EXPIRED $279:Oracle F320 (3.2TB) AIC

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LodeRunner

Active Member
Apr 27, 2019
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I take no responsibility for anything going wrong:


FWIW, latest oracle firmware is circa 2020 named KPYAJR3Q.

Given the wide audience of this wonderful forum, I am pretty sure someone here has it :cool:.
Yeah I saw that post and am reluctant to try unsigned, modified files that no one else has reported using. I was hoping someone had this file: How to get firmware from Oracle | ServeTheHome Forums or could share a clean KPYAJR3Q download.
 

LodeRunner

Active Member
Apr 27, 2019
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I ordered two from the seller I posted; they accepted an offer at $260. I should have tried lower, but I'll take saving $60 and go have a nice dinner.

Edit: as of 20220519-1105 PDT they report 5 remaining.
 

eduncan911

The New James Dean
Jul 27, 2015
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eduncan911.com
Edit for Clarity: This post is 100% about the "other" seller selling them at $289, obo. Including the quotes.

I ordered two from the seller I posted; they accepted an offer at $260. I should have tried lower, but I'll take saving $60 and go have a nice dinner.

Edit: as of 20220519-1105 PDT they report 5 remaining.
I got 4 as well from this other vendor, with 289obo. I've been negotiating with that seller for weeks on a large bulk order.

They would not budge down any lower than $260.

Another seller has them for $289: 3.2TB Oracle 7317693 V-NAND F320 NVMe AIC SFF PCIe SSD Drive MZ-PLK3T20 | eBay
If I had the choice between these or a Fusion SX-350 3.2 TB, which is probably the better choice? I'm currently using older Fusion ioDrive2 1.6 TB cards for Starwind VSAN. Firmware and drivers for the SX350 are readily available from Dell with no fuss.
Continuing with this other seller, I've had a lot of issues getting clear answers for SMART data from them.

Truthfully, I feel they are playing dumb and purposely avoiding the topic of SMART data.

After 5 days of waiting long long times between replies and clarity to my questions, I finally get a screenshot of the "SMART" data:

s-l1600 (1).jpg

/phun - there is no SMART data here. they figured out how to query for Wear?!

And then, silence for weeks... I tried and tried messaging.

Then I just flat out and threw a bid out for $200/ea for several. That FINALLY got them talking to me in eBay again (I am not an annoying person, I am just asking for SMART data!!! Post the damn SMART data already!!!).

After 3-more-days of back and forth and bids, I finally, finally after asking for over a month, finally get SMART data output!!! They never acknowledged nor even spoke about any of the SMART utils I asked them to run... I finally just gave them this command:

Code:
C:\> Get-Disk | Get-StorageReliabilityCounter | Select-Object -Property "*"
Which they gave in response...

s-l1600.jpg

*face palm* They need to scroll up for the particular PM1725 output, as I think that command lists all the drives in the system. Come on guys...

It's like they are purposely being incompetent with this lot. I highly cautious anyone buying them.

I went ahead and bought 4 @ $260, as I saw someone grab 10 yesterday and 1 the day before, and another 4 a few days earlier. Their stock was 11 when I bought, moving fast.

I figured I will SMART and heavily FIO test and scrutinize each device when they arrive. Any issue or usage issues, they are going right back.
 
Last edited:

VMman

Active Member
Jun 26, 2013
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Thanks to the OP for sharing this, I've been in contact with the seller that LodeRunner posted, and they have not provided me with clear health/SMART data on their stock at my request. I was interested in a bulk 10+ but the seller gives me the feeling they are trying to avoid sharing any figures to not deter sales offering free exchange if the buyer isn't happy.

I'm fed up with these lazy sellers.. I mean how much time does it really take to test a random sample of your stock and share the SMART data on request or publicly on the listing for transparency. #rantover
 

eduncan911

The New James Dean
Jul 27, 2015
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eduncan911.com
Thanks to the OP for sharing this, I've been in contact with the seller that LodeRunner posted, and they have not provided me with clear health/SMART data on their stock at my request. I was interested in a bulk 10+ but the seller gives me the feeling they are trying to avoid sharing any figures to not deter sales offering free exchange if the buyer isn't happy.

I'm fed up with these lazy sellers.. I mean how much time does it really take to test a random sample of your stock and share the SMART data on request or publicly on the listing for transparency. #rantover
Dang, so just like me above, none of us can get any smart details.

I told them that if there's anything less than 92% usage, as I stated in multiple messages, or any errors, it's going back as they refused to run any checks prior (aka Smart).

What kind of BS answers did you get on Smart data?
 

LodeRunner

Active Member
Apr 27, 2019
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Just got the two I ordered.

Booting these in a desktop tower for testing and not my server, so the temps are higher than they will be in service. I can see the discoloration on the heatsinks over where the capacitors are. These things appear to get quite toasty.
First one:
NVME:
Code:
Node             SN                   Model                                    Namespace Usage                      Format           FW Rev
---------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- --------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------
/dev/nvme0n1     xxxxxxxxxxxxxx       MS1PC5ED3ORA3.2T                         1           3.20  TB /   3.20  TB    512   B +  0 B   KPYAIR3Q
SMART:
Code:
smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [x86_64-linux-5.4.0-42-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number:                       MS1PC5ED3ORA3.2T
Serial Number:                     
Firmware Version:                   KPYAIR3Q
PCI Vendor ID:                      0x144d
PCI Vendor Subsystem ID:            0x108e
IEEE OUI Identifier:                0x002538
Controller ID:                      0
Number of Namespaces:               1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity:          3,200,631,791,616 [3.20 TB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size:     512
Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64:            002538 9561000d60
Local Time is:                      Sat May 28 21:24:54 2022 UTC
Firmware Updates (0x02):            1 Slot
Optional Admin Commands (0x0006):   Format Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x0004):     DS_Mngmt
Maximum Data Transfer Size:         32 Pages

Supported Power States
St Op     Max   Active     Idle   RL RT WL WT  Ent_Lat  Ex_Lat
0 +    25.00W       -        -    0  0  0  0      100     100

Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt  Data  Metadt  Rel_Perf
0 -     512       0         1
1 -     512       8         3
2 -    4096       0         0
3 -    4096       8         2

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning:                   0x00
Temperature:                        65 Celsius
Available Spare:                    100%
Available Spare Threshold:          10%
Percentage Used:                    1%
Data Units Read:                    3,175,719,515 [1.62 PB]
Data Units Written:                 1,122,417,369 [574 TB]
Host Read Commands:                 31,851,876,743
Host Write Commands:                16,040,724,007
Controller Busy Time:               24,259
Power Cycles:                       46
Power On Hours:                     42,812
Unsafe Shutdowns:                   34
Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
Error Information Log Entries:      0

Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, max 256 entries)
No Errors Logged

Second one:
NVME:
Code:
Node             SN                   Model                                    Namespace Usage                      Format           FW Rev
---------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- --------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------
/dev/nvme0n1     xxxxxxxxxxxxxx       MS1PC5ED3ORA3.2T                         1           3.20  TB /   3.20  TB    512   B +  0 B   KPYAIR3Q
SMART:
Code:
smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [x86_64-linux-5.4.0-42-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number:                       MS1PC5ED3ORA3.2T
Serial Number:                      
Firmware Version:                   KPYAIR3Q
PCI Vendor ID:                      0x144d
PCI Vendor Subsystem ID:            0x108e
IEEE OUI Identifier:                0x002538
Controller ID:                      0
Number of Namespaces:               1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity:          3,200,631,791,616 [3.20 TB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size:     512
Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64:            002538 9561000ed9
Local Time is:                      Sat May 28 21:36:17 2022 UTC
Firmware Updates (0x02):            1 Slot
Optional Admin Commands (0x0006):   Format Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x0004):     DS_Mngmt
Maximum Data Transfer Size:         32 Pages

Supported Power States
St Op     Max   Active     Idle   RL RT WL WT  Ent_Lat  Ex_Lat
0 +    25.00W       -        -    0  0  0  0      100     100

Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt  Data  Metadt  Rel_Perf
0 -     512       0         1
1 -     512       8         3
2 -    4096       0         0
3 -    4096       8         2

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning:                   0x00
Temperature:                        41 Celsius
Available Spare:                    100%
Available Spare Threshold:          10%
Percentage Used:                    1%
Data Units Read:                    3,144,997,366 [1.61 PB]
Data Units Written:                 1,120,603,294 [573 TB]
Host Read Commands:                 31,689,554,754
Host Write Commands:                15,691,306,858
Controller Busy Time:               24,066
Power Cycles:                       51
Power On Hours:                     42,879
Unsafe Shutdowns:                   34
Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
Error Information Log Entries:      0

Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, max 256 entries)
No Errors Logged

So these both look to be in excellent condition, unless I'm completely mis-reading the stats. I got these from the seller I found, so whatever their communications/technical issues, at least these two units look good and are only one firmware rev behind as far as I can tell. But yeah, since they have to power them up to wipe them, how freaking hard is it to boot them in a Linux system and just pull 'smartctl -x /dev/nvme0' to be able to share later.
 

eduncan911

The New James Dean
Jul 27, 2015
648
506
93
eduncan911.com
Edit for Clarity: This post is 100% about the "other" seller selling them at $289, obo. Including the quotes.

I got 4 as well from this other vendor, with 289obo. I've been negotiating with that seller for weeks on a large bulk order. They would not budge down any lower than $260.

Continuing with this r2loop seller, I've had a lot of issues getting clear answers for SMART data from them.

Truthfully, I feel they are playing dumb and purposely avoiding the topic of SMART data.

After 5 days of waiting long long times between replies and clarity to my questions, I finally get a screenshot of the "SMART" data:

View attachment 22896

/phun - there is no SMART data here. they figured out how to query for Wear?!

And then, silence for weeks... I tried and tried messaging.

Then I just flat out and threw a bid out for $200/ea for several. That FINALLY got them talking to me in eBay again (I am not an annoying person, I am just asking for SMART data!!! Post the damn SMART data already!!!).

After 3-more-days of back and forth and bids, I finally, finally after asking for over a month, finally get SMART data output!!! They never acknowledged nor even spoke about any of the SMART utils I asked them to run... I finally just gave them this command:

Code:
C:\> Get-Disk | Get-StorageReliabilityCounter | Select-Object -Property "*"
Which they gave in response...

View attachment 22895

*face palm* They need to scroll up for the particular PM1725 output, as I think that command lists all the drives in the system. Come on guys...

It's like they are purposely being incompetent with this lot. I highly cautious anyone buying them.

I went ahead and bought 4 @ $260, as I saw someone grab 10 yesterday and 1 the day before, and another 4 a few days earlier. Their stock was 11 when I bought, moving fast.

I figured I will SMART and heavily FIO test and scrutinize each device when they arrive. Any issue or usage issues, they are going right back.
To continue the saga with the r2loop seller (the "can't do smart tests" seller)...

I received the drives, and install all four side-by-side in one of my servers for testing (yeah, I'm crazy - heat!!).

PXL_20220528_222301335.MP.jpg

After a few hours, the drives seem to hover around 45C in this chassis. Wow... I have the IPMI clamping down on the fans to 30%. Not a silent SC846, but low enough. May need to re-evaluate my cooling here.

Turns out, the r2loop seller may just be incompetent - looking at their other sales, there doesn't seem to be any other drive stuff in the past or recently. So most likely they have no idea. I do not use that word lightly, "incompetent." However, when you have about a dozen messages with someone, clearly bullet-point stepping them through every task, and still fail to provide any feedback that i am actually asking for, come on... They did try; however, what they provided just missed the mark over and over again.

Initial smart data shows 1% usage on all four drives, being powered on for almost 5 straight years. This is the smartctl output of the heaviest used drive:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number: MS1PC5ED3ORA3.2T
Serial Number: S2T7NAAH501342
Firmware Version: KPYAIR3Q
PCI Vendor ID: 0x144d
PCI Vendor Subsystem ID: 0x108e
IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x002538
Controller ID: 0
NVMe Version: <1.2
Number of Namespaces: 1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity: 3,200,631,791,616 [3.20 TB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size: 512
Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64: 002538 95610008fd
Local Time is: Sat May 28 23:55:25 2022 EDT
Firmware Updates (0x02): 1 Slot
Optional Admin Commands (0x0006): Format Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x0004): DS_Mngmt
Maximum Data Transfer Size: 32 Pages

Supported Power States
St Op Max Active Idle RL RT WL WT Ent_Lat Ex_Lat
0 + 25.00W - - 0 0 0 0 100 100

Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt Data Metadt Rel_Perf
0 - 512 0 1
1 - 512 8 3
2 - 4096 0 0
3 - 4096 8 2

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 54 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 10%
Percentage Used: 1%
Data Units Read: 3,169,575,213 [1.62 PB]
Data Units Written: 1,124,880,664 [575 TB]
Host Read Commands: 31,790,101,200
Host Write Commands: 15,794,495,594
Controller Busy Time: 24,295
Power Cycles: 56
Power On Hours: 42,870
Unsafe Shutdowns: 40
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0

Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 16 of 256 entries)
No Errors Logged

So I am happy with buying from r2loop (not the OP link!). Not very happy, as they have been powered on and HOT for 5 straight years.

Did anyone else, who bought from r2loop, get a nice set of stickers with their serial number and test results on them?

PXL_20220526_171708232.MP.jpg
PXL_20220526_171850535.MP.jpg

I think with all of my messages, they didn't trust me and took 2 full days to test, print stickers, and mail - because they took the full 2 business days before they shipped.
 

eduncan911

The New James Dean
Jul 27, 2015
648
506
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eduncan911.com
Can anyone create (and attach) additional namespaces on the F320? I'm getting errors that it only supports 1 namespace (Oracle firmware):

Code:
# nvme id-ctrl /dev/nvme0 | grep ^nn
nn        : 1

# nvme list-ctrl /dev/nvme0
NVMe status: INVALID_FIELD: A reserved coded value or an unsupported value in a defined field(0x2)
Looks like it's time to hunt down PM1725a threads about firmware and versions...

It's not a big deal for me. However, I was thinking to carve out like a 50GB namespace for the OS partition. (And save me a boot drive!)
 

LodeRunner

Active Member
Apr 27, 2019
540
227
43
My drives also had those test labels on them.

Your SMART results pretty much mirror mine. These drives were powered on for years and only very lightly used (or they just have that much endurance, or both).
 
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chiuljnk

Member
Apr 20, 2016
41
15
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I see there are two firmwares MS1PC2DD3.IR3Q.fw MS1PC5ED3.IR3Q.fw but which one is for my drive?

ubuntu@ubuntu:~/Oracle-NVMe-F320$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0
smartctl 6.6 2016-05-31 r4324 [x86_64-linux-4.15.0-29-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number: SAMSUNG MZPLK3T2HCJL-00003
Serial Number: S2FHNA0H800765
Firmware Version: KPYA7B3Q
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x144d
IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x002538
Controller ID: 0
Number of Namespaces: 1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity: 3,200,631,791,616 [3.20 TB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size: 512
Local Time is: Tue Nov 15 02:08:44 2022 UTC
Firmware Updates (0x02): 1 Slot
Optional Admin Commands (0x0006): Format Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x0004): DS_Mngmt
Maximum Data Transfer Size: 32 Pages

Supported Power States
St Op Max Active Idle RL RT WL WT Ent_Lat Ex_Lat
0 + 25.00W - - 0 0 0 0 100 100

Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt Data Metadt Rel_Perf
0 - 512 0 1
1 - 512 8 3
2 - 4096 0 0
3 - 4096 8 2

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02, NSID 0xffffffff)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 53 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 10%
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 573,739,109 [293 TB]
Data Units Written: 285,676,982 [146 TB]
Host Read Commands: 8,268,628,784
Host Write Commands: 1,646,154,985
Controller Busy Time: 6,201
Power Cycles: 9
Power On Hours: 20,119
Unsafe Shutdowns: 8
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0

Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, max 64 entries)
No Errors Logged
 

mmk

Active Member
Oct 15, 2016
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Czech Republic
I see there are two firmwares MS1PC2DD3.IR3Q.fw MS1PC5ED3.IR3Q.fw but which one is for my drive?
...
Model Number: SAMSUNG MZPLK3T2HCJL-00003
...
Are you sure you have the Oracle F320? Mine do not identify themselves as Samsung devices but rather something like:
Code:
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number:                       MS1PC5ED3ORA3.2T
This model number is also what is shown on the sticker on the back of the card.
 

mmk

Active Member
Oct 15, 2016
104
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Czech Republic
This was the actual eBay item: Samsung MZ-PLK3T20/ MZPLK3T2HCJL 3.2TB V-NAND Oracle 7317693 F320 NVMe AIC SSD | eBay

The sticker doesn't say Oracle, it only has that in the description, but I see you are probably right, this isn't an Oracle F320 because neither firmware was accepted by the card (gives invalid firmware error). Is there a firmware for my Samsung ?View attachment 25432
That is definitely not an F320. They clearly indicate that they're Oracle drives on the sticker.
 

chiuljnk

Member
Apr 20, 2016
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That is definitely not an F320. They clearly indicate that they're Oracle drives on the sticker.
thank you, I returned it for reason of "item not as described" and bought another, this time a real F320. It came with firmware KPYAIR3Q. is there a newer firmware? That's the latest I found here. seems like some people have KPYAJR3Q
 
Last edited:

mmk

Active Member
Oct 15, 2016
104
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Czech Republic
thank you, I returned it for reason of "item not as described" and bought another, this time a real F320. It came with firmware KPYAIR3Q. is there a newer firmware? That's the latest I found here. seems like some people have KPYAJR3Q
Latest is indeed KPYAJR3Q. The changes in that firmware don't really sound super critical to me.
 

mmk

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Oct 15, 2016
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It's way overkill for vSAN caching unless you have a rather large vSAN. The recommendation as far as i can remember was to have a cache tier of about 10% of the data tier. I'd almost say these would be wasted on a vSAN anyway due to how slow they end up being in practice.

I use mine as local mirrored zfs pool for VMs in proxmox and they work really nicely for that purpose.