News Samsung Issues Firmware Fix for 980 Pro SSD Failures

[Admin]

Samsung 980 Pros can go into a read-only failure mode that can make data recovery difficult, if not impossible. A firmware fix is now available.

Samsung Issues Firmware Fix for 980 Pro SSD Failures : Read more

 

[USAFRet]

While mine is only a 1TB, there is no new firmware as of yet.

 

[blacknemesist]

While mine is only a 1TB, there is no new firmware as of yet.

Something is wrong here. I have the same drive and have the latest driver, probably came with the drive since it is only 2 months old but still.

Edit : For some reason it is not in the support of the drive directly but here : https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/support/tools/

Still odd that you have an outdated Magician and firmware.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Samsung should replace the affected drives due to premature failure. No if ands or buts.

My Samsung magician says I can't run diagnostics on my 970 evo plus because I don't have the latest firmware. Yet when I go to the firmware page it says "you have the latest firmware" go figure.

Not a good look Samsung

 

[letmepicyou]

Can hardly wait to see what happens when people start to benchmark these after the firmware "fix"...

 

[user7007]

I had a 980 pro 2tb die last year with those symptoms. My replacement has been fine but it has the newer firmware, so hopefully it's safe.

 

[major_mayhem]

Well this explains what happened to my first one. I had the 2tb pcie 4 980 pro when it first came out ... it didn't last a year until it went into read only mode. I was able to connect it to an external and download the data off of it but I could not boot from the drive or manipulate the data (Delete, Format, etc). Samsung couldn't (or wouldn't) send me a new replacement drive, they just refunded me what I paid for the drive, fortunately I was able to buy 2 new drives for the same price as the 1 original. Both have the current firmware.

 

[drivinfast247]

I have 2 980 Pros in my PC. The other day Magician pops up and says there's an update. Clicked the pop-up and it showed no update available.

 

[PlaneInTheSky]

I have had nothing but bad experiences with Samsung.

Bought 2 Samsung SSD, both died within 2 years.

Had a Samsung Galaxy phone, it developed the famous Samsung battery bloating problem.

My current SSD is from WD, and my smartphone from OnePlus. No problems.

 

[Pointingouttheobvious]

Samsung 980 Pros can go into a read-only failure mode that can make data recovery difficult, if not impossible. A firmware fix is now available.

Samsung Issues Firmware Fix for 980 Pro SSD Failures : Read more

read-only access makes the boot drive unusable. Unfortunately, once your 980 Pro goes into this failure state, there is no way to recover your data

That was written by a senior editor at Tom’s Hardware… It locks in”Read Only” mode specifically so you can recover data. Kinda dumb to call a mode “Read Only” if the data cant be read and if the data can be read it can be recovered.

Quick question: What does that guys job pay?

 

[RichardtST]

Hey! Thank you for this article. I've got 3 of the dang things in my machine. All updated now. Hopefully I'm safe. Won't be buying any more from them.

 

[randyh121]

"Fix"
Can't fix broken hardware

 

[digitalgriffin]

That was written by a senior editor at Tom’s Hardware… It locks in”Read Only” mode specifically so you can recover data. Kinda dumb to call a mode “Read Only” if the data cant be read and if the data can be read it can be recovered.

Quick question: What does that guys job pay?

Feel better about yourself now?

 

[Papusan]

Samsung's QC and quality have dropped as a stone. They should really stop branding their best ssd's with the "Pro" moniker. All they produce now is cheapo consumer junk ssd's. Nothing smells like "Pro" anymore.

 

[randyh121]

Samsung's QC and quality have dropped as a stone. They should really stop branding their best ssd's with the "Pro" moniker. All they produce now is cheapo consumer junk ssd's. Nothing smells like "Pro" anymore.

Honest question. Which brand is more reliable and better than Samsung then?
Every other brand I've seen is <Mod Edit>.
Yeah Samsung's new NVMe pro line is not as reliable as the EVO and QVO lines of SSDs, but every other brand is horrible worse by far

 

[USAFRet]

I have had nothing but bad experiences with Samsung.

Bought 2 Samsung SSD, both died within 2 years.

Had a Samsung Galaxy phone, it developed the famous Samsung battery bloating problem.

My current SSD is from WD, and my smartphone from OnePlus. No problems.

And conversely, none of the 8-10 Samsungs I have have shown ANY issues.
Going back to a pair of 840 EVOs from 2014.

All reporting 98-99-100%

 

[sonofjesse]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-980-pro-ssd-failures-firmware-update

Good article on Tom's. I can say I purchased this 980 Pro 2tB when it came out, and had a drive failure 6 months in. I don't have a screenshot of the firmware from then but I"m betting 100% this was it.

Update firmware if you have the Samsung's to the latest.

I have had quite a few SSD's and my Samsung 850 PRO (still runs great), this is the only SSD I ever had that died.

 

[MarMed]

This is pretty confusing considering 5B2QGXA7 was released last year.

 

[Makaveli]

jesus so issues with the new 990 and the old 980pro

 

[btmedic04]

Completely different drive and interface, but I have a 2tb Samsung Evo 870 with only 951gb of writes, yet it's showing 99% remaining life. That seems kind of suspicious to me considering I've only written about half of the capacity

 

[USAFRet]

Completely different drive and interface, but I have a 2tb Samsung Evo 870 with only 951gb of writes, yet it's showing 99% remaining life. That seems kind of suspicious to me considering I've only written about half of the capacity

How is that suspicious?
1TBW is well within a rounding error of 99-100%

 

[letmepicyou]

My OS/Boot drive is a 950 Samsung Pro 500gb and I have 2 1tb 860 EVO's in RAID 0, and they have been rock solid since I put them in. Upgraded from a pair of 500 giggers I used to run in raid. So I've had good luck with their drives. I wouldn't give you a plugged nickel for their phones or televisions, however.

 

[PiranhaTech]

I wonder if my 970 EVO was affected. It went into read-only mode, though it did have corrupted files. I was able to recover 90% of the data, and it was all programs that were easy to reinstall

I'll have to get into the habit of backing up critical data onto other drives from now on. FreeFileSync is great for this

 

[Makaveli]

My OS/Boot drive is a 950 Samsung Pro 500gb and I have 2 1tb 860 EVO's in RAID 0, and they have been rock solid since I put them in. Upgraded from a pair of 500 giggers I used to run in raid. So I've had good luck with their drives. I wouldn't give you a plugged nickel for their phones or televisions, however.

I also have two 1 TB 860 EVO's in Raid 0 since about 2019 still going strong. Thats my game drive so it I don't write alot to it only game installs.

 

[fzabkar]

I wonder if my 970 EVO was affected. It went into read-only mode, though it did have corrupted files. I was able to recover 90% of the data, and it was all programs that were easy to reinstall

FWIW, there are firmware updates for the 970 EVO and 970 EVO Plus.

https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/support/tools/

The 870 EVO was widely reported to have suffered premature failures:

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=42876

I notice that it also has an update.

There is this statement on Samsung's update page:

"*The 870 EVO model will be manufactured with a revised V6 process starting November 2022."

Hmm, I wonder what that means. New NAND?