Is my NVMe SSD faulty?

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alex_stief

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2016
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I recently bought an NVMe SSD here on the forum. I just got to poke around with it a little bit. After it mysteriously dropped its partitions, I checked the SMART values:
Code:
Node             SN                   Model                                    Namespace Usage                      Format           FW Rev 
---------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- --------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------
/dev/nvme1n1     SDM0000307F5         HUSMR7676BDP3Y1                          1           7.68  TB /   7.68  TB    512   B +  8 B   KNECD112
Code:
nvme --smart-log /dev/nvme1n1
Smart Log for NVME device:nvme1n1 namespace-id:ffffffff
critical_warning                    : 0
temperature                         : 55 C
available_spare                     : 100%
available_spare_threshold           : 10%
percentage_used                     : 1%
data_units_read                     : 2228701983
data_units_written                  : 1777357617
host_read_commands                  : 13797474349
host_write_commands                 : 9180413424
controller_busy_time                : 226551
power_cycles                        : 475
power_on_hours                      : 7898
unsafe_shutdowns                    : 241
media_errors                        : 3186
num_err_log_entries                 : 83
Warning Temperature Time            : 0
Critical Composite Temperature Time : 0
Temperature Sensor 1                : 55 C
Temperature Sensor 2                : 48 C
Temperature Sensor 3                : 53 C
Thermal Management T1 Trans Count   : 0
Thermal Management T2 Trans Count   : 0
Thermal Management T1 Total Time    : 0
Thermal Management T2 Total Time    : 0
Those are quite a few unsafe shutdown, media errors and error log entries. Not that I knew exactly what these mean...
Can this device be salvaged, or did I just waste 700$?
 

vanfawx

Active Member
Jan 4, 2015
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Vancouver, Canada
"unsafe_shutdowns" just means the number of times the machine was shutdown abruptly or power was lost. You still have 99% endurance left on the drive, so it looks good to me.

Also, you should be running against device nvme0, which is the device itself. nvme0n1 is the first namespace on the nvme0 device.

Also, if you want human readable information, you can use smartmontools v7 or newer. If you do have that already, "smartctl -a /dev/nvme0" should give you the same output, but with human readable values.

HTH!
 

alex_stief

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2016
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Yes, I get human-readable values for TB read/written with smartctl -a. Version 6.6 by the way. Other than that, the information is the same. Also regardless of testing the device or the first (and in my case only) namespace.

My question was less about the endurance values reported by smartmontools or nvme-cli, but about the errors that occurred: dropping all partitions/tables and thus all the data on the drive. Which has happened two times since I have this SSD. Without a clue what might have caused it.
The error logs are empty, and according to the reported values, temperature thresholds have not been exceeded once, which was the first suspicion the seller had. He helped me out by deleting and recreating the namespace on the device. But for now, I don't know how much I can trust this SSD, despite only using it basically as a scratch drive. Btw, the number of media and data integrity errors has increased since my initial post. On my other SSD (Samsung 970 Evo Plus, bought new) this value is still zero.
 
Last edited:

redeamon

Active Member
Jun 10, 2018
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43
I know this is a super old thread, but in case anyone ever runs into a ton of "media errors" after grabbing an enterprise drive off eBay etc. Pay close attention to the LBA format- it's 512 B + 8 B. That means the drive is formatted as 520b not 512.