Samsung SSDs Dying! 980 Pro, 990, 970 EVO PLUS, PM9A1 Fails - Everything We Know So Far!

Feb 15/02/23 - Updated Information on the Samsung M.2 NVMe SSD Firmware Issue. You can find out more in the artivle and video below:

Video Chapters
00:00 - The Start
00:27 - Why are Precise Details on Samsung SSDs having Firmware and Lifespan issues so vague?
01:05 - Samsung SSDs Suddenly Dying - The Story So Far
02:08 - The nature of the issue/error and how is it observed on Samsung SSDs?
03:25 - Official Firmware Update Released
04:39 - Why has Chia made chasing which SSDs affected by this issue so hard to track
05:51 - How to Check if I am affected?
06:10 - How do PS5 Owners Update their firmware if they think they are affected by this firmware?
06:32 - Why can you not use an external docking station or m.2 cases to update the firmware?
07:39 - Firmware you need to check for
08:47 - How to Updated the Firmware on your Samsung SSD
15:36 - Still waiting for more information on this

[nascompares]

*Feb 15/02/23* - Updated Information on the Samsung M.2 NVMe SSD Firmware Issue. You can find out more in the article and video below:

[lyrand]

I know this video is about 9 months old. But I wanted to mention that I recently 'lost' my Samsung 970 Evo (SATA SSD), which was just about reaching a one year mark of usage in my system.

I was merely watching YouTube actually, and suddenly my system hanged solid, nothing responded (even on the 2nd monitor where I had music videos playing, the sound froze, everything froze). Of course, like usual, I simply restarted my PC. However, after that restart, instead of going back to Windows it refused to 'Post' (to get past the BIOS). I became "stuck" in the BIOS because - apparently at that point - the Boot wasn't working anymore, the drive itself was not being detected anymore in the BIOS (just gone).

I CMOS'ed the BIOS, removed the Battery for a while, turned the PC back on, re-adjusted the BIOS settings (Optimized Defaults) and STILL nothing, drive was gone. I then decided to simply re-install the BIOS (EZ Flash, from USB device). Even THAT did nothing.

At that point I had only one option, to re-install Windows on a completely different drive, and that worked (the other drive is Western Digital Blue, also SATA SSD). From that new Windows installation on the new drive, I did a Windows Memory Diagnostic (which is known to also check for drive failures and repair them when possible during the process). The Memory Diagnostic - in a way - confirmed there was a problem with the drive, because it eventually said that the "repair" of the affected drive was done at 100% (when in reality, no such repair happened). But in actuality, no repair was 'done' per se. After the Memory Diagnostic was done, went back to Windows, and tried to use BOTH the Windows Disk Management tool AND Samsung's own Magician tool. And BOTH the Disk Management and Samsung's Magician "hanged" for 15+ minutes doing nothing, and detecting nothing... it just kept on trying to detect... and trying... and nothing showed up.

So yeah, my conclusion... my Samsung 970 Evo simply 'died' on me, just... boom, like that, gone. I didn't do anything crazy with that drive, just installed Windows on it, it had some games, that's it.

Lesson learned, right now I have not one but 2 Windows installations (on my newer WD SSD drive, and on an older 'backup' HDD Drive) just in case. I'll stick with Western Digital from now on, or maybe Seagate, never had any problems with their drives in 20 years of building computers.

[Ultrajamz]

Samsung is beginning to disappoint me, I rent an apt with a samsung fridge, it already making noise, my parents have a samsung clothing dryer, it broke in 5 years. Samsung TVs were a good deal but their OS they began to put into TVs is very laggy and lackluster…. SSDs were the only thing I still trust them with, and I have their sata ssds…

[Hokunin]

yeah, my trust for samsung is forever lost. Just one year after purchase and I noticed my games started crashing with errors, and I saw how all my files started becoming corrupted here and there in the Samsung SSD EVO 870 2TB. Check showed critical errors everywhere in the drive. Lost many files. Managed to save some of the files that were not corrupted yet. Damn. I had Intel SSD that worked for 7 years flawlessly like a swiss clock as main system drive, left it in my old PC, it could still be working fine, and this samsung was used only as 3rd storage drive for keeping games and medias and still broke in a year, pathetic. Never buying samsung ssd anymore, overpriced useless trash.

[Ian-gfid]

Interesting topic. I'm using a 980 PRO as an external SSD for my Mac Studio for photo & music libraries. The Samsung SSD is already on an automated backup schedule to a traditional external hard drive, and I use DriveDX to monitor the health of all my drives, but I'll be keeping a close eye on the SMART stats from now on.

[US_Joe]

I have 2 Samsung T7 2TB ext drives. I paid $400 ea. They BOTH failed at about 6mos. Samsung is giving me an extensive hard time for support. These drives were periodically Smart checked with no indications of regression. Lost all Data, which Samsung will not offer recovery. I blame myself, of course. These drives now go for UNDER $150. Big loss overall ! Good bye Samsung. Buyers beware ! Thanx for this Mate !👍

[qazwsxxswzaq]

I have encountered this issue (surging Media and Data Integrity Errors entries in SMART and failing full scan in Samsung Magician) in July last year. With sheer luck, I spotted it early. I somehow managed to contain and recover the situation by performing secure erase and a firmware update.The SMART entry stablized and the full scan passed.

[joesworld]

I used a Samsung 970 EVO as an OS drive that failed recently. It's the first Samsung SSD that I've ever had fail.

[nenume]

the 870 evo seem to have a high failure rate too, even recently

[gaykosmos]

You cannot use any external dock or USB converter as the firmware upgrade process will need to detect an NVMe drive connected directly to PCIe. You CAN, however, use an M.2 M key PCIe expansion card with a desktop machine with open PCIe slot to upgrade your firmware. Most NVMe drives use 4 PCIe lanes, so an expansion card with support for one NVMe drive will use 4 PCIe lanes, support for 2 drives means 8 PCIe lanes, and support for 4 cards means 16 PCIe lanes like a graphics card.

[KitsuneZA]

My 1TB 970 Evo Plus just died (Disk write error), and i bought it in September 2022 (only 9 months old), I only really installed games on it with long load times and only used about 400gb of it. Hopefully i get a replacement.

[whyandaccount]

Yep had a 980 Pro PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2TB SSD fail. Had to recover data and eventually (took months) received a 970 Evo Plus via a Samsung RMA. That replacement is now the subject of a 2nd RMA.

[ErraticPT]

Had 2 2TB 980 PRO fail on me, one lasted about 5 months and the other just under 4 months.
Both started spitting out large numbers of SMART media errors and data corruption (luckily nothing valuable was lost).
Luckily replaced with other brands that are still working ~12 months later.

[monkeybusiness]

The firmware would not reverse the damage done right? So consumer should be getting replacement?

[MarkWebbPhotography]

Also an issue with 870 EVO drives. Had one with errors and had it replaced through Samsung warranty fortunately.

[gooseuk]

I run two of these and have seen no issues so far in over a year of use.

[ALphcro]

I just bought 2 980 PROs recently from Amazon before these news came out... Haven't installed them yet. Should they be safe to use after updating the firmware, or should I wait a bit more before using them?

[b-ranthatway]

I just built a new PC with a 980 pro 2tb m.2. This is not what I was expecting when buying a samsung ssd. Are they working on fixes or am I going to have to purchase a new 2TB m.2?

Upgrading from a 2.5 sata 240GB from a cheap-o back in 2016, so I'm very unfamiliar with m.2's

[AjayQLD]

I just bought three 2TB 980's. They will be going into the PC fresh. If i update the firmware first thing, should i be fine? Their production date is 2022/09/23.

[Drhn]

How do I check when my 980 pro was manufactured? My ssd has a sticker on it that says 2022.09 somewhere on it, is this the manufacturing date?