DAW PC Disaster: Guaranteed Failure If You Buy This Component

[@skarajmusic]

From what I can remember, the 990 had issues upon release so a manual firmware update was needed to fix the issues. Sad to see that there's still issues with them.

[@tek_soup]

maybe he didnt upgrade the firmware? i have a bunch of 990 pro, no problem, but i allways update, first thing.

[@skarajmusic]

@@tek_soup Well, that's what I thought as well initially. Maybe he didn't update the firmware, but then if Samsung sent it back to him, surely it'd have the most up to date firmware on it? Maybe, maybe not.

[@oltep]

Thank you for sharing. I've been running a 990 PRO 1TB for all my Steam games for 1 year and no issues. Never used it as a boot drive.

[@drsamurai009]

Great to see these kinds of videos! If it helps just one person it was so worth it! Thanks for bringing more light on this issue.

[@johnnydwicked]

WD Black SN850x nvme is now available in 8tb, which is not only great for big video game Steam library but also massive collection of sound libraries. :) Cheapest price was $600 black Friday sale.

[@pthomas36]

Very interesting! i'm running two 980PRO's in my machine for C and D drives. Just 1TB drives and no problems with them at all, after 3 years since I built it.

[@raul0ca]

Similar situation. I have two 1TB 980 Pros in separate PCs with no problems in 2 different PCs, one an Asrock AM4 motherboard and the other an Intel Nuc Extreme 11. No problems but I do remember them having similar problems on release which would be fixed with a firmware update. I run Linux on both and was able to update the firmware easily.

[@acetechnical6574]

@@raul0ca 980s dont have this issue, its only 990s and then only a few specific firmwares that have the issue, which can be fixed by a firmware update.

[@marander512]

Wow good to know, thanks for your analysis and sorry for your troubles! Similar to you, I'm using Samsung SSDs exclusively, but my newest m.2 types are only 970 and 980 models and they work flawlessly since many years (Ryzen and Intel based machines). Love your channel and looking forward to every new video. Cheers, Mike

[@docteurgreene]

When I built my new DAW/Gaming PC last year I didn't want to buy a 4 TB M2 drive because in case of failure this is too much data lost, so I prefered buying 4 disks of 1 TB and each disk has his own purpose. I bought Crucial P3 plus Gen 4 (1 TB) for the OS and 3 Crucial MX500 for the datas/games I have been very happy for the moment.

[@benargee]

I think as a gaming PC it's ok to install games and other unimportant data so long as game files and user files are separate.

[@ernies8828]

But the more space it has to write to the longer the SSD/Nvme will last.

[@tlight901]

Good to know, I also have the same drive (2TB version). Been running it about 10 months and thankfully I haven't had any issues with it...yet.

[@MathHammer]

Very good to know. Thank you. It isn't a direct synth topic but I think it is safe to say many of us have DAW/Multimedia PCs.

[@shane011471]

This is a well know issue and all it was is bad firmware that was falsely reporting bad sectors when in fact the drive is just fine. Samsung Magician software go to the update tab and check for new Firmware. Do not know if this is your issue, but it has been fixed for some time now if you still own the drive that is. As long as you can get the drive to show up you can apply the fix and all will be fine. I do not know what you can do if it will not even show up. JayzTwoCents did a good video about this very issue and worth the watch.

[@ScottsSynthStuff]

No, I was running the latest firmware on all the drives that failed.

[@shane011471]

@@ScottsSynthStuff Sorry about that. I had the same problem (more or less) as the drive would go in to read only mode which the OS will not deal with as it's writing all the time (sort of a limp mode for the SSD) but this was on a 980 pro and not the 990, but both were affected. Just a shot in the dark.

[@keithej2]

No Bleeding edge, over heating, new product, over clocked, ... stuff for me. Years ago I decided to never buy the newest hardware, the fastest of anything or do any serious over clocking. You can get 90 to 95% of the performance at a fraction of the price buying good vs the fastest/most expensive of almost any computer hardware. I have Samsung 980 (not pro) WD Black and Solidigm P44, are all fast/good. Really anything except cheap Chinese SSDs are pretty good.

[@BoltRM]

Staying a yr or more behind the curve, prevents SO many issues & saves a lot of $ 💪 Bugs fixed etc

[@BoltRM]

That's why the large co I worked for, would always wait a yr or more. They had over a thousand PCs

[@aloharay]

agreed. Have used my WD Black 1TB for two years now no problems. Glad you got your system back up and running.

[@ojmcbaggins]

That's what I use

[@0richbike]

WD black is the way to go.

[@traum640]

I used mine maybe the same or more time and now is has been passed on to another PC.

[@Lif-999]

Yes, me too. I am two years into a 2x WD Black 2Tb drive set up with no issues. I caveat however, You cannot update these devices if they are installed as part of a raid set up [though this may be true for all makes of SSD].

[@FarrellMcGovern]

Thanks for the tipo! My frist thought was heat as well. But as you did everything you could to mitigate the heat, and it made no difference, that is definitely a problem with the drive componants. I, too, am a fan of Samsung SSDs, but they are on the expensive side, and I find comparable drives by other manufacturers at better prices, such as the WD drive you mention.

[@DaskaiserreichNet78]

I built my DAW PC earlier this year. I was looking at Samsung M.2 drives but wound up getting the Team Group M.2 drive. Thank god, I really dodged a bullet by the sounds of it.

[@SnowDrift-bh7wb]

2 years ago I bought a Samsung 1TB 870 EVO. After a half a year of usage, my PC would start to intermittently crash. Reason: The fairly new Samsung drive had bad blocks. I checked the internet if this was a known problem. It was. The internet was full of complaints from users facing similar issues. That was when I started to avoid Samsung drives. Recently I was thinking to maybe return to Samsung again as I was thinking they may have fixed the problem. But this video tells me to continue avoiding Samsung drives. And now it will be for a long time to come. And not only for drives, because if a company fails so hard, then it must be due to company internal issues that go way beyond the product itself.

[@12Jerbs]

I had a 980 die on me after 1yr. After looking into, there were a batch that were flawed (they provided version # to look for). Mine fell into the impacted group. If I had known about this and provided the drive a firmware update (using the Samsung software), it would have apparently resolved the issue and prevented the drive from dying. The drive was replaced free of charge through my retailer, as the drive was still in warranty. They provided me a 990.

[@5starstudiomedia]

I have the WD Black SN 850x myself with no issues thank goodness. It's funny because since summer I've been seeing tons of sales promotions pushing the Samsung 990's and was considering purchasing one. Thanks for sharing and will take your advice to stay away from them.

[@kennethh2430]

❤my 3ea 4tb WD SN850x nvme drives. No issues. I used to have Samsung SATA SSDs and a couple of their nvmes, but went with the WD SN850x's in my new build. No regrets about it.

[@kirkanos771]

Tom's Hardware made a news about this : Samsung 990 Pro SSDs Report Rapid Health Degradation on January 23, 2023. They were never fixed.

[@andynonimuss6298]

The first and original firmware was 0B2QJXD7. The 1B2QJXD7 firmware update from February 13, 2023 already fixed the health issues. 4B2QJXD7 is the latest firmware update for the 990 Pro. I have two Samsung 990 Pro SSDs and one is my OS. No issues with the 990s whatsoever for almost a year with them. My SSD firmware stays up to date through Samsung Magician software.

[@stephenfleming8030]

That's bad man, sorry for your woes. I have 2 Samsung NVMEs installed, both 980s and gen 4s which are more than adequate for audio and video (as long as it's not multiple 8k streams I suppose). I've never had a problem with them.

[@JamesArthurHurley]

Uh. I suspect it may be an issue with your setup that is common to others who have this failure. I have these and have been running them for almost two years without an issue. Still on my first ones in three machines.

[@agentooe33AD]

I can vouch for the WD drives. I get the ones with built on hear sync. Have 2 of them and they've performed great and still kicking. I really appreciate this video. We need to know about hardware that repeatedly fails like this.

[@McAlby]

I bought a 970 Evo Plus drive as a main disk and I had to buy a huge heatsink for it because it runs scarily hot compared to my other drives. It's my main drive but I don't think I will ever buy a Samsung drive again. My other drives are Crucial, which are not as fast, but have been reliable up to now. I would suggest using the drives you have for something easily recoverable, like sound libraries. Cheers!

[@romanwisniak]

Even worse - Cubase 14 Pro isn't optimized for latest Intel Ultra 9 285K too. In fact it works even worse than with Ryzens because there are just cracks and glitches with latencies up to 512 samples. Studio One Pro (even v6) works just fine :)

[@IanWaugh]

Hey Scott - wierd. I struggle to understand why any company would continue sales of defective stuff. I've been using the Evos for ages and OK so far. Good to know bout the Pros 👍

[@buzzfunk]

After 1 drive fail i would already jump onto a different brand. Esp when the internet is complaining about failures. Thats just what you should do.

[@TF242]

I got 2 Samsung SSD Drives in one of my systems but luckily not the same number. They have been running for about a year now so fingers crossed it won't happen. You are way more patient that me Scott by sticking the same drive back in 4-5 times :D I use WD drives as well so good choice there.

[@delscoville]

Make sure you have Samsung Magician installed, and let it update the Samsung Firmware. There was a problem with the 990 Pro that a firmware update fixed. Anyway, I'm still using a 980 Pro NVMe because of all the complaints I hear about the 990 Pto NVMe.

[@ScottsSynthStuff]

All of the drives that failed were running the latest firmware.

[@bf5787]

Crucial makes the best drives. Nowadays you need heat sinks for the drive. They get very hot. Had the same issues multiple times

[@geraldweinsack5500]

I also use Samsung NVME SSDs, but 970, 980 and 980 Pro since they came out. No 990. All work fine after a few years. Obviously the 990 series is not the quality you expected. So you just got unlucky in choosing your SSD. I hope you have better luck with your new WD SSD. But remember that WD is not really different from others and things can go wrong with their parts too.

[@odmusicman]

I use Macrium as well, it's awesome and I do the exact same backup sequence procedures you do. I'm an IT guy and musician too. MOST people are not as through as you and me.

[@carljung4733]

I wonder if macrium is causing the drive failures...

[@odmusicman]

@@carljung4733 interesting except for the fact he is using it with the non-Samsung drives and no issue. Samsung does have the reputation for the issue as well.

[@The_Digital_Arts_World]

Your experience really sucks. Glad you did make the video. I have also been a regular Samsung SATA SSD user for years on various Macs and PCs; but, have not tread into NVMe territory, so this is a great heads up. I’ve looked into the WD Black drives and feel more confident in their technology. I have dealt with defective Samsung Large Flat Screen TVs before that have also been prone to failures. This has pushed Samsungs products off on a side plate for me. I don’t like the replacement with the same defective parts. Samsung EVO 990 Class Action Suit? It could very well happen with the volume of users that have suffered from this defect, especially over and over again. Leep your eyes peeled to Top Class Action Suites and other sources that help track lawsuits like this.

[@TazzSmk]

years back I had 860 EVO (SATA) die/brick within a year, replaced within warranty and no problems ever since, backups are important if you want your data safe :))

[@garethbloom]

Have the same issue with a Samsung SSD older model with SATA cable,can be watching a video off my hard drive,get the blue sceen with the msg "system storage exception"when the pc reboots it goes into the bios and cant find the sdd with the operating system on,have to unplug the pc for a minute plug it back into the power turn it on and then it finds the drive again and boots up normally

[@charley2070]

I am sorry you had this frustrating experience. I have some experience too as i work in IT and build a lot of computers myself since the 90ties. A so a called nerd. Starting from designing custom watercooling solution to tweaking every single singe setting in bios. Whatever. I am also a amateur producer. I had tons of frustration with thoses issues. Broken Backups, High Latency, Latency spikes, broken Drivers, 1000h+ in waiting for updates, reinstalling windows, and so on. So as far as it is for my gaming needs, i can deal with it. but i wanted a stable system for making music. I switched from PC to Mac. It wasn´t super easy and i sure had some issues there too. But after 8 years working on mac, i can really say: It saved me me a lifetime. I love working on mac and i never looked back. And i am not alone. Dom Sigalas and many more feel the same. Runnung Cubase 14 btw. I never will go back to PC. And your issue proves my point.

[@BernardShreveJr]

Yup - This is a known issue with the 9xx xxx series, the 8xx xxx don't have this "normally", but what is also concerning is that this same issue plagues the "recent" NVME \ Serial drives from bottom, the middle, all the way up to the top brands- Samsung.

[@midnightkitty8172]

Oooooo, reducing the price ! Discount garbage is still garbage. P.S. thanks so, so much for telling us about this !! Scott, you just saved a lot of people from this defective product and the grief it inflicts. 'Like'd and 'Subscribed'.

[@rBennich]

Maybe there's a voltage regulator somewhere on the SSD. In general with digital electronics, connection dropouts - if not caused by a bad lead, is often caused by bad voltage regulators. Probably not it, but just throwing it out there.

[@LegoUniverse33]

It seems to me that the backup software is having an issue with the drive. I didn't hear you mention that it had a problem with any other software. I have a friend who has backup software (brand is different, but I don't remember which brand) - and scheduled backups slow his computer to a crawl. I run a Samsung 990 on my development computer, with multiple builds running often in parallel several times a day, and my 990 has never given me a problem. I'm running the OS on a 2 TB Samsung 990 Pro.

[@somethingwithlettersandnum2584]

I have Samsung ssd's and luckily no problems. But i don't buy any Samsung products anymore. They had great customer service but lately the don't honour anything anymore. They even cut tv screens to not have to pay or repair the tv

[@DrRinse]

I've rarely used anything but WDs since I started building my own machines in 1994 and they've never been a problem.

[@paulmoadibe9321]

Samsung pro series always have some issues... I have my seond Evo Plus series nvme drive and it's super fast with no problems. btw, my next one will be the WD Black....

[@WilliamAshleyOnline]

Yeah I had an issue with a ADATA external ssd, I think the failures are heat related because the drives arn't cooled enough for how much heat they put out. In the case of the adata it is basically encased in a metal case that you would think would act as a heat sink but if the case heats up its a clear sign that its not cooling as much, so a long read/write action likely results in the thermal overload, that is my guess. Sadly in my case the drive failed and won't recognize so I can't wipe the data to send it in or back up the data making its warranty whic is paid RMA sort of useless as I am not sure why they require to keep the failed with data stuck on it in order to replace it. If it is defective they should let the failed drive be kept after being tested/confirmed for possible data recovery by the customer.. in fact I think part of the reason is that they refurbish the defective units and resell them without letting people know they are reselling faulty drives.

[@girhen]

I'll be honest. Once something fails early the first time, I'm considering buying another brand. If they make right with the replacement, great, I'll legitimately consider going back if the customer experience was good. If that also dies early, I'm done. Definitely not buying a 2nd replacement of the same type. Samsung 990, Samsung fridges... they used to be a reliable brand, but appear to have some problems. The worst part is simply not correcting the design.

[@esongsore]

Scary!!! My main drive is a Samsung M2 Evo plus. It's been flawless since 2020.

[@andynonimuss6298]

The 1B2QJXD7 firmware update from February 13, 2023 already fixed the health issues. It doesn't sound like you had the latest firmware update, since you didn't mention anything about updating the 990 Pro firmware. I have two Samsung 990 Pro SSDs and one is my OS. No issues with the 990s whatsoever for almost a year with them. My SSD firmware stays up to date through Samsung Magician software. 4B2QJXD7 is the latest firmware update for the 990 Pro. If they update it again it will be 5B2, 6B2, etc. The first and original firmware was 0B2QJXD7.

[@ScottsSynthStuff]

All of the drives that failed were already running the latest firmware. Firmware upgrade was the first thing I did when I installed each drive.

[@andynonimuss6298]

@@ScottsSynthStuff Well, it's a mystery then. Maybe a bad batch? My 990 Pros have been running great for almost a year.

[@alex_darsen]

After the 2nd one went bad I would have said “see ya!” to those drives. I learned decades ago to avoid Samsung products.

[@rbgsounds1]

Its disappointing to hear about this, I had a Samsung SSD in my old laptop that’s still going strong after 10 years. I have 2 x Samsung 4TB 990 Pros in my new laptop and haven’t had any issues yet thankfully. Happy I went with 2 x WD 4TB Black SN850Xs in my Desktop. To be honest WD had issues in the last few years with some of their server drives so it’s not like any of these companies are problem free.

[@silverlicious2086]

Sorry to hear about your struggles with Samsung. I guess I've been fortunate to have never used any of that brand. But thanks for the heads up. There are pros and cons with all equipment. Defective materials in a bad batch run, who knows. I've been using Seagate storage external hard drives 1TB+ for a long time and never had any problems. All-flash arrays will probably replace hard drives at some point in the future.

[@StephenTack]

Thanks, I was tempted by the low price... I'll stick with my 950 Pro.

[@disklamer]

I'd be inclined to stress-test any warranty replacement that is the exact same batch. Had some SG failures but always got the newer version back, this is kind of silly for Samsung to keep sending the same broken thing. If I see a boot drive acting up, or any drive for that matter, or any chip, card, connector, cable, heck, I don't even care how small or large of a component, if it starts acting up it better have a darn good reason or it will get replaced. Later I will figure out if it can be reused or whatever, but only after a hearty functional test and even then, only for unimportant stuff. I have phased out entire brands over a single failure. Decades of tech paranoia taught me: you might be the first to have an issue, but you are rarely the last.

[@mamdouh-Tawadros]

Why don’t you buy other brands like crucial ?

[@johnrichardson3297]

Still in the middle of a PC build, this helps a lot

[@andynonimuss6298]

The first and original firmware was 0B2QJXD7. The 1B2QJXD7 firmware update from February 13, 2023 already fixed the health issues. 4B2QJXD7 is the latest firmware update for the 990 Pro. I have two Samsung 990 Pro SSDs and one is my OS. No issues with the 990s whatsoever for almost a year with them. My SSD firmware stays up to date through Samsung Magician software.

[@pw6002]

Unrelated comment: I see you have a Stream Deck... I just wanted to say : best computer-related purchase I did in years !!!

[@buckycore]

Cubase 14 is the coolest thing ever. I love how it takes from Logic and Bitwig and makes it it's own thing

[@_P_M_]

Interesting. I used to use Western Digital mechanical drives 20 yrs ago and they always failed, so I started using Maxtor which I never had a problem with. Now with SSD's maybe the game has changed. I do think there is a lot of voodoo with RAM and drive users. One guy swears by a brand and another says he's only had problems. I'm in the market for some new SSD's so I'll be taking this advice into consideration. Thanks!

[@lynxissiodorensis2319]

I have 2Tb 990 Pro in my DAW partitioned into C and D drives containing about 1,8 Tb of data. Never had any problems using Macrium Reflect backup or otherwise.

[@rBennich]

Glad i bought a bunch of 980 Pro, because they were used for years as metadata drives in my TrueNas server, and if they would have gone, that would had reaked havoc.

[@BigMuff520]

I just about ready to buy one. Thanks for the heads up!

[@SeverityOne]

Fingers crossed, but the 2 TB 990 Pro in my Ryzen 9 3950X system runs without any problem. It's currently at 29°C, but it's embedded within the cooling mechanism of the ASRock motherboard. Next to it is a 2 TB 990 EVO, currently at 35°C (no heatsink), which is meant to replace a 2.5 inch 1 TB 850 Pro, running at 24°C. Just yesterday, I copied around 750 GB from the EVO to the Pro and back, after deciding that 64 KB blocks don't make a lot of sense, and reformatting it with 4 KB blocks. All in all, it took around two, two-and-a-half hours. Still, it's good to know that these drives have problems. Luckily it didn't lead to catastrophic data loss for you.

[@commander-cb]

990 evo - zero issues

[@Stefan-]

Still running my almost 13 year old computer that i built with its original Samsung 830 SATA SSD without any problems and i have been spending way to much time on this computer. I guess they could make them then, maybe not anymore, the tech has of course changed a lot though.

[@monsterrun]

Buisness like Samsung had made it an habit of cheaping out on ic controllers chip or memory controler chip which tend to short circuit and dismount the whole drive untill you do a hard reboot.

[@davidmartin123]

Solid-state flash memory (SD cards or SSD drives) in general hasn't proven itself to be highly reliable. Older spinning magnetic hard disk drives in my experience have proven to be more reliable over time. Good job on keeping backups!

[@chrisperpina6326]

Thanks I too have gone with the wd black and no problem yet

[@joelluth6384]

Wow. I work in storage so I know no drive manufacturer is perfect, but I would expect more from Samsung. Outright failure on pure read workload is pretty concerning. Temp was a good first guess but sounds like you've tested that. Could be a firmware issue, but that should be fixable and not fixed yet... NAND? I mean all SSDs have >0 bad cells, but to become unreadable? Jeez. As someone about to embark on my next build, glad I saw this vid. Might have to go back to mirroring the system drive.

[@PelicanMultimedia]

Looking at other sources, I see this was all a firmware issue that was resolved by Samsung in mid-to-late 2023. I knew nothing about it when I installed a 2TB version of this drive in my DAW PC in July 2024. After I saw this video I had a mild panic attack and ran back to my DAW PC to check things out. The drive had been working great, no issues that I was aware of. When I fired up Samsung Magician to check things out, I saw I was NOT up-to-date on the Samsung Magician software that is used for firmware updates. I updated to the current version (8.2) and afterward the drive reported that it already had the latest firmware. Since I had never checked the firmware in the first place, I concluded that the drive's firmware was already up to date when I bought my drive. My feeling is that the problems depicted in this video have actually been resolved by Samsung for some time, and perhaps the distributor providing failing drive after failing drives in this case was not aware that their inventory only contained drives with the old firmware. Unfortunately, the firmware update cannot reclaim drives that were already damaged as a result of being used even for a short time with the original firmware. It seems to me that the distributor is 100% at fault in this case for not being aware of the firmware update? I say this because this video was published around 11/7/2024, approximately a year after the problems were discovered and fixed. Samsung is not perfect but they are not wreckless, IMHO.

[@ScottsSynthStuff]

All of the drives that failed on me were already running the most recent firmware. It was the first thing I did after installing them.

[@ChrisCebelenski]

I haven’t had any failures yet, but I have a few 2.5 inch Sata SSDs that are essentially worthless because the performance drops below that of a hard disk on sustained writes. I thought I had lost my laptop m.2 drive recently, but pulling it and reseating it fixed it.

[@FuZZbaLLbee]

In the early days of SSD ATA drives I had three ones fail one me, all different brands. Now years without any issues

[@SianaGearz]

Sounds like the infamous Sandforce bug. The controller was the fastest and preferred by drive manufacturers due to benchmarks and good press, but it had a firmware bug which killed them after somewhere between a handful months and a couple years of use and which wasn't resolved very quickly or not sure if it was ever fully fixed or just partially. It was a contributor to bankruptcy of OCZ memory company. When re-initialised to factory condition, the drives would fail the same after the same amount of time, so the issue may have been with allocation/wear data handling not silicon degradation. During the same time, drives with Marvell controller were available too, and those run just fine, they still do. The lower benchmarks turned out to be of no consequence since after some real-world usage they'd degrade less than Sandforce.

[@YanivhmTube]

Very strange! I used and use the evo 970 and 980 for the last 6 years with no issues what so ever. Maybe the 990 has a problem or you got a lemon one? Regarding Western digital I also have one for backup, They are cheaper but their lifespan is shorter, so I preferred to use them for backup compared to the Samsung which is a workhorse in terms of speed and write/delete circles. Thank you for the info, the more people report the more The accuracy of the reviews 👍

[@DomSigalas]

The only way I would buy an Intel/AMD system again would be if Scott was my neighbour ❤😂 that’s crazy Scott, thanks for sharing!

[@lucasjuniorproducer]

Dom, you have a Massive weapon now...lol, but i really still love my 7950X with my X670 and 128Gb Ram...:)

[@DomSigalas]

@ of course! I am joking hahaha

[@namelessbryan]

Had the exact same problem w/ Crucial T700. This is a terrible issue to troubleshoot for a system drive because any logs you would normally get are not saved (bc the drive is already dead). The BSOD error message is only there for a microsecond so even if you happen to catch it in the act, you can't read the error code. It turned out that the T700 was too "fat" (it's a double-sided SSD) to fit in the m2 bay I was using. The drive was not making good contact, overheating frequently and probably disconnecting at the slightest vibration. I switched to a different bay with space for a thicker M2 AND a double-sided heatsink for good measure (heat spreader makes contact on both sides of the SSD) and the problems went away. Not to say this approach would fix the Samsung drive - I see that they have firmware problems of their own. Just throwing this out there in case anybody else has these issues and wants to try this as a fix.

[@noitnova]

Thanks for this warning. I was on the point to buy one because i have never a problem with Samsung SSDs.

[@andynonimuss6298]

The first and original firmware was 0B2QJXD7. The 1B2QJXD7 firmware update from February 13, 2023 already fixed the health issues. 4B2QJXD7 is the latest firmware update for the 990 Pro. I have two Samsung 990 Pro SSDs and one is my OS. No issues with the 990s whatsoever for almost a year with them. My SSD firmware stays up to date through Samsung Magician software.

[@greeneyes66]

makes me feel glad not to have swapped my HP desktop PCs main NVME for a Samsung one. PC came with a NVME from company called Micron. Backups/Clones of this main drive work fine. Got to admit that I use Samsung 980 NVME and 870 SSD as D: and E: for libraries and applications - with great efficiency. Will take note though to avoid Samsung for main drives.

[@generalawareness101]

I looked and mine is a 990 4TB I partioned as C and E a bit over a year ago when I received it. No issues yet, but I do upgrade the firmware with magician every time it says to do so. Now I am worried. edit: after reading some comments, I just thought of something that would be different (could be) is that I am still gen 3. If you are using Gen 5 that has notorious issues from what I read and so much so people fall back to gen 4 and take the speed hit (and less heat, but that is not the issue with your problem).

[@justlou717]

I think you made a great video, but as an IT guy, have you had the time to explore the issue further? You mentioned cloning the drive before sending it in - so it hasn’t failed completely? You think it’s triggered by macrium’s task? Have you tried alternative backup software like Acronis true image? If you disable macrium, does it stop failing? I know this isn’t your job, and your advice to other musicians is helpful - but my brain wants to know more about the issue 😂

[@MrAusmo]

I love your calling out Samsung on this model. Hopefully they do the right thing. Have you any thoughts on UA's Apollo Twin X TB3 and PCs? I suspect it will end with similar warnings. I will not count on UA stepping up as they have have an entire product generation and then some to fix their drivers so they work with WDM. So far NADA.

[@Chalisque]

I've had two nvme failures early this year: a Samsung in one machine, and a Crucial in the other.

[@naturalbornweakness]

Regardless of the manufacturer, M.2 SSD 4TB is not yet stable. If you need more than 4TB, you must use a SATA SSD or HDD. NVMe and Flash SSDs for enterprise use have good durability, but they are very expensive.

[@JimK03.]

I'm a computer guy that is also a musician and have built many DAWs. Been running 3 990 Pro m.2 drives, 2 4tb and 1 2tb, for a couple years now in my daily driver (not my DAW), not a single issue. I too use Macrium Reflect to make backups once a week. Make sure you're checking that the firmware has been updated as one of the earlier firmware versions was indeed causing issues. My first 990 Pro was from the faulty time period, but a firmware update later and she's still chugging along fast as ever. Check the dates on those posts you're referencing about failures, quite possible they're all from the time of the faulty firmware. It's also possible to buy from a vendor where stock has been sitting for a while that might still have the old firmware. Again, it's fine as long as you update the firmware. So, I'd say no, your blanket "guaranteed failure" is not accurate. I'd be gun shy too after all those issues though.

[@ScottsSynthStuff]

All of the drives that failed were running the latest firmware, unfortunately.

[@JimK03.]

@@ScottsSynthStuff Interesting. Did you happen to try them out in another PC to see if they were recognized? Or in an m.2 enclosure. I ask wondering if it's an incompatibility issue with that particular motherboard. It seems odd that you'd have such extremely bad luck with these drives. I've yet to have any m.2 NVME drive fail, and I've built countless PCs with them including many 990 Pros. I've had some brands that are god awful slow, but not fail. Again, I don't blame you for moving on to another brand, I'd definitely do the same in your situation.

[@ScottsSynthStuff]

@@JimK03. As soon as the PC is power cycled, the drives reappear. Which is what others experiencing this problem are also reporting.

[@TheOneMonk]

Sorry to hear that. I am sure you checked firmware updates in Magician? I am using 3 of them under Win11 Pro. Never had any issue. Most problems peps had with the drive date back to 2023 and that was fixed by a firmware upgrade. While I can understand your frustration your verdict „guaranteed failure“ seems rather harsh, given that this drive is used in zillions of computers - and if all these devices would experience „guaranteed failures“ there certainly would be much more news about this.

[@ScottsSynthStuff]

All of the drives that failed were running the most recent firmware.

[@cubdukat]

They did have a bit of a stumble with the 980 and 990 Pro drives.

[@valleyken]

- Good to know about these drives.

[@HeinzMandala]

As first action, right after formatting, update the Samsung SSD's firmware using the Samsung Magician software.

[@ScottsSynthStuff]

All the drives that failed were running the most recent firmware.

[@HeinzMandala]

@@ScottsSynthStuff Well, that is annoying. Weird that Samsung is not realizing this problem at all.

[@erichkohl9317]

Bummer on your SSD issues. On the other hand, I also upgraded to Cubase 14, but I just have the Elements version. For me it's perfectly adequate though. Really enjoy using it.

[@mybachhertzbaud3074]

You may want to apply the 3 strikes and your out model. Four times is approaching the definition of insanity.🤔

[@jPaulofe]

Hi Scott ! Thanks the warning on the Sam… ssd drives. I wonder if iu tu b does something to knock on your account… I hope not

[@platterjockey]

I've been running the 970 Evo Plus for about a year now with no problems. Noe i'm thinking of cloning it to Solidigm. They used to be Intel, but are supposed to be rock solid.

[@Rialas]

Wouldn’t corrupt software be more likely rather than a failed drive?

[@filminginportland1654]

No. This isn’t a corrupt software issue. Failed drives happen all the time, especially if there’s design issues or firmware problems as this model appears to have. Working in IT for 30 years, I’ve seen thousands of drives fail prematurely for various reasons. Often these are high end datacenter drives (many thousands of $$$ each). You begin to see trends with certain makes & models. If you run large storage arrays with dozens or hundreds of drives, you’ll get failures fairly often from a few needing replaced. That’s why I always try to run drives at least mirrored (RAID 1) so there’s some redundancy. Though that’s generally not supported with NVMe drives without adding a custom RAID controller and a different cabling solution.

[@NTayls80]

Thanks Scott, this is great to know

[@lucid484]

That's weird, I have multiple Samsung SSDs for a long time, and have never ever experienced a failure. Also use WD Blue Nvme and Intel Nvme drives.

[@andynonimuss6298]

The first and original firmware was 0B2QJXD7. The 1B2QJXD7 firmware update from February 13, 2023 already fixed the health issues. 4B2QJXD7 is the latest firmware update for the 990 Pro. I have two Samsung 990 Pro SSDs and one is my OS. No issues with the 990s whatsoever for almost a year with them. My SSD firmware stays up to date through Samsung Magician software.

[@circuitstudiossr]

since your using only 800 of 1TB try a 2TB drive maybe something with that size spec? have you considered running RAID NVMe primary drives? help with downtime and performance thanks for this vid !! I bought a 1500 95SE and it seems quicker than my 88 1500. only paid $800, just needs windshield (have) tires, battery (got for 10$ from a guy that works at battery factory) and seat recovered. ❤🎉

[@joojoo9758]

I wonder if it's a 990pro 4tb problem, I'm running 4x 2tb 990 PROs for a year so far and apart from 1 needing a firmware update out of the box they've been flawless, I have one booting for daw and 1 for gaming/work etc and the other 2 for samples/projects, As an IT guy I have fitted loads of these and so far haven't had one fail, but they were all 2tb.

[@andreas-franke]

I use this drive for 3 years now. This is a well known problem of this drives. It was delivered with old/bad firmware, but all you had/have to do is to update to the latest firmware. Take 2 minutes. If they are fail before the firmware update, they are finally dead.

[@ScottsSynthStuff]

I was running the latest firmware on all the drives that failed.

[@andreas-franke]

@ScottsSynthStuff Oh, that's quite bad in this case. Often users don't look at this, but that is alarming then. 😥

[@SianaGearz]

The replacement units from the manufacturer RMA should have newest firmware on them.

[@KozmykJ]

I've got 870 SSDs (2 x 2TB) and 2 x 1TB NVMe (970 and 980) plus 2 x 2TB HDDs I backup to two external 7TB HDDS via R-Drive software That's a real bummer with those 990s. I hope it's not catching 😷

[@KeikoFXDesigns]

I use WDs they're really good. Never had a crash issue.

[@xtra8dj]

I have the 970 1tb it's working in my laptop for 2.5 years. I think the 990 version with bigger capacity 2 and more tb has problems.

[@JayfkProductions876]

Sadly SSD'S have a significantly shorter life span, and as it relates to 990's they released with issues, I'm using 970 Evo Plus.

[@ReznaQay]

usually the larger M.2 SSD's fail, i have 2 1 terabyte ones from HP and never had an issue

[@bubbabenali]

NVME drives sometimes are tricky beasts. An AMD x570 Mainbord of mine had a problem with a WD Black drive, as in not even recognize the drive in the BIOS. On another PC (x399/ TR) that drive is running as the system drive without any issues. In general, I had the fewest problems with Cruical and Lexar drives.

[@Quietistooquiet]

Call me crazy but I like to use just standard SSD. I tried NVME but the heat just always made me uncomfortable even with the heat sinks. I am also not doing "super projects" just basic bish band demos. I get nervous seeing people have so many issues with the latest and greatest. I been using 870 evo for years. I have an 8tb and 2 4tb (for back ups, games, music etc). To me I like to feel like I have a better chance of stability over speed.