NVME PM963 2.5" 960GB $300

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lunajrq

New Member
Jan 29, 2019
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Do you mind to point me the solution you came up with? I also spent countless hours on that.

Miki,

Bound and determined to come up with a workable solution, I wasted a completely unreasonable amount of time on these drives. Unfortunately I was unable to find a way to recover any functionality without erasing the drives or source any firmware which proved to be stable. Samsung and their vendors eventually shrugged their shoulders and told me to go pound salt (regarding drives I purchased both through eBay and directly from authorized dealers).

I think I ended up with 18 PM963’s.. To be honest, I threw them on a shelf and forgot about them. I no longer use any Samsung drives unless doing so is absolutely unavoidable.


-Craig
 

AJXCR

Active Member
Jan 20, 2017
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Do you mind to point me the solution you came up with? I also spent countless hours on that.

I don’t follow.. Apart from resetting the drives (which for me makes them work momentarily), I have no solution.
 

lunajrq

New Member
Jan 29, 2019
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Sorry, I thought you find out a solution.

After I noticed the issue, I followed your thread to restore the firmware. But it keeps having problem with that even connected to a U.2 port on motherboard. I thought if anyone who can figure this out is you since it seems you are the only person on the internet who investigate the problem so deeply. At this moment, I also more or less give up on these drives. I will probably never buy any Samsung drives.

And thanks for all your post for this drive, at the very least I know the drive is beyond fix.

I don’t follow.. Apart from resetting the drives (which for me makes them work momentarily), I have no solution.
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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I still use Samsung drives unlike @AJXCR but like everything always have good backups.
Ok I should qualify that I still use Samsung , only sata and sas. Don’t use NVMe, currently only intel NVMe.

When I have had issues with Samsung SSD with issues that cause them to be not readable I have never seen data come back off them, have been able to fix some with firmware flash but that it.
(To be fair also been hit by intel bugs and also no recovery, then they are dead, usually dead dead)
 

AJXCR

Active Member
Jan 20, 2017
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I still use Samsung drives unlike @AJXCR but like everything always have good backups.
Ok I should qualify that I still use Samsung , only sata and sas. Don’t use NVMe, currently only intel NVMe.

When I have had issues with Samsung SSD with issues that cause them to be not readable I have never seen data come back off them, have been able to fix some with firmware flash but that it.
(To be fair also been hit by intel bugs and also no recovery, then they are dead, usually dead dead)
My frustration was less with the drives themselves and more with the total runaround Samsung gave me with regard to firmware.. regardless of where the drives were purchased (new or used). Their response was “We don’t support enterprise drives. Not our problem- talk to our dealers...” and, apart from Supermicro (who went to great lengths to help me out- even getting a three way NDA signed between my company, themselves, and Samsung) dealer response was “Not our problem- Talk to Samsung”. Ultimately Supermicro was able to help me get the latest firmware, however, being several revisions behind, the drives wouldn’t accept it. When we attempted to procure an earlier revision of the firmware Samsung told us to get lost.
 
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Miki

New Member
May 31, 2019
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@AJXCR, wait, you write "every time the power is cycled the [PM963 2.5] drives go into an error state and appear to be bricked (listing "ERRORMOD" as the firmware revision from terminal and showing a total capacity equal to the drive cache size). This can be temporarily reversed via terminal,"

How do you "temporarily reverse" the ERRORMOD condition without wiping the SSD's contents?

As I said I have a PM983 M.2 3.84TB MZ1LB3T8HMLA-00007 with important data on it, that is in the exact ERRORMOD-1GB condition you describe. Any clarification is much appreciated.

If you decide to resell them, I may be an interested buyer. A couple of notes though:

I ran into a number of issues with the 10 of the 12 drives I purchased. Unfortunately, every time the power is cycled the drives go into an error state and appear to be bricked (listing "ERRORMOD" as the firmware revision from terminal and showing a total capacity equal to the drive cache size). This can be temporarily reversed via terminal, but the brick on power cycle problem is consistent. If left running without cycling the power, however, all of the drives work great for at least a few hours. The two non-affected drives list a different firmware revision than the other 10 units.

After going around with Samsung tech support (who told me to take flying leap), spending countless hours on the internet looking for firmware, and moving the drives between several different servers and workstations with absolutely no success, I may have sourced some non-official firmware that could be a solution... but I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

As a side note, when used as a single drive on a futon adapter, the one drive I tested did not exhibit the same issue.. When using multiple drives in Intel and SM purpose built NVMe servers and/or multiple drive HBA's, however, they're toast.

I'm currently traveling and about to walk into an airport, but I'll do my best to stay on top of this thread throughout the day.

-Craig
 

AJXCR

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Jan 20, 2017
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I was referring to the error state.. I have not been able to recover any data from a failed drive.
 

Miki

New Member
May 31, 2019
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@AJXCR , aha you could format-reuse the drive but the data was lost in your experience, I see.

My PM983 sorts as "B2B-OEM" and "Samsung semiconductor" is the designated support department, and same like your experience they just refer me altogether to the vendor for any warranty even firmware update queries.

Some last random questions now that we're talking anyhow,

* Someone told me that ERRORMOD might just indicate that there is flash memory problems because *modern SSD:s will tend to store their own firmware on the same flash chips as the SSD data is stored on*, do you have any thoughts about that one?

* Did you get particular sense of trust for any particular SSD recovery company? (I emailed Ace3K and they said they don't support PM983 yet but are working on it.)

* Did you hear about anyone being able to fix an ERRORMOD condition on any model? ERRORMOD means broken firmware startup sequence so mechanical error like broken diode or broken solder on PCB could be reasons, if it would be & was fixed, the SSD would magically start working again. (Of course for you you know you bumped into a effectively a firmware bug relating to power cycles, for me not sure.)

* Is sensitivity to power cycles a typical feature of Samsung SSD:s that motivate you to move to consumer Samsung SSD:s or other brands? For me this is my first non-consumer SSD and, well, I lost all my data in 5 months of light wear use, not a very encouraging statistic.

Thanks and best regards.
 

AJXCR

Active Member
Jan 20, 2017
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If I took a brand new drive and flashed it with the firmware that was on my drives when I received them, the new drive immediately exhibited the same issue.. This leads me to be pretty confident in the fw being the source of the problem.

Regarding companies who specialize in data recovery, I don’t have much experience in that dept. Perhaps others can chime in.

I am not aware of anyone successfully rectifying the errormod issue.

This is the only model of Samsung drive I’ve ever experienced any serious problems with- I just don’t want to deal with Samsung in the event of a failure. I’ve had excellent luck with both Intel & HGST drives.
 

Miki

New Member
May 31, 2019
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@AJXCR , wait, so this hints that I have a bad firmware version on my PM983. If I would upgrade the firmware to one that works better, would I get my data back?

If I took a brand new drive and flashed it with the firmware that was on my drives when I received them, the new drive immediately exhibited the same issue.. This leads me to be pretty confident in the fw being the source of the problem.

Regarding companies who specialize in data recovery, I don’t have much experience in that dept. Perhaps others can chime in.

I am not aware of anyone successfully rectifying the errormod issue.

This is the only model of Samsung drive I’ve ever experienced any serious problems with- I just don’t want to deal with Samsung in the event of a failure. I’ve had excellent luck with both Intel & HGST drives.
 

AJXCR

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Jan 20, 2017
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...if you can obtain the right fw.. and get it to update from errormod without wiping the data.
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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...if you can obtain the right fw.. and get it to update from errormod without wiping the data.
I believe in rainbow unicorns as well haha

@Miki , Who is the OEM of the drive that has the error, if say HPE put it in a HP server, grab the latest smartstart/ firmware and do that. Same for Dell, etc.
That’s the best chance I think.
I know you probably don’t have the HP,Dell,Cisco,Lenovo server around but ask if somebody has near you. Really going to be the easiest and safest way I think.
 

AJXCR

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Jan 20, 2017
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I believe in rainbow unicorns as well haha

@Miki , Who is the OEM of the drive that has the error, if say HPE put it in a HP server, grab the latest smartstart/ firmware and do that. Same for Dell, etc.
That’s the best chance I think.
I know you probably don’t have the HP,Dell,Cisco,Lenovo server around but ask if somebody has near you. Really going to be the easiest and safest way I think.
:D

Sadly I have no idea.. my drives have no OEM markings and Samsung was unwilling to divulge this info
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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:D

Sadly I have no idea.. my drives have no OEM markings and Samsung was unwilling to divulge this info
Edit: sorry I thought I was replying to Miki, I realize your issue :(

That should rule out HPE,Dell,Lenovo as the have their info and names/logo on the drives.
Bit of a dead end there then.

I was looking at the 3.84tb version I so much thinking to buy some but just not sure if it’s the best idea.
 
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Miki

New Member
May 31, 2019
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@Evan @AJXCR are you suggesting that a firmware update could fix it?

Since posting originally I learned that "Samsung Semiconductor" is the Samsung division that does the support for this "B2B-OEM drive". They in turn defer all queries to my "OEM vendor", which is a two man shop that certainly did not customize the firmware. :-}

I have made a thread for my SSD issue here View topic - PM983 3.84TB M.2 MZ1LB3T8HMLA-00007 ERRORMOD&1G,how recover? .
 

AveryFreeman

consummate homelabber
Mar 17, 2017
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Near Seattle
averyfreeman.com
I felt like it was the best deal I've seen on larger(ish) bulk enterprise NVME drives in a while.. Now I just need a way to add 8 more NVME devices to my box (I'm looking at you Broadcom!)

Too bad you can't cut these Intel combo backplanes in half and make 4x 4NVME back planes.. or can you?? :eek:


(That was a joke) ...Not that I wouldn't do it if I thought it might work :D
You can do that now... There's a backplane that's half NVMe half SAS. I think I saw it on this board, actually.
 

alexherreraz

New Member
Oct 20, 2020
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Hi! Im a guy from México that Is suffering with AND NVMe memory that has the 1gb problem AND i havent manage to make It work again! I dont know anything about Linux so i really need your help!! Can you help me with this? I can Pay you ir you want to But PLEASE help me!

He're Is my email: alexherreraz@hotmail.com

I beg you, im desperate trying to fix this and i cant!
 

AJXCR

Active Member
Jan 20, 2017
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Hi! Im a guy from México that Is suffering with AND NVMe memory that has the 1gb problem AND i havent manage to make It work again! I dont know anything about Linux so i really need your help!! Can you help me with this? I can Pay you ir you want to But PLEASE help me!

He're Is my email: alexherreraz@hotmail.com

I beg you, im desperate trying to fix this and i cant!
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but to my knowledge (although I haven’t kept up with or given any thought to the issue in quite some time) there is no fix. The drives will fail cyclically with every power cycle. I threw all 14? 15? I have in a box somewhere and forgot about them.

-Craig
 

alexherreraz

New Member
Oct 20, 2020
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I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but to my knowledge (although I haven’t kept up with or given any thought to the issue in quite some time) there is no fix. The drives will fail cyclically with every power cycle. I threw all 14? 15? I have in a box somewhere and forgot about them.

-Craig
Hi Craig!! so the " root@:~#nvme list " and all that stuff didn´t worked? im living a nightmare here!! i bought one that had the ERROR and i fight with the seller to change it, i get a new one, i connected it, it worked but a few mintues later i get a Blue Screen of Death, had to reinstall windows and suddenly the memory got the same error listing the space as a 1024mb drive!!

I been trying all day to make the "Root" thing on linux but could´nt make it, i having a bad feeling that my motherboard is doing this but im not sure!!

Im really stresed!! my MOBO has an M.2_1 port that is supposed to be compatible with PCi 4.0 NVMe cards but both times i got this new one i tried to connect it right there, is there any chance that a voltage problem may be happening??