6.4TB Samsung PM1725a 5DWPD Enterprise TLC V-NAND PCIe 3.0 x8 NVMe HHHL AIC SSD NEW $999

[zeynel]

Looks pretty good, its new, have 5 year warranty.

6.4TB Samsung PM1725a 5DWPD Enterprise TLC V-NAND PCIe 3.0 x8 NVMe HHHL AIC SSD | eBay

Furthermore, the PM1725a employs the highest density to successfully process intensive and heavy enterprise workloads. The Samsung PM1725a SSD is optimized to excel in virtually any data center scenario.

www.ebay.com

I offered for 2 PCS $1800 comes back with $1900. so maybe one for $950 also possible.

Good Luck.

 

[gigatexal]

i was just going to post this! with the rate games are increasing in size these days i might be able to store 3 or 4 games on one of these ;-)

if someone buys one and wants to offload one of their other PCI-e >1TB SSDs I'd buy that so you could get this

 

[Don.key]

I have two of those, be aware that they come with very old firmware (GPNA0A3Q) and there is no way to upgrade it. I have even tried to flash HP firmware on it, see https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...e-on-4tb-nvme-ssds-for-workstation-use.27909/ but failed.

I also contacted Supermicro because they apparently have newer firmware (FAQ Entry | Online Support | Support - Super Micro Computer, Inc.) but they told me that they cannot help: receiving firmware upgrades is insanely strict, apparently they need to send drive serial number to Samsung to get firmware, each and every time. And that serial must be known to have been sold by Supermicro. Real PITA

If someone finds a way how to upgrade them, they are absolute killer deal but until then I pass (could use 4 more), I will keep using mine but not for critical data, that will go on Intel P3700's.

 

[Samir]

What limitations come from the older firmware?

 

[muhfugen]

What limitations come from the older firmware?

Generally a significantly increased chance of hardware failure. See sections 5.5 and 8 of this NetApp study on SSD reliability.

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/fast20-maneas.pdf

 

[Don.key]

What limitations come from the older firmware?

This is, unfortunately, not clear. OEM Versions of those drives had several critical/urgent updates to mitigate issues, from cache errors that caused complete data loss to power loss protection failures. Please see linked thread.

One cannot say with 100% certainty if those problems are present in original Samsung firmware or where introduced by OEMs. For example cache issue is patched by DELL only but not HP. The absence of issue list for those drives is almost as troubling as absence of firmware. You essentially have a mystery box and have no idea what to expect from it.

 

[Don.key]

Btw, here is picture of the label from one of those drives. Image in the auction is not correct...

 

[vangoose]

I got hgst sn260 6.4 TB AIC retail for $600 each. Brand new open box in Jan. Comes with latest firmware.

 

[ButcherMaster]

I am having similar issues and firmware are nowhere to be found. After updating to Ubuntu 20.04 I am getting block errors. If I install windows server it works, Installed Rhel 8.2 and that did not give me error as well, If I install the Ubuntu using live usb and when expanding the LVM the system will freeze. This was working perfectly fine with Ubuntu 1804 for a year. I tried Dell firmware updater but was rejected because this is directly from samsung.

 

[azev]

Interesting, usually I always preferred buying manufacture model instead of re-branded ssd from different hardware vendor, but now I know samsung is the exception.

 

[RobstarUSA]

I got hgst sn260 6.4 TB AIC retail for $600 each. Brand new open box in Jan. Comes with latest firmware.

Link?

 

[HecatesChild]

The older firmware also doesn't support multiple namespaces or formatting (to change block size from 512 to 4K).

 

[HecatesChild]

Well I have some good news!!!

We were lucky enough to get SuperMicro to give us a copy of the firmware for the generic/non-OEM pm1725a card.

Firmware is version GPNABB3Q.BIN This is even newer than the version they mentioned in the FAQ referenced above.

I've tested it and it flashes properly, now allows all 32 namespaces, and formatting the namespace (as well as who knows what other bug fixes).

Does anyone have a place where I can upload this for it to be hosted (it's 3.14MB unzipped)?

You will need to use nvme-cli to flash it.

Thanks to everyone above in giving me the hint to look there!
Christine

 

[HecatesChild]

To use it, you will issue the following nvme-cli commands (sudo'd obviously) replace # in nvme# with the number shown on your linux boot when you type nvme list. (these instructions are massaged from IBM's update instructions.)

**READ THIS WHOLE THING BEFORE STARTING** if I typo'd I apologize.

# This puts the firmware into slot 2 normally. (the -s 2 below) You can confirm via nvme fw-log /dev/nvme# if that is the slot it gets loaded into, in step 1 below

# step 1 - load the firmware into adapter
nvme fw-download /dev/nvme# --fw=firmwarefilename.bin

# step 2 - Confirms/validates the firmware in slot 2 is valid
nvme fw-activate /dev/nvme# -a 0 -s 2

# step 3 - Applies firmware in slot 2
nvme fw-activate /dev/nvme# -a 3 -s 2

# At this point you are done. If you change any namespaces before rebooting, you will only see the changes to namespace 1 until you reboot (however they were all be there after reboot)

# Confirm the new firmware is the current and to be loaded upon boot firmware
nvme list

# You will also notice if you do an nvme id-ctl -H that now the supported features are different than they were before (namespaces are supported, formatting is supported, etc)

 

[BlueFox]

Firmware:

https://drunkencat.net/misc/GPNABB3Q.BIN

 

[HecatesChild]

Thanks Bluefox for the hosting

I'll post some namespacing help in the next day or two (I scripted it, but that drive is on my portable in the office) as I'm setting 6 drives the same way for S2D (and would be too easy to typo)

 

[redeamon]

A *BIG* thank you. I have 4 of these cards and they have a super annoying issue where if power is lost they lose their namespace. It's a firmware bug and it drives me nuts. I have a solid UPS but just the thought of accidentally pulling a power plug and losing all data is ridiculous.

 

[HecatesChild]

I hear ya. The OLD OLD firmware is kinda scary on these drives.

 

[gigatexal]

well damn now i might part with 1k with all this new firmware goodness

 

[HecatesChild]

Ok.. for Namespacing (partitioning) - All commands must be SUDO/Root below

I recommend outputting to a file the following so you know how the factory NS was made. Note Ensure you have rebooted since a firmware upgrade
nvme id-ns /dev/nvme0 -n 1 -H > nsoutput.txt

# delete existing namespace, assuming this is factory, there is 1 NS, #1
nvme delete-ns /dev/nvme0 -n 1

# create partition (replace BLOCK Count with the amount of space in bytes, divided by the block size (set with the -f, in this example 4K), all
# parameter information is on the output you did above so you know the options
nvme create-ns /dev/nvme0 -s BLOCKCOUNT -c BLOCKCOUNT -f 2 -d 0 -m 1

# It will return a ns-id, starting with 1 (-n paramter) and you attach to controller (do an nvme id-ctrl /dev/nvme0 -H ) to get the controller id (cntl-id)
nvme attach-ns /dev/nvme0 -n 1 -c 0x21

And there you have a new namespace setup to the size you want. It won't let you assign more space than the drive has

If possible, after upgrading from the OLD OLD factory firmware, move the data to another drive, and re-namespace the drive (this also does a "quick format", of the space)

Hope this all helps some from what I learned the last cpl weeks about these incredible cards!

Christine