NEW 480Gb Samsung SM843T Data Center Series SSD $100

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aero

Active Member
Apr 27, 2016
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guess it should be ok for light duty consumer use or boot drive use. but i probably won't put them back into extensive server use again.

I guess the question for me who doesn't run servers that needs a lot of fast i/o is what is the justification for upgrade from my spin hhd for just routine storage. probably none? i am still using even just a 32gb msata module as a boot device on my levono d30. and i still have a couple of 120gb ssd spares to play with....
There is no justification. As a technologist it's easy to drool while looking in the Great Deals section. I combat it by thinking to myself that when I really do need to upgrade drives there will be better deals (cheaper for greater capacity) available...so my wallet slips back into my pocket.
 

wildpig1234

Well-Known Member
Aug 22, 2016
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There is no justification. As a technologist it's easy to drool while looking in the Great Deals section. I combat it by thinking to myself that when I really do need to upgrade drives there will be better deals (cheaper for greater capacity) available...so my wallet slips back into my pocket.
I could justify to myself for the upgrade to all ssd for reliability from my array of 9 independent non raid hdd. The problem is that the cost/gb is still too high. I use it more in a storage capacity rather than high i/o scenario so the high i/o advantage of ssd is not needed. but i still like the higher reliability of ssd but cost is still too high ;(
 

grfxlab

Member
Apr 6, 2016
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Sorry to steer you guys to these if they are not as advertised. It is a smoking deal for new. It is a good deal for used.

Wildpig1234 - We have 1TB ssd as boot drive on our workstations. They have about 1.5TBW in 6 months. (everything we do is read from and saved to the file server). With our 3TBW per year the duty cycle on the offered SSD's at 96% left is huge. The great thing about data center ssd is power failure protection. They are still very useful. Sadly just might not be new.
 

Black Ninja

Member
Apr 23, 2015
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Answer to self; After reading the article (love this site) http://www.servethehome.com/used-enterprise-ssds-dissecting-our-production-ssd-population/, it does seem reasonable with 143TBW (WLC*480GB) during its time in a DC. (Division by 0.96 was just a brain fart.)
Seller offered a full refund (insisting that the drives are brand new and manufacturer sealed), but I'm keeping the disks anyway. Made a point that he should change from 'new other' to 'used' and that the price should perhaps be $80ish. I'm rather new in this game and curious how to handle this kind of sellers. Suggestions?
I think the only way to handle is to leave negative feedback with comment why, unless you want to encourage the ebay scammers of course. There is nothing wrong with selling used drives , as long as you sell them as used, otherwise it's a scam big time.
 

pc-tecky

Active Member
May 1, 2013
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It seems everyone this weekend raised the prices by $5.. They where $211 in the cart yesterday and now they are $220?? Why?
 

ridney

Member
Dec 8, 2015
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i just got mine and it's also not new as described. power on hours around 12k and 14k


Code:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (3) SAMSUNG MZ7WD480HAGM-00003
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           Model : SAMSUNG MZ7WD480HAGM-00003
        Firmware : NS00
   Serial Number : S16MNEAXXXXXX
       Disk Size : 480.1 GB (8.4/137.4/480.1/480.1)
     Buffer Size : Unknown
     Queue Depth : 32
    # of Sectors : 937703088
   Rotation Rate : ---- (SSD)
       Interface : Serial ATA
   Major Version : ACS-2
   Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 4c
   Transfer Mode : SATA/600 | SATA/600
  Power On Hours : 14627 hours
  Power On Count : 19 count
Wear Level Count : 51
     Temperature : 36 C (96 F)
   Health Status : Good (96 %)
        Features : S.M.A.R.T., 48bit LBA, NCQ, TRIM, DevSleep
       APM Level : ----
       AAM Level : ----
    Drive Letter : G:



 

nk215

Active Member
Oct 6, 2015
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At this price, it's falls in the territory of Intel 3500 drive. Which one is better? I usually bias toward Intel enterprise drives so I never really give other enterprise SSD a chance. For consumer drives, my Samsung drives (MLC) have been solid.
 

hippyhappo

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Oct 3, 2016
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I also purchased one of these and came across this thread while searching for info on this SSD. I figured I'd register and share my experience in case anybody else is purchasing these under the impressing that they're brand new (as I did).

Anyway, the SSD arrived sealed in the antistatic bag (as shown in the picture). However, I checked all the drive details using smartmontools, and hdparm, and it has almost 15,000 power_on_hours, with a power_cycle_count of just 9 (i.e. I imagine it's been running in a server / datacenter for the last couple years).

Something else that seems a bit off is that the firmware doesn't match. The firmware on the SSD is DXM87W3Q, but both hdparm and smartmontools report the firmware as NS00. Additionally, the SSD isn't recognized by Samsung Magician DC v1 (i.e. the Linux command line / enterprise version of Samsung Magician). The documentation for Samsung Magician DC v1 explicitly specifies that the SM843T is supported. It also specifies the SM843T as "limited support - cannot update firmware," so I'm not sure what the deal is here.

I'm far from an expert on this stuff, but one other thing that seems off is that host reads / writes are omitted from the SMART info. I've gone through a bunch of SSDs (including several other Samsung enterprise SSDs), and I don't recall any drive ever omitting the read / write SMART data.

If anybody knows what's going on with the firmware, or why the host reads / writes would be omitted from the SMART info, any info would be much appreciated.
 

keybored

Active Member
May 28, 2016
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...

Something else that seems a bit off is that the firmware doesn't match. The firmware on the SSD is DXM87W3Q, but both hdparm and smartmontools report the firmware as NS00. Additionally, the SSD isn't recognized by Samsung Magician DC v1 (i.e. the Linux command line / enterprise version of Samsung Magician). The documentation for Samsung Magician DC v1 explicitly specifies that the SM843T is supported. It also specifies the SM843T as "limited support - cannot update firmware," so I'm not sure what the deal is here. ...
Firmware could have been updated at a later date. The one printed on the drive is the one it shipped with.
Regarding Magician not working -- it'll only work with non-OEM Samsung drives. Don't quote me on this, but I think part numbers ending with 00003 are non-OEM Samsung drives. I have two PM863s with part numbers ending with 00003 and DC Magician works fine. Drives with part numbers ending with 000G3 are HP OEM drives and DC Magician does not recognize them. These would also have their own custom firmware, not the one shipped with genuine Samsung drives, so it's not surprising that some SMART attributes may not be supported.
 

Blinky 42

Active Member
Aug 6, 2015
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I got 10 myself, they were all zipped up in new anti-static bags but not had time to take them out and play with them.
I guess as long as they have decent life left in them and perform ok then still a decent deal, but very misleading selling them as "NEW"
 

hippyhappo

Member
Oct 3, 2016
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Firmware could have been updated at a later date. The one printed on the drive is the one it shipped with.
Regarding Magician not working -- it'll only work with non-OEM Samsung drives. Don't quote me on this, but I think part numbers ending with 00003 are non-OEM Samsung drives. I have two PM863s with part numbers ending with 00003 and DC Magician works fine. Drives with part numbers ending with 000G3 are HP OEM drives and DC Magician does not recognize them. These would also have their own custom firmware, not the one shipped with genuine Samsung drives, so it's not surprising that some SMART attributes may not be supported.
Just to clarify, I'm referring to the first release of the enterprise / datacenter version of Samsung Magician (Samsung Magician DC), which is a command-line tool for Linux only (not the consumer GUI version). I checked Samsung's website, and it looks like this links for this initial release are no longer active (the version they currently have up is the second / V2 release, which I believe is for the PM863 / SM863).

Anyway, the documentation states that Samsung Magician DC V1 officially supports the 845DC EVO, 845DC PRO, 840 PRO, 850 PRO, PM853T, SM843T, and SV843. I was under the impression that the PM853T, SM843T, and SV843 are the OEM versions, which are listed as "limited support - cannot update firmware" but everything else is supposed to work in Samsung Magician DC. I also have an SV843 (which I believe is the OEM version of the 845DC PRO, with 6.7% default over-provisioning instead of 28%), which works fine with Samsung Magician DC.

As you mentioned, I've also heard that the 3rd party-branded Samsung SSDs (e.g. HP, IBM, Lenovo) can have different firmware installed on them. All the 3rd party-branded Samsung SSDs I've seen, always seem to be clearly marked as such though, and the 3rd party firmware version has also been correctly specified. My SM843T does have a part number ending in 00003 (as well as my SV843), and doesn't have any 3rd party indications.

I'm also thinking this could be problematic with the warranty (which is specified as a 4-year manufacturer warranty in the listing). As I mentioned, Samsung states that the SM843T firmware cannot be updated, so if some unsupported firmware was installed via 3rd party tools, I imagine this might void the warranty.

As I said, I'm far from an expert, but there just seems to be a lot of inconsistencies here.
 

keybored

Active Member
May 28, 2016
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... My SM843T does have a part number ending in 00003 (as well as my SV843), and doesn't have any 3rd party indications.
...
Interesting. I was going by what I saw in one of the pics where the drive is shown with a part number ending with 000G3. If the one you received is a 00003 then I have no other theories as to why Magician doesn't work.
 

BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
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man.. i almost got excited until i read the rest of this thread.... think i'll pass, have no need for them right now anyway.
 

J--

Active Member
Aug 13, 2016
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I got 10 myself, they were all zipped up in new anti-static bags but not had time to take them out and play with them.
I guess as long as they have decent life left in them and perform ok then still a decent deal, but very misleading selling them as "NEW"
Still worth milking the seller for a partial refund even if you want to keep the drives, that is some shady business practice.