Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB NVMe doesn't work - How to test?

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g0dM@n

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Here is the exact NVMe drive I have, bought it from here on Jan 30 of this year:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MFZY2F2

I installed ESXi 6.7u3 onto a Dell PowerEdge server (diff boot drive), and used this NVMe drive for just a few VMs. The NVMe drive was installed onto a PCIe card since the server didn't have NVME native capability on the motherboard. It worked like a champ from February up until September (maybe 2 weeks ago max). The datastore vanished, never to be seen again.

I'll keep the story short. It sucked, but I had most of my stuff backed up. I got the important parts of my environment back online on a regular SATA SSD until I bought a new NVMe drive. I also bought a new NVMe PCIe card. I ran on the SSD for a few days and migrated it all to a new NVMe drive. Everything is working great again.

Well, now I have this Samsung Evo 970 and wondering what the hell went wrong. I tried it in both the original, and the new (diff brand) NVMe PCIe card. It just won't work. The new NVMe drive works in both PCIe cards. I gave up on recovering the file system on it (VMFS), so I popped the 970 evo into a USB 3.0 adapter and ran diskpart from windows 10, and ran a CLEAN on it. It was hanging at some points, but eventually worked, and eventually was able to format NTFS and test file transfers to it. I didn't do much testing, but I was able to transfer a file of ~4-5GB to it.

Still... what's wrong with this drive? If I plug it back into the original server, it shows up with an error of sorts and while the NVMe PCIe controller is seen, the drive is not detected as an available device. I'd say the original NVMe PCIe card is fine b/c like I said the 970 evo didn't work in the new PCIe card either.

Now, I have Samsung magician, but that just does secure erase. How the heck can I test this 970 evo? Running it over a USB 3.0 adapter doesn't really do proper testing.
So what I did was take an old desktop (that I used as a whitebox esxi host back in the day) and I installed ESXi 6.7u3 on it. I then popped in the original NVMe PCIe card and the 970 evo, and this new 6.7u3 install doesn't see the 970 EVO. It does detect the NVMe PCIe card though.

I'm totally fine with RMAing the 970 evo, but:
- Never in a million years did I expect an NVMe to die within 7 months
- No I did not slam away at it. I ran a few VMs, nothing doing crazy work. In fact, I only run OSs and services on it. I don't store videos/pics or anything on it.
- Is there no other bootable tool that can properly test this 970 evo? Samsung just has the magician tool -- that doesn't do testing.

I'm used to the old Long and Short DST testing. No idea on what to do on an NVMe.

Thanks in advance.
 
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You don't have a system with M.2 that you can slap the 970 into and see what Crystal Disk info sees.
Maybe it will show an error somewhere

CrystalDiskInfo_Samsung-980-Pro-1TB-20220516023826.png
 
Zepher said:
You don't have a system with M.2 that you can slap the 970 into and see what Crystal Disk info sees.
Maybe it will show an error somewhere

View attachment 514342
Click to expand...
Nope.
Only one machine in my house with a native NVMe and it's 1 slot and I'm running my current desktop on it.
I bought the damn PCIe NVMe cards so I can throw in more NVMe onto machines that don't have a native slot. My silly setup has no way of my popping in that PCIe. A total overlook on my part. When I installed my GPU I realized it covered the only PCIe I had on this mATX board.
First time ever going mATX in over 20 years and I regret it. I love the smaller form factor, but hate that I can't use any more slots.
 
^ This. And put it in that USB enclosure as HD Sentinel should see it properly.

Also, you said you had a Win 10 machine...put Sentinel on that and the drive in the USB.
 
I'll give HD Sentinel a try (may fall asleep), but this is helpful!
 
1664333922054.png


And here I never thought NVMe could die so fast, especially a Samsung Evo!
56TB written, 230 days old. Definitely extremely premature!

Since you guys said USB should do the trick, I plugged it into my work laptop and lo and behold it's RMA time!
 
g0dM@n said:
View attachment 514351

And here I never thought NVMe could die so fast, especially a Samsung Evo!
56TB written, 230 days old. Definitely extremely premature!

Since you guys said USB should do the trick, I plugged it into my work laptop and lo and behold it's RMA time!
Click to expand...
That is like 10-20x less than the rated endurance probably.

EDIT: It looks like the endurance is only 150TB, but that is still almost 3X of what you've written to the drive.

What is odd is my 980 Pro 1TB is rated at 600TB and I've written over 800TB and it still shows 56% life left.
 
Zepher said:
That is like 10-20x less than the rated endurance probably.

EDIT: It looks like the endurance is only 150TB, but that is still almost 3X of what you've written to the drive.

What is odd is my 980 Pro 1TB is rated at 600TB and I've written over 800TB and it still shows 56% life left.
Click to expand...
Samsung's own site shows 600TB for my 970 evo plus, here:
https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/support/warranty/

1664378483704.png


I don't even need one this large. 500gb is plenty, but I go for the larger size so that it has more wear and tear capability. That's the one major difference with flash vs spinning hard disks. Sure, it helps to have a larger drive for wear and tear, but with memory cells it's a huge diff. I am rated for double the output by getting the larger NVMe. If the 1TB costs less than double the 500GB, then for me it makes sense to pick it up.

The new one I bought seems to have great reviews, cheaper, and in fact is benching better than the 970 evo (as a VM, though, so hard to say what it'd do as bare metal to a desktop). This is the new one I got:
SK Hynix Gold P31 1TB for $86.39 plus tax.
 
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Does that ESXi 6.7u3 Dell support TRIM? That could amplify wear, but not to the point of 600TBW lol.

RMA time like you said.
 
bluestang said:
Does that ESXi 6.7u3 Dell support TRIM? That could amplify wear, but not to the point of 600TBW lol.

RMA time like you said.
Click to expand...
It's a good point, but...
Is TRIM even necessary these days? I thought flash does its own garbage collection now.
How would I check or know and how do I ensure it's being done?
 
g0dM@n said:
Samsung's own site shows 600TB for my 970 evo plus, here:
https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/support/warranty/

View attachment 514469

I don't even need one this large. 500gb is plenty, but I go for the larger size so that it has more wear and tear capability. That's the one major difference with flash vs spinning hard disks. Sure, it helps to have a larger drive for wear and tear, but with memory cells it's a huge diff. I am rated for double the output by getting the larger NVMe. If the 1TB costs less than double the 500GB, then for me it makes sense to pick it up.

The new one I bought seems to have great reviews, cheaper, and in fact is benching better than the 970 evo (as a VM, though, so hard to say what it'd do as bare metal to a desktop). This is the new one I got:
SK Hynix Gold P31 1TB for $86.39 plus tax.
Click to expand...
Lol,
When I looked at your screenshot, I looked at the Samsung above the 970 and saw 256, so for some reason I read that as the 970 you have.
 
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Just to update this thread, Samsung ended up sending me a brand new one in a sealed retail package. No use for it now as the return took way too long and I needed to order something to get me going.
 
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