Samsung 983 DCT 1.9TB - how good of a deal for $200?

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hmw

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Apr 29, 2019
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Someone's offering the 983 DCT 1.9TB for $200. The drive has 39TB written and I saw from the specs it has a 5 year/2800 TBW warranty. The firmware is EDA5202Q. The use case is adding storage to my ESXi homelab (currently it has a 1TB Samsung 970 Evo)

Is this a good deal?

I'm aware that the Intel P4510 is far better at writes than the Samsung - but it's also more power hungry and costlier. I don't think the 983 needs a heatsink - whereas the Intel SSD has a heatsink, needs active cooling and refurb P4510s go for $310 - $375

What I've read from the forums is that Samsung doesn't post or hand out firmware and it's difficult to get support as it would be a refurb/second hand drive

What's people's experience with the 983 DCT and with upgrading firmware?
 
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i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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I'm aware that the Intel P4510 is far better at writes than the Samsung - but it's also more power hungry and costlier. I don't think the 983 needs a heatsink - whereas the Intel SSD has a heatsink, needs active cooling and refurb P4510s go for $310 - $375
These are both enterprise u.2 ssds and they both need the airflow of a workstation/server designed for u.2 ssds.
What's people's experience with the 983 DCT and with upgrading firmware?
I don't have experience with this model, but with some other samsung enterprise ssds. Firmware support is terrible if you don't get the device in a server/workstation :(
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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Samsung firmware is the real issue, it’s in some ways better if you Samsung has say a HPE or Dell label on it so you can throw it in a machine and bring it up to date... the drives have been around a while now so no doubt a simple update to current will see it at a suitable level until the end of its useful life.
I have a few of those drives, they work really well, good value.

anybody know if there is any serious bugs in 983 firmware ? (Ignorance is bliss as well, keep backups)
 

hmw

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Apr 29, 2019
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I went ahead and got the drive. If it doesn't work out - oh well it's only $200. Right now I have a 970 EVO (not Plus) so I guess this will be more or less the same performance
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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983 should have better steady state performance. Peak performance for the 2 is probably similar.
 

hmw

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Apr 29, 2019
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Got the drive and installed on ESXi 6.7u3. Tried to format it as 4kn but ESXi wouldn’t see it so reverted back to 512e format. The drive does 3 GB/s read and 1.4 GB/s write. Temps are 38c idle and 45-49c when under load (haven’t tested under sustained load)

I don’t think the drive supports multiple namespaces. And it’s NVMe 1.2 spec. But it’s cheap and cheerful for $200
 
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doop

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Jan 16, 2015
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Samsung firmware is the real issue, it’s in some ways better if you Samsung has say a HPE or Dell label on it so you can throw it in a machine and bring it up to date... the drives have been around a while now so no doubt a simple update to current will see it at a suitable level until the end of its useful life.
I have a few of those drives, they work really well, good value.

anybody know if there is any serious bugs in 983 firmware ? (Ignorance is bliss as well, keep backups)
Will Supermicro give out 983 firmware?
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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If they have sold the drive they seem to do so from what other have said but there is lots of unmarked drives out there and seems the firmware won’t just apply to them. (Never tried to update the couple of 983’s I have as they are only used for pure test use, not sure of their real origin)