Got this 8 TB SSD NVME for free - any good?

Eshelmen

Eshelmen

Supreme [H]ardness
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Someone gave me this for free - he works for WD. I don't know much about these type of drives -

Is this any good? Did I score a jackpot? Or is it crap?
It's not powered like a normal SSD.

No idea about these.

Worth adding to my rig or what?

Any way to hook this up with out having a free PCI slot?
 

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14PB of endurance, top PCIe 3 speeds and pretty dang good random performance. Hope you can make use of it!
 
Grebuloner said:
14PB of endurance, top PCIe 3 speeds and pretty dang good random performance. Hope you can make use of it!
Click to expand...

That's insane endurance. Thanks for the info.

My last question are there any issues with using this as my anything and everything drive? (Gaming, storage, OS Drive, etc)

BTW - guy who gave it to me said it was a test drive.

Gave me this connector as well. I don't think this will fit my x570 as is.
 

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Eshelmen said:
My last question is this using my anything and everything drive? (Gaming, storage, boot for is, etc)
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Oh indeed, so. Though if you enjoy serious multitasking, multiple drives will still perform better over a single one (more total bandwidth, fewer random read bottlenecks)
 
Grebuloner said:
Oh indeed, so. Though if you enjoy serious multitasking, multiple drives will still perform better over a single one (more total bandwidth, fewer random read bottlenecks)
Click to expand...
Gotcha - thanks for the info. Will update when I get this thing powered up and connected.
 
Alright! Added to my second pcie x16 slot - and it fired right up
Here's results from Crystalmarkinfo - damn thing is practically new - Has about 3 hours in total of use - about 120 gigs of host reads.

Health - any red flags?
YEkwxJL.png


Speeds - First and only test
UXShRtB.png



Second test next day -
hyqhv6P.png



Thoughts on this? Slower than it should be or about right?

Update 2 -
YIKES! - Temps hit 75C just from moving some game files over. Gonna remove it from the back of the mobo to the front part of case to get better cooling.

Update 3 - temps are down now to around 52c with downloading in the back ground, and gaming on it too (RDR2). Repositioning it definitely worked. Very nice drive.
 
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Eshelmen said:
Health - any red flags?
Click to expand...
Just one: It's not in my system. ;)

Eshelmen said:
Thoughts on this? Slower than it should be or about right?

Update 2 -
YIKES! - Temps hit 75C just from moving some game files over. Gonna remove it from the back of the mobo to the front part of case to get better cooling.

Update 3 - temps are down now to around 52c with downloading in the back ground, and gaming on it too (RDR2). Repositioning it definitely worked. Very nice drive.
Click to expand...
That's about right. It's not often you get the full advertised speed, but that's pretty close. NVMe drives use plenty of power and need some decent airflow. Enterprise U.2 drives were designed to run in the front of a rack server with all the air flowing over them.
 
Eshelmen said:
Alright! Added to my second pcie x16 slot - and it fired right up
Here's results from Crystalmarkinfo - damn thing is practically new - Has about 3 hours in total of use - about 120 gigs of host reads.

Health - any red flags?
View attachment 502659

Speeds - First and only test
View attachment 502660

Thoughts on this? Slower than it should be or about right?

Update 2 -
YIKES! - Temps hit 75C just from moving some game files over. Gonna remove it from the back of the mobo to the front part of case to get better cooling.

Update 3 - temps are down now to around 52c with downloading in the back ground, and gaming on it too (RDR2). Repositioning it definitely worked. Very nice drive.
Click to expand...

Its about 2/3 the speed (at worst) of my Sabrent 1TB, looking at my figures from a few years ago, Crystaldiskmark 6.0.2:
Q32T1 3451, 2966
Q1T1 67, 389

Great Freebee :)
 
Grebuloner said:
Just one: It's not in my system. ;)


That's about right. It's not often you get the full advertised speed, but that's pretty close. NVMe drives use plenty of power and need some decent airflow. Enterprise U.2 drives were designed to run in the front of a rack server with all the air flowing over them.
Click to expand...
Alright sweet.
Btw - this won't let me enable write caching for some reason.
UmqDSR4.png

UnnPG1z.png
 
Eshelmen said:
Alright sweet.
Btw - this won't let me enable write caching for some reason.
View attachment 502696
View attachment 502697
Click to expand...
It's unlikely, but do a double check on the drivers to make sure they're the latest set.

After you find out you're drivers are current, then it's a firmware issue. Probably because it's from the test drive stack it may not be on a customer ready firmware version. Try downloading WD Dashboard and see if it will work with your drive and provide an update (it may not because it's enterprise; WD doesn't seem to have public tools for that side), or ask your buddy if he can send you a copy of the current firmware and an updater tool.
 
I'm jealous. Way many years ago, before you younguns were born, I worked for a disk drive company. Salesman who was leaving gave me a "sample" 10 MB drive, which I stuck in my CP/M system. It was the size of an 8" floppy drive and it was very noisy. Now, exactly what do you do with a 10 MB HDD on a CP/M system with 64KB of RAM? I never figured that one out, but it was sure good for bragging rights.
 
Grebuloner said:
It's unlikely, but do a double check on the drivers to make sure they're the latest set.

After you find out you're drivers are current, then it's a firmware issue. Probably because it's from the test drive stack it may not be on a customer ready firmware version. Try downloading WD Dashboard and see if it will work with your drive and provide an update (it may not because it's enterprise; WD doesn't seem to have public tools for that side), or ask your buddy if he can send you a copy of the current firmware and an updater tool.
Click to expand...
Ah i think you're right on the test firmware - WD Dashboard says it's up to date. All good. Appreciate your help and insight.
 
Not going to lie. I am a little jelly. That's quite the score.

Even a low grade QLC 8TB NVME drive is going to be expensive, and that is a high quality enterprise drive, and you got it for free!

As has been mentioned that was a $2k+ drive when new only 2 years ago. I can't find any used prices on it, because there simply havn't been that many sold. I can't even find any on eBay's recently sold history, which is unusual.

Hope your friend doesn't get himself fired/arrested :p

Yeah, and put that thing where it will get some airflow, as it is likely to get hot. In its intended use in a server it would sit where the fan wall draws constant air over it.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
Not going to lie. I am a little jelly. That's quote the score.

Even a low grade QLC 8TB NVME drive is going to be expensive, and that is a high quality enterprise drive, and you got it for free!

As has been mentioned that was a $2k+ drive when new only 2 years ago. I can't find any used prices on it, because there simply havn't been that many sold. I can't even find any on eBay's recently sold history, which is unusual.

Hope your friend doesn't get himself fired/arrested :p

Yeah, and put that thing where it will get some airflow, as it is likely to get hot. In its intended use in a server it would sit where the fan wall draws constant air over it.
Click to expand...
Kind of why I made a thread - I was a little "tech struck?" when he said " here, you can have this.". Needed to confirm with you all that I scored a jackpot. Lol

He won't get fired - he's a QC Tester for them. Hard drives everywhere in his home from the last two decades. He said once they test multiple drives in a row, they either discard or can take home.

Appreciate the response.
 
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