a common occurrence in the hi-tech electronics sector and it has always been like that. There are problematic batches / product lines that have double digit failure rates within 0-2 years of use. I have a completely different m2 ssd and have the same / similar issue as well as multiple other people did and have posted about it on the Internet. I am not a fan of the m2 socket, sometimes the problem might be connected to the ssd not sitting properly in the socket.
P.S. I have been through the pain and frustration of this problem multiple times, it's one of the most frustrating computer issues there is.
you should charge SAMSUNG for your study
Easy solution: don't do backups, so no crashes 🤷♂ 🤪🤪🤪
I don't understand that complaints about Samsung SSD's. I have three of them in two different computers, two gen 4's and one older gen 3. Thousands of hours on all of them, and never a problem. The gen 4's are in my video editing computer, and the gen 3 is in the HTPC on which I am writing this comment. It's a 970 EVO Plus 2TB, with 8,578 hours on it, 49TB written, and it reports 99% life left.
Maybe the ones that are failing are not being properly cooled?
Did you watch the video?
3.5 inch 100Mbyte SSDs? :D An actual IT-guy would get uncomfortable hearing 3.5" and SSD in the same context :D Thanks for the info!
Thanks for catching that! Yes, I meant 2.5" not 3.5"!
@@ScottsSynthStuff Haha sorry for being a smartass :D Personally I'm still on the 970 Evo 2 tb never had an issue. It's always bad if a brand that you trusted for years lets you down like that. I also used almost exclusively Samsung professionally as well
Western Digital.
Ruh roh!
sh@t just bought a 2Tb version
Don't panic, I'm running 4x 990pro 2tb and been fine for the last year, I've fitted loads of them and not one has failed, might be a 4tb problem, just make sure you have the latest firmware on it.
They make good Christmas tree ornaments.
See I know where you went wrong, you bought a PC you should have bought a Mac they just work 😂
Try buying a mac with 9TB plugin storage and still be able to afford to fuel a plane!😂
Common misconception - ask Louis Rossman, who has made a career of fixing dead Macs. The main difference is that when the hard drive fails in your Mac, it's permanently soldered to the main board, so you have to replace the entire computer. Obsolescence by design.
@@wilkopianohahaha
@@wilkopiano
Buy a thunderbolt nvme enclosure.
Or do what I do, and have your external storage attached as a NAS using 10 gig ethernet.
Ahhh the QNAP 9 bay 10gb Eth??? Be moving to that soon @@williamtopping
Apple Mac.... NEVER give you this trouble, plus, its midi AIC built in is GREAT.
Here is a setup that works great:
- "Samsung T7" 2TB for music production
- MacStudio M2Max....
- Some things go straight into the iCloud drive and other straight into DropBox
- For SSD, use CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) to clone the SSDs once a week (2 SSD Samsung T7 of 2TB for redundancy) -ONLY INCREMENTAL (no need to erode re-writing everything)
- The T7 only has all the Music Libraries.... so it works super fine.
- I have another T7 setup 4 TB for Video files.... it is another arrangement that only needs another USB-C Port on the Mac. So... it's 1TB for the MacStudio, and 4+2 TB for SSD storage connected at all times, flawlessly. (knock on wood!!!)
Cheers, mate! 👍