SSD Write Endurance 25nm Vs 34nm

Todays update. Nice to have 24h without problems :)
Kingston V+100
325.6350 TiB
1778 hours
Avg speed 25.05 MiB/s
AD still 1.
168= 1 (SATA PHY Error Count)
P/E?
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474842http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474839

Intel X25-M G1 80GB
212,6894 TiB
20087 hours
Reallocated sectors : 00
MWI=143 to 142
MD5 =OK
50.69 MiB/s on avg
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474841http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474838

m4
192.9329 TiB
707 hours
Avg speed 80.03 MiB/s.
AD gone from 248 to 243.
P/E 3392.
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474843http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474840

While I wait for the 830 to finish it's idle session, I'm reflecting on the performance of the 40GB Intels. In a way, the fact that they're continuing with no sign of slowing is pretty damn impressive. The 320 should hit 700TB before too long, which is just plain awesome for a 40GB drive. I still think there is something to the slow and steady approach.

So far the 830 is coping quite well with the 4K random work load. 177 does not update properly unless you power cycle, but at least the LBA count seems to be working OK now. Everything else seems to update as well, so it’s just 177.

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/1...powercycle.png

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/884...powercycle.png

64GiB * P/E Cycles (115) = 7,360
Actual writes = 868
WA = 8.47 (Ouch)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

64GiB * P/E Cycles (115) = 7,360
Actual writes = 868
WA = 8.47 (Ouch)

---

I am surprised it is not higher since you are doing nothing but full-span 4KiB random writes.

By the way, did you verify that 512 * LBA count is equal to the bytes written according to ASU?

^ Yes. In post # 3189 the total LBA count was 1433682636. (Just before starting the 4K workload). In post #3194 the LBA count was 1819470188. The difference = 385787552 or 184 GiB.

Anvils app is showing 126,454.69 MiB plus 59.51 GiB for the test file = 183 GiB.


EDIT:

64GiB * P/E Cycles (189) = 12,096
Actual writes = 1,056
WA = 11.45
MWI (?) 94

My 830's Sector written count is about 900GB more than ASU, but most of that is writes from other sources over the past month. I believe it is pretty accurate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

64GiB * P/E Cycles (189) = 12,096
Actual writes = 1,056
WA = 11.45
MWI (?) 94

---

Aha, WA going up. I wonder what it will stabilize at. It would be interesting to try this:

1) power-cycle the SSD and then note the raw values of attributes 177 and 241, call them r177a and r241a

2) run ASU endurance writes for a while, a day or two, note the ASU bytes written at the beginning and end of the period

3) power-cycle the SSD and check attributes 177 and 241 again, call it r177b and r241b

4) verify that the ASU bytes written = 512 x (r241b - r241a)

5) compute the WA = 64 x 1024^3 x (r177b - r177a) / ( 512 x ( r241b - r241a ) )

By the way, what QD does ASU Enterprise endurance benchmark use for its full-span 4KiB random writes? I suppose QD does not matter much for the 4KiB random write speed on the Samsung 830, but for some SSDs (like the m4 or Performance Pro), the write speed increases quite a bit with higher QD.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by johnw

I am surprised it is not higher since you are doing nothing but full-span 4KiB random writes.

---

If I count only the 4K writes the WA is currently coming out at 29.47 (What I reported before included all write activity)

From the graph below the temp of the SSD has jumped by around 20 oC once I started with the 4K workload. The red lines coincide exactly with power off cycles.

http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/3522/tempchange.png

EDIT, the SSD is noticeably warmer to touch. I’d say that the temp readings are quite accurate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by johnw

By the way, what QD does ASU Enterprise endurance benchmark use for its full-span 4KiB random writes? I suppose QD does not matter much for the 4KiB random write speed on the Samsung 830, but for some SSDs (like the m4 or Performance Pro), the write speed increases quite a bit with higher QD.

---

According to the resource monitor the QD is 1.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

If I count only the 4K writes the WA is currently coming out at 29.47 (What I reported before included all write activity)

---

That is more like the WA I would expect to see for full-span 4KiB random write.

So I'm entertaining ideas on what to do with this:

https://www.box.com/shared/static/8x...24sc15kuax.jpg

It's an MTRON PRO 7000 (msp7035). It is faster than I thought, but not by much. It's a 3.5" 16GB drive, and it's pretty old school.

But it's is brand new, never been opened.

EDIT
I ran ASU for a while, and after 70GB of writes, the one SMART attribute's RAW value went from 324393 to 453601, and was able to do about 51MB/s.

I'm going to have to take the drive apart as I'm curious to see whether the PCB inside is 3.5" or 2.5" inches among other things. It just seems ridiculous to put 16GB of NAND inside a 3.5" enclosure.

Samsung 830 64GB Update, Day 33
FW:CXM01B1Q

GiB written:
205213.42

Avg MB/s
86.87

PE Cycles
13017, up from 12503 yesterday

Reallocated Sectors
40960
20 Blocks, up from 18

796 Hours

https://www.box.com/shared/static/cz...js6gdy6jqv.png
https://www.box.com/shared/static/tb...3ntq5k5q65.png
https://www.box.com/shared/static/96...qnkpquk5qa.jpg

The 7 hours of idle time combined with halving the static data down to 18.5GB seems to have increased speed by 20MB/s. I'm not sure how long it will last.

Todays update.
Kingston V+100
327.5644 TiB
1801 hours
Avg speed 25.02MiB/s
AD still 1.
168= 1 (SATA PHY Error Count)
P/E?
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474991http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474988

Intel X25-M G1 80GB
216,5665 TiB
20109hours
Reallocated sectors : 00
MWI=142 to 141
MD5 =OK
50.41 MiB/s on avg
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474990http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474987

m4
199.1485 TiB
730 hours
Avg speed 80.31MiB/s.
AD gone from 243 to 240.
P/E 3502.
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474992http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=474989

MTRON claims a 32GB drive can write 50GB a day for 140 years, so assume 50GB a day for 70 years with the 16GB 7000.

That would equal 1,277,500GB, which is realistic if the NAND is rated for 100,000PE cycles. If the MTRON could maintain 3500GB per day in ASU, I could hit 1,277,500GB in only 365 days. 41MB/s avg would be 3500GB a day so that seems reasonable.

Of course, if the NAND is 200,000PE rated and the drive has decent WA/WL, then all bets are off. It could be more like 3 years. I only ran a couple of loops with no static data and 3GB min free space, so I can't say whether the lack of TRIM is going to wreck avg speed or not. But it could be feasible to test the drive in a reasonable time span -- maybe. The lack of SMART data is irritating (ONE attribute? Why bother?), and I don't even know how the one attribute works.

The 3.5" chassis is quite nice. It weighs almost as much as a single platter 3.5" HDD.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

According to the resource monitor the QD is 1.

---

Have you tried "Performance Monitor" of Windows 7? Sometimes I get strange readings from "Resource Monitor"...

Average WA
60GiB (LBA) * P/E Cycles (308) = 18,480
Actual writes = 1,398
WA = 13.31

4K Random only WA
60GiB (LBA) * P/E Cycles (268) = 16,080
Actual writes = 666
WA = 24.14

MWI: 91
Avg write speed = 4.31MiB/s

In the Toolbox/ System Information it states that the MAX LBA is 125045424, so I am now using 60GiB rather than 64GiB.

177 is still only updating after a power cycle.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by minpayne

Have you tried "Performance Monitor" of Windows 7? Sometimes I get strange readings from "Resource Monitor"...

---

Yes and it reports the same.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Christopher

The 7 hours of idle time combined with halving the static data down to 18.5GB seems to have increased speed by 20MB/s. I'm not sure how long it will last.

---

Christopher, during the idle time did the SMART atribute 177 update?

Kingston SSDNow 40GB (X25-V)

615.24TB Host writes
Reallocated sectors : 05 21
Available Reserved Space : E8 99
POH 5560
MD5 OK

33.38MiB/s on avg (~111 hours)

--

Corsair Force 3 120GB

01 89/50 (Raw read error rate)
05 2 (Retired Block count)
B1 70 (Wear range delta)
E6 100 (Life curve status)
E7 10 (SSD Life left)
E9 662250 (Raw writes) ->647TiB
F1 881407 (Host writes) ->861TiB

MD5 OK

106.81MiB/s on avg (~159 hours)

power on hours : 2533

WRD is all time high as far as I can see. (since the retention test it has been increasing steadily)

--

http://www.ssdaddict.com/ss/Endurance_cr_20120108.png

http://www.ssdaddict.com/ss/Enduranc...y_20120108.png

Anvil, my opinion is that the "true" WA of Christopher's Samsung 830 64 GiB was around 3.93 under Endurance-testing of ASU, and the estimated "MWI exhausted" was supposed to be around 44.4 TiB if the P/E spec was 3000.

I'm also confused by your last figure, the "P/E Cycle summary". I suppose it's not the true P/E count, but instead, the P/E count divided by WA?

By the way, we can't wait to get the beta11 with the Enterprise-test :D

The P/E Cycle summary is Based on

Host Writes / Capacity

I'll explain a bit more later, I haven't found a better title for the chart,yet.

Then that's the same as what I thought:

Host Writes / Capacity == P/E Cycles / WA

I would call it "Reduced P/E Cycles after WA" :p:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

Christopher, during the idle time did the SMART atribute 177 update?

---

Negative. Not even by one as it did in the beginning.

Thanks for confirming that Christopher.

I just used hIOmon to see if TRIM operations had time to execute. TRIM with the normal ASU client workload works OK, in fact TRIM operations are lightning fast compared to SF. It took only 8.79ms for a 50GB file delete. SF = 20 seconds plus)
With the ASU enterprise workload however it seems that TRIM operations don’t occur and I'd guess that would be the same for any SSD with that workload.

Samsung 830 64GB Update, Day 34
FW:CXM01B1Q

GiB written:
211183.25

Avg MB/s
70.25

PE Cycles
13321, up from 13017 yesterday

Reallocated Sectors
40960
20 Blocks, up from 18

820 Hours

https://www.box.com/shared/static/uj...imxo296eg9.png
https://www.box.com/shared/static/8b...3h8zyq038p.png

Double post

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

Thanks for confirming that Christopher.

I just used hIOmon to see if TRIM operations had time to execute. TRIM with the normal ASU client workload works OK, in fact TRIM operations are lightning fast compared to SF. It took only 8.79ms for a 50GB file delete. SF = 20 seconds plus)
With the ASU enterprise workload however it seems that TRIM operations don’t occur and I'd guess that would be the same for any SSD with that workload.

---

That's part of what is puzzling with the performance issues I'm having. The drive acts a lot like one without TRIM, even when it's clearly working. I think there is something strange with how the drive works with static data, but I'm just grasping at straws here.

Also, is it possible 177 is just reporting maximum erase count? Could that explain the massive discrepancy between what is expected and what is actual?

Ao1

That is correct, there can be no TRIM on such writes, it takes a delete to trigger TRIM and that will not occur during such I/O.
If the testfile is full-span then one would expect a TRIM to return the drive to almost fresh state when the test-file is deleted, that is not always the case though.

@minpayne

WA = NAND writes / Host writes

We can't tell for sure that we have found NAND writes for any drives with the exception of the SandForce based drives where E9 shows actual writes to NAND.
MWI Exhausted in the first chart is not an estimate, it is the actual bytes written by the Host at the time of MWI exhaustion, as in MWI = "0".
There are 2 drives (that are currently running) that shows "unexpected" results and those are the 830 and the G1 (w/o TRIM), all the other drives are within a few "cycles" of the NAND spec.

I expect we can find out what's going on with the 830 but the reporting looks to be "faulty" during this test, as it looks to require a power cycle for the SMART attributes to update.

The 830 really is strange, if we can be sure that 177 raw value = wear leveling count or "P/E count" then it would mean that it has written 13K times it's own capacity which would mean > 750TiB :) when Host writes shows that 200TiB has been written.


@Christopher
I was thinking the same as you :), looking at the figures the 830 looks a bit like a drive w/o TRIM.
It might need GC to kick in in order for TRIM do actually do it's work and it's not allowed that pause and so eventually it slows down.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anvil

looking at the figures the 830 looks a bit like a drive w/o TRIM.
It might need GC to kick in in order for TRIM do actually do it's work and it's not allowed that pause and so eventually it slows down.

---

If that is the case (and I agree it seems like it could be), then the next obvious question is, why did Samsung change the firmware, and what exactly did they change? Since the 470 did not slow down significantly from the first hour of ASU to the last.

I think it is somewhat more likely that the slowdown is a firmware bug. If you search the web, you can find a report or two of people who have had their 830's slow down a lot, even on read speed. The read speed slow down is what makes me think it is a bug. I can see write speed slowing down due to delayed GC, but read speed really should not slow down with any reasonable design choices.

Let's hope it's a bug and not a "design flaw".

I haven't noticed any slow down on my 830's but they aren't exposed to extreme conditions, I'll google the slow down.

I have no doubts that the 830 would excel in a desktop workload, and you can't argue with the speed either. I'm laboring under two assumptions at this time: first, that there is something funky with the TRiM, and secondly, that 177 must be max erase count, not an average. There is just no way possible for the Samsung to have used 13K PE cycles in such a short period of time.

The Samsung is using 16PE cycles per hour if 177 is the average PE cycles. I believe it must be max erase count, or else its wrong.

There is a new Magician V3.1 for the Samsung (dated 2012-01-06), it says nothing about the firmware though. Link

1. Title
Samsung SSD Magician Software Ver. 3.1

2. Applicable Model
- 470 Series: MZ-5PA064* MZ-5PA128* MZ-5PA256*
- 830 Series: MZ-7PC064* MZ-7PC128* MZ-7PC256* MZ-7PC512*

3. Improvements & Modifications
- Added CD/DVD burning tool for Firmware update & secrue erase
- Fixed minor bugs

4. Operating System
- Windows XP/Vista/7 (Recommended)

* Notice: SSD will not be recognized while in RAID array mode.

Todays update.
Kingston V+100
329.4877 TiB
1823 hours
Avg speed 25.02 MiB/s
AD still 1.
168= 1 (SATA PHY Error Count)
P/E?
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475078http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475075

Intel X25-M G1 80GB
220,3054 TiB
20132 hours
Reallocated sectors : 00
MWI=141 to 140
MD5 =OK
49.81 MiB/s on avg
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475077http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475074

m4
205.3534 TiB
752 hours
Avg speed 80.43 MiB/s.
AD gone from 240 to 236.
P/E 3610.
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475079http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475076

What are the stats on the 320? Are reallocations still holding steady?

Despite the initial speed advantage, the 830 and M4 are neck and neck still. But from here on out, the 830 will most likely be surpassed by a considerable margin over the next month.

Average WA
60GiB (LBA) * P/E Cycles (499) = 29,940
Actual writes = 2,498
WA = 11.98

MWI 86
POH 65

WA is down, which reflects the time I spent yesterday creating and deleting 4 MiB sequential files to test trim.

Some pictures of that Mtron would be nice ;)

Christopher is it possible to somehow report these findings to Samsung, so they can fix this issue in a future firmware upgrade?

Guys, TRIM seemed to be working fine with the normal ASU endurance test and as Anvil highlighted it does not work with the enterprise test as the files are not deleted. With the SF drive TRIM occurred in one hit and once it executed all other instructions were ignored. (i.e. the drive locked up until the TRIM operation had finished). With the 830 the TRIM executions were comparatively ultra-fast and in some cases I noticed small TRIM operations whilst the drive was still writing.

Since I disabled AV the 830 has shown consistent performance. If I recall correctly the performance issues that Christopher experienced only occurred once the 177 decimal attribute exceeded 5,000. (?) At this stage the theoretical P/E count would have expired. I haven’t had a chance to look, but maybe the performance drop is related to reallocated sectors, program error fails etc?

Without knowing the relationship between data retention longevity and P/E cycles past the theoretical limit set by the NAND manufacturers I believe vendors are negligent in letting the SSD continue to write past a certain point. In my view the SMART data should trigger a warning that the drive will become read only once the P/E cycles gets close to a threshold where data retention to meet JDEC standards is jeopardised. After a grace period the controller should prevent further write activity.

That might sound a bit draconian, but the number one task for a storage device has to be data integrity, any thing else is a bonus.

My 2 cents. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by iceblade

Christopher is it possible to somehow report these findings to Samsung, so they can fix this issue in a future firmware upgrade?

---

I'm on the case with this and I’m hoping Samsung will provide an explanation on some of the issues that are being observed. The only issue I have seen is the failure of 177 to update properly without a power cycle. Hopefully Samsung can give an opinion on why Christopher saw performance problems past 5,000 on atribute 177. A lot of confusion is related to the poor documentation on the SMART data attributes, which really lets the drives down.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

Without knowing the relationship between data retention longevity and P/E cycles past the theoretical limit set by the NAND manufacturers I believe vendors are negligent in letting the SSD continue to write past a certain point. In my view the SMART data should trigger a warning that the drive will become read only once the P/E cycles gets close to a threshold where data retention to meet JDEC standards is jeopardised. After a grace period the controller should prevent further write activity.

That might sound a bit draconian, but the number one task for a storage device has to be data integrity, any thing else is a bonus.

My 2 cents. :D

---

A better strategy might be limiting the write speed to a "safe" value that would still allow usage but extend the lifetime with a few more months. If drive becomes suddenly readonly, I am sure it will conflict with Windows write requests and it might not even be readable. Seems Kingston is already doing that, but it remains to be seen how "safe" is their speed.

Maybe LTT isn't such a bad idea afterall ;)

For LTT to be sensible it would have to kick in much later than it currently does

@Ao1, how did you figure out that the TRIM is working fine? Could you elaborate please? :p: (It's easy to understand why TRIM doesn't work for full span or RAW writes as the OS cannot send the TRIM command to mark which LBAs are deleted, but how do you verify that TRIM is working when running the non-enterprise endurance testing in ASU?)

I don't think the problems I've experienced have anything to do with throttling. Why would Samsung throttle reads? Why would it throttle writes in the way that it has?

Unless there is something going on, such as lots of NAND errors, and the drive is slowed down as it tries to sort everything out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by minpayne

@Ao1, how did you figure out that the TRIM is working fine? Could you elaborate please? :p: (It's easy to understand why TRIM doesn't work for full span or RAW writes as the OS cannot send the TRIM command to mark which LBAs are deleted, but how do you verify that TRIM is working when running the non-enterprise endurance testing in ASU?)

---

http://www.hyperio.com/hIOmon/AddOns...GadgetHelp.htm

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Christopher

I don't think the problems I've experienced have anything to do with throttling. Why would Samsung throttle reads? Why would it throttle writes in the way that it has?

Unless there is something going on, such as lots of NAND errors, and the drive is slowed down as it tries to sort everything out.

---

Everything was OK up until 5K P/E? I'd say it was a bug but it would need to be replicated to confirm. I'm still intending to stop at 3K P/E for the retention test, but I'm keeping a close eye on performance. It’s kind of weird if it didn't slow down until 5K, plus from what you have reported the chipset driver/ static data ratio and idle time have all made a difference suggesting there are at least variable factors involved.


EDIT: Btw…. your f/w version is CXM01B1Q? Is there an earlier version? Is it possible to “downgrade” to an earlier version?

Ao1, to my knowledge, there is no other FW available. Perhaps early PM830 drives for Dell and Lenovo had other FW, but not the consumer 830. I think I could replicate the issue with another identical drive, but if you're right about throttling, then it will happen to all drives.

Why would reads get throttled at 5000PE cycles? I think after the update today, I'll do some performance benches.

(Also, the drive isn't really using all that many fewer PE cycles per day -- surely true throttling would do something more... invasive to prevent rapid PE cycle consumption)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bulanula

Some pictures of that Mtron would be nice ;)

---

Any preference? Your wish is my command.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Christopher

Ao1, to my knowledge, there is no other FW available. Perhaps early PM830 drives for Dell and Lenovo had other FW, but not the consumer 830. I think I could replicate the issue with another identical drive, but if you're right about throttling, then it will happen to all drives.

Why would reads get throttled at 5000PE cycles? I think after the update today, I'll do some performance benches.

(Also, the drive isn't really using all that many fewer PE cycles per day -- surely true throttling would do something more... invasive to prevent rapid PE cycle consumption)

---

I don’t think it is anything to do with throttling. Perhaps it is something to do with the huge jump that occurred in 177, which is clearly a bug. One minute the value was 129 and the next it was 5,444. That probably set off a few alarm bells.:D Who knows what internal housekeeping that might have triggered. Without extensive testing it might be hard to replicate and find the cause.The best bet is for Samsung to comment on the 177 update bug and give an opinion on the cause of the slow down.

See, I'm not sure that it works like that. The SMART value didn't increase, but I think the drive "knows" what 177 really is. I thought along the same lines as well, but the performance degradation happened before the power cycle (I was trying various methods to get the performance back, and in the process power cycled the drive).

Kingston SSDNow 40GB (X25-V)

618.83TB Host writes
Reallocated sectors : 05 21
Available Reserved Space : E8 99
POH 5591
MD5 OK

33.28MiB/s on avg (~142 hours)

--

Corsair Force 3 120GB

01 94/50 (Raw read error rate)
05 2 (Retired Block count)
B1 69 (Wear range delta)
E6 100 (Life curve status)
E7 10 (SSD Life left)
E9 671239 (Raw writes) ->656TiB
F1 893360 (Host writes) ->872TiB

MD5 OK

106.81MiB/s on avg (~190 hours)

power on hours : 2564

WRD has started decreasing.

--

edit

I re-booted the machine and filled the free space on the Force 3 with a "46%" and then deleted the file. (as a sort of cleaning :))
Both drives are back running. (main cause was to update the SMART logging utility)

Samsung 830 64GB Update, Day 35
FW:CXM01B1Q

GiB written:
216885.84

Avg MB/s
66.61

PE Cycles
13669, up from 13321 yesterday

Reallocated Sectors
40960
20 Blocks, up from 18

845 Hours

https://www.box.com/shared/static/14...729r0f2pk9.png
https://www.box.com/shared/static/ob...s49e7g6qv4.png

I took a few quick benches after power cycling the drive for the update, and also running the Samsung Performance Optimization in Magician 3.1

https://www.box.com/shared/static/af...le30mit5kx.jpg

CDM is deceptive, as out of 5 runs it only displays the fastest result, so the best result is displayed. Generally, out of the 5 runs per category, 1 is decent, 3 are awful, and 1 is abysmal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Christopher

CDM is deceptive, as out of 5 runs it only displays the fastest result...

---

Normally that's not an issue, the issue in this case is the drive that's not consistent.
(CDM could have used the average but that would not be representative in this case either)

So I'm looking for suggestions for a new drive to test. I have acquired several drives recently that could be considered good test candidates to one degree or another, but I thought I'd put the question out there.

Any suggestions?

Todays update.
Kingston V+100
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475187
This one has dropped out again.

Intel X25-M G1 80GB
224,4992 TiB
20157 hours
Reallocated sectors : 00
MWI=140 to 149
MD5 =OK
49.15 MiB/s on avg
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475185http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475184

m4
212.3534 TiB
778 hours
Avg speed 80.54 MiB/s.
AD gone from 236 to 232.
P/E 3736.
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475186http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475183

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Christopher

So I'm looking for suggestions for a new drive to test. I have acquired several drives recently that could be considered good test candidates to one degree or another, but I thought I'd put the question out there.

Any suggestions?

---

Which options have you got? I'm interested in these:

Intel X25-E (old skool :D)

Plextor M2P (Marvell + 32nm Toshiba Toggle)

Average WA

60GiB (LBA) * P/E Cycles (690) = 41,400
Actual writes = 2,854
WA = 14.50

MWI 81
POH 89

Avg write speed = 4.51MiB/s

EDIT: I'll do a pure 4K only WA calculation later.

minipayne,

I do have a another X25-E 32 on the way (on its way via UPS), but it would take... Years. As in at least a few - to test. The 40GB Intel drives have well exceeded their PE cycle ratings. Who is to say that an X25-E wouldn't last 2x the PE rating? And, I believe the 32GB actually has 40GB of SLC as well, meaning its overprovisioned a fair amount out of the box. So, I think testing an E would be a time commitment I'm just not willing to make.

I am trying to get a Plextor though. The first drive I tested was a SF2281 with Toshiba toggle. The Samsung is Toggle NAND, and the a 64GB Plextor would be interesting (Marvell + Toggle) as a counterpoint to the other two drives.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Christopher

minipayne,

I do have a another X25-E 32 on the way (on its way via UPS), but it would take... Years. As in at least a few - to test. The 40GB Intel drives have well exceeded their PE cycle ratings. Who is to say that an X25-E wouldn't last 2x the PE rating? And, I believe the 32GB actually has 40GB of SLC as well, meaning its overprovisioned a fair amount out of the box. So, I think testing an E would be a time commitment I'm just not willing to make.

I am trying to get a Plextor though. The first drive I tested was a SF2281 with Toshiba toggle. The Samsung is Toggle NAND, and the a 64GB Plextor would be interesting (Marvell + Toggle) as a counterpoint to the other two drives.

---

I can't believe that everyone is putting the X25-E as a legendary product :) Actually my X25-E 64GB is now at 99 (normalized value) MWI with around 10 TiB host writes, 0 reallocation. I guess it's pretty safe to leave it on a server and not having to worry about any swapping between physical memory and virtual memory, if lots of users always keep submitting memory-hungry jobs to make the server run out-of-memory :)

The Plextor M2P may only come in 128GB and 256GB (but I'm not sure on this). It would be expensive to test on it if there's no 64GB model...

Christopher:

It seems you've got one more thing to play with the Samsung 830 :) There seems to be a new firmware released for it. Someone just mentioned that he updated his firmware version from CXM01B1Q to CXM02B1Q. Would this resolve the 177 updating issue and the performance drop?

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/2392/capture18j.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by minpayne

I can't believe that everyone is putting the X25-E as a legendary product :) Actually my X25-E 64GB is now at 99 (normalized value) MWI with around 10 TiB host writes, 0 reallocation. I guess it's pretty safe to leave it on a server and not having to worry about any swapping between physical memory and virtual memory, if lots of users always keep submitting memory-hungry jobs to make the server run out-of-memory :)

The Plextor M2P may only come in 128GB and 256GB (but I'm not sure on this). It would be expensive to test on it if there's no 64GB model...

---

There is no 64GB model. Ditto for the Corsair Performance Pro (which is nearly identical to the Plextor M2P).

My 64GB X25-E is also still at 99 (see below). I was messing around with it the other day and I noticed that my locking SATA cable does not lock on the X25-E. But I couldn't see whether there was a broken plastic tab on its connector, or if it was just never designed to hold a locking SATA connector. Except for that, the X25-E is great. I've been using it for my boot drive for years now (check the power-on hours!).

Code:

---

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG    VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0000  100  000  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0000  100  000  000    Old_age  Offline      -      0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct  0x0002  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0002  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      23874
 12 Power_Cycle_Count      0x0002  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      188
192 Unsafe_Shutdown_Count  0x0002  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      61
232 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0003  100  100  010    Pre-fail  Always      -      0
233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0002  099  099  000    Old_age  Always      -      0
225 Host_Writes_32MiB      0x0000  200  200  000    Old_age  Offline      -      819652
226 Intel_Internal          0x0002  255  000  000    Old_age  Always      -      4294967295
227 Intel_Internal          0x0002  000  000  000    Old_age  Always      -      281474976710655
228 Intel_Internal          0x0002  000  000  000    Old_age  Always      -      4294967295

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by minpayne

It seems you've got one more thing to play with the Samsung 830 :) There seems to be a new firmware released for it. Someone just mentioned that he updated his firmware version from CXM01B1Q to CXM02B1Q.

---

Hey, good find! Here is the link:

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/do.../MZ-7PC064D/AM

Interesting. The timed workload MWI function are related to 226 & 227. It looks like the X25-E has these attributes, although they are not labelled as such. If they are timed workload attributes it would be easy to calculate how long it would take to deplete the P/E cycles.

IF Intel bring out a SF based drive presumably it will also have the timed workload function.

Well, if the new firmware update doesn't cure the speed degradation of the Samsung 830, then I guess I tend to speculate that Samsung might have employed the so-called "throttling" strategy as rumored to be used by SandForce

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/5526/25495747.jpg

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/4139/40365904.jpg

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/3528/85601285.jpg

Samsung f/w update - it seems that atribute 177 can now update without a power cycle. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

Samsung f/w update - it seems that atribute 177 can now update without a power cycle. :)

---

Sounds great! Now could you please log it safely, and we might be able to find if its raw value is the average P/E count or the max P/E count or something else!

This does not change what I have previously been able to report, although I can now report each incremental change in the dec value of 177.
This is the 4K random workload. I’ll switch to the client workload later when I have some time.

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/826...wareupdate.png

Given that Micron claims to be able to secure erase an entire C400 (M4) 512 GiB within several seconds (officially within 60 seconds), I think it might actually be true that the nand writing speed can be a lot greater than the host writing speed, hence making the huge WA possible (e.g. 23x WA with 1QD 4k full span). Note that Samsung 830 has a "triple-core" controller.

^

Correct, from a random Intel NAND spec sheet:

• Random read: 50 μs
• Sequential read: 20 ns
• Write performance
• Page program: 900 μs (TYP)
• Block erase: 2 ms (TYP)

So, at NAND level a block erase = 2ms

A block (in this example using Intel NAND) = 1MB

60 GiB = 61,440 x 2ms = 122,880 ms or 123 seconds

Host writes to fill a 60GiB drive @ 160MB/s would take 384 seconds

Let’s look at what the SMART data reports

In 10 minutes host writes = 2.54 GiB

If you multiple 2.5 GiB by the WA factor the writes at NAND level = 60.04 GiB

It appears entirely plausible that the combination of host writes and block erase times could be achieved within the time frame and I remain convinced that 177 is the MWI and the decimal value = 1 complete P/E cycle.

First, there is no M2P, but there is a 64GB M2S (the earlier model, similar to the Corsair Performance 3s). It's slower, but basically the same thing.

Second, the X25-E is awesome, and I don't think you'll find too many people who disagree with that assessment (but it is not testing material -- unless you can wait 80 months for the results.)

Third, I have downloaded the new Samsung FW. It wasn't up when I checked yesterday, but I have the .ISO file so I will update the drive after todays' update, barring any objections from the peanut gallery. Wish me luck.

Lastly, I too was convinced that 177 was MWI as well, but trying to convince the SSDLife people of that didn't get anywhere. So my edition just has host writes and not MWI.

Samsung 830 64GB Update, Day 35
FW:CXM02B1Q
Upgraded after update from FW:CXM01B1Q

GiB written:
222560.85

Avg MB/s
69.34

PE Cycles
14031, up from 13669 yesterday

Reallocated Sectors
40960
20 Blocks, up from 18

869 Hours

https://www.box.com/shared/static/a8...l77umcd5sx.png
https://www.box.com/shared/static/ud...59cq8c1x0b.png

We will see what other effects the new FW has besides 177. I may SE the drive again to see if performance will go back to normal.

EDIT
Avg Speed is up quite a bit, even in the short time I have had CMX02B1Q up and running. It's increased 7MBs over the past hour.

UPDATE
I secure erased the drive, and left it idle for a few minutes. The good news is, speed seems to be back almost to where it should be. The bad news -- 177 doesn't seem to update. I still need to power cycle the drive to get 177's value.

Kingston SSDNow 40GB (X25-V)

621.78TB Host writes
Reallocated sectors : 05 21
Available Reserved Space : E8 99
POH 5617
MD5 OK

33.81MiB/s on avg (~25 hours)

--

Corsair Force 3 120GB

01 77/50 (Raw read error rate)
05 2 (Retired Block count)
B1 67 (Wear range delta)
E6 100 (Life curve status)
E7 10 (SSD Life left)
E9 678372 (Raw writes) ->662TiB
F1 902843 (Host writes) ->882TiB

MD5 OK

106.80MiB/s on avg (~25 hours)

power on hours : 2590

--

Looks like the Samsung FW update was a success, will do mine asap.

Looks like mine is now worn in :D (Will confirm WA for the normal endurance load in a bit).

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/6867/asux.png

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

Looks like mine is now worn in :D (Will confirm WA for the normal endurance load in a bit).

---

Wow, 141.84 MB/s, I think that is a new ASU record for a 64GB SSD.

Wonder what the 128GB Samsung (or a 256GB) would manage, probably more but not much I think.

Whoa, over a 3 hour duration of the “normal” endurance load I’m getting a WA factor of 1.04. I’m going to leave the normal endurance workload running overnight to double check and make sure as that is way lower than what I was seeing on the last f/w.

“Normal” ASU WA

60GiB (LBA) * P/E Cycles (28) = 1680
Actual writes = 1,602

WA = 1.04

Ao1,

Mine doesn't seem to be updating 177 correctly after the FW update either, so you may want to double check.

My drive is faster at the moment, but not back up to the speeds you're getting. Mine was like that before I hit the unassailable performance barrier. Now I'm happy with 130MBs. But even in the beginning, I couldn't get 160MB/s in the endurance test for very long. Basically, my average dropped to 110MBs after a while.

I'm logging at 10 min intervals and the dec value is more or less changing every time th elog is updated, so it is definently working now

I'm using driver 10.8.0.1003 on SATA III btw.

Hmm. Well my drive did update 177 in the beginning (though not correctly). I switched back to rst so I could SE the drive, but Ive written 500GB since hitting 14038, and its still there.


I do think that if there is one bit of advice I would give to 830 owners, it would be to over provision the drive. The Magician software will let you do it with data on the drive (I believe). The 830, especially the 64GB, needs a little extra space I would expect. Taking the 64GB from 59 down to 55 would probably work wonders for keeping the drive in shape. We (or me) may wish to try that at some point.

I'm using 10.5.1015 on an h67 SATA III. But I couldn't average 141MBs when the drive was new and with no static data. Despite the fact I was getting 160mbs writes at the loop start, my avg for the first few days was 110mbs. So really, I'm ahead of the game right now.

I do think that Samsung has tweaked some drive behavior with the new FW. I think they may have adjusted some of the GC/TRIM stuff as well. The drive acts a little differently now throughout the loop. Also, it's quite a bit faster after the SE on the new FW.

BUT...
I tested read speeds... and they're even worse now. But the write results speak for themselves.

That's astonishing speed, and the WA is now close to the other models finally!

Phenomenal :cool:

“Normal” ASU WA after 8 hours (and days of 4k random write abuse)

60GiB (LBA) * P/E Cycles (68) = 4080
Actual writes = 3,937

WA = 1.036

I'm now 100% convinced that 177 is the MWI and P/E cycle count.

http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/9783/asu8hours.png

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/1315/asssd.png

@Ao1, I wish I could press the "Thank You" button but there's no such one for this forum account yet :)

Now it remains to be seen how much host writes it can sustain, with the new firmware. Hopefully it will last longer than the 470, meaning that the WA is really reduced, not that they simply cheated by slowing down the MWI count without actually addressing the bug that caused unnecessary and excessive WA.

New drive starting on Monday, maybe Sunday night. I'm leaving today for a short-notice trip, and won't be back till then.

But, this 'new' drive has similar seq write speeds to the 830... Almost identical. And it's 64GB too...

I've put it in my laptop to shake it down whilst I'm away... I want to be sure that it's five by five before testing begins. But there have been some initial signs that the drive has some... quirks.

In any event, I think I'll test this drive and the Samsung while waiting for the new drives to launch.

Result! I had delivery issues when I ordered my 830. Out of the blue the retailer (Dabs) just emailed to say they would send me another 830 FOC to compensate! I’ve been so impressed with the 830 I’m going to use it for my OS drive when it arrives.

Anyways, a mini update

Enterprise ASU WA after 6 ½ hours

60GiB (LBA) * P/E Cycles (51) = 3,060
Actual writes = 89
WA = 34.38
Current MB/s: 3.98MB/s
MWI: 74
P/E Cycles 925

Looks like I’ve lost 0.5MB/s on the enterprise workload after the f/w update, but again this is phenomenal (and consistent) performance considering this is about the worst workload you could ever throw at a drive. (Also taking into account that the workload prevents TRIM from functioning).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

Enterprise ASU WA after 6 ½ hours

60GiB (LBA) * P/E Cycles (51) = 3,060
Actual writes = 89
WA = 34.38
Current MB/s: 3.98MB/s
MWI: 74
P/E Cycles 925

---

It is interesting that whether you run the standard ASU workload or the enterprise, the 830 goes through erase cycles at nearly the same rate (cycles per hour). So the time to exhaust MWI is nearly the same with either workload.

^ I hadn’t got round to looking at that in detail, but I had picked up that the wear rate was similar. A rough and ready way to look at it :D

4 MB/s * 34.38 = 137.52 MB/s
141.09 MB/s * 1.036 = 146.17 MB/s

According to that way of looking at it 4K is slower. I will work it out properly at some stage.

EDIT: I'll post the log file when I get to 3K

Kingston SSDNow 40GB (X25-V)

624.44TB Host writes
Reallocated sectors : 05 21
Available Reserved Space : E8 99
POH 5640
MD5 OK

33.28MiB/s on avg (~49 hours)

--

Corsair Force 3 120GB

01 95/50 (Raw read error rate)
05 2 (Retired Block count)
B1 66 (Wear range delta)
E6 100 (Life curve status)
E7 10 (SSD Life left)
E9 685054 (Raw writes) ->669TiB
F1 911725 (Host writes) ->890TiB

MD5 OK

106.92MiB/s on avg (~49 hours)

power on hours : 2613

Todays update.
Kingston V+100

And again it dropped out.....:down:

Intel X25-M G1 80GB
232,3221 TiB
20205 hours
Reallocated sectors : 00
MWI=139 to 137
MD5 =OK
48.59 MiB/s on avg
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475460http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475459

m4
225.8037 TiB
826 hours
Avg speed 80.70 MiB/s.
AD gone from 232 to 224.
P/E 3969.
MD5 OK.
Reallocated sectors : 00
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475461http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ap...tach_id=475458

Samsung 830 64GB Update, Day 37
FW:CXM02B1Q

GiB written:
234126.89

Avg MB/s
118.88, up from 69.34

PE Cycles
14109 Can't power cycle the drive until I return home on Sunday night.

Reallocated Sectors
40960
20 Blocks, holding steady

899 Hours

https://www.box.com/shared/static/hi...k6ub84n5e2.png
https://www.box.com/shared/static/tt...6ptgibdyrr.png
https://www.box.com/shared/static/vs...xfakog2ygc.png
Notice the write count from yesterday is quite a bit higher after the SE erase. Today's write count still has 3 hours left in the day. It was averaging around 5000GB per day recently.

So I had to leave town unexpectedly to attend a funeral, and I'll be back on Sunday night. Until then, I won't be able to power cycle the drive to get PE cycles. Unlike some people I could name (...cough... Ao1), my drive doesn't update PE cycles while powered.

But a new drive gets thrown in the torture chamber this Sunday! A joyous occasion.

The increase in speed after the FW upgrade + SE is remarkable. Not only that, but it seems that the drive isn't degrading in speed as it did before.

@B.A.T

The MWI of the M4 is really funny - It's a linear rotation between 0 and 255 and the next exhaustion of MWI would be at 7680 P/E :D I wonder if Crucial would honor the RMA when then engineers see a positive value (between 0 and 100) ^^ Do you think the 0009 firmware has improved the wear leveling algorithm for real, compared against the previous one tested with 0002?

When would you do a data retention test?

I lost around 4 hours due to Window’s auto rebooting after an update :mad:

Host writes: 9,205 GiB
MWI: 72
P/E Cycles: 1,011
POH: 137


Edit, looks like the rest helped the M/Bs

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/7205/updatend.png

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by minpayne

@B.A.T

The MWI of the M4 is really funny - It's a linear rotation between 0 and 255 and the next exhaustion of MWI would be at 7680 P/E :D I wonder if Crucial would honor the RMA when then engineers see a positive value (between 0 and 100) ^^ Do you think the 0009 firmware has improved the wear leveling algorithm for real, compared against the previous one tested with 0002?

When would you do a data retention test?

---

I don't know. It might have. Fw 0009 writes slower than 0002 but the WA on the 0002 was 1.09 and for 0009 it is so far 1.02.
I had an involuntary retention test during christmas. All ssd were without power for 12 and 24 hours due to a storm and powerloss.

I don't think WA was ever really a problem with the M4, even with the earliest FW (0001). In fact, even on a sector-aligned XP setup, the M4 seemed to have really good WA. Obviously, I don't recommend running a drive like that, but I did, and it was pretty amazing.

The increase in read speeds with 0009 is certainly worth it, even it WA actually increased over earlier FWs. My M4 was running 0001FW and the upgrade to 0009 was incredible. The drop in write speed is certainly a good trade-off for the increase in read speeds.

The 830 on with it's new FW seems to be unassailable now. It's been two days, and there has been no slowdown like there was on 01B1Q. If anything it's even faster over time, not slower. I expect it should hit 10000GB today, and possibly more tomorrow. While it's not as fast as it should (and could be), I can't complain. I can't believe that there have been no more reallocations. It should have popped a couple more blocks by now, but it's been holding steady for quite a while at 40960.

Samsung 830 64GB Update, Day 38
FW:CXM02B1Q

GiB written:
241217.21

Avg MB/s
120.54, up from 118.88

PE Cycles
14109 Can't power cycle the drive until I return home on Monday night.

Reallocated Sectors
40960
20 Blocks, holding steady

915 Hours

https://www.box.com/shared/static/g3...i9bdllnrkv.png
https://www.box.com/shared/static/0e...5rhhufa70g.png

I can't be picky about when I get in updates way up here in the middle of nowhere. Just getting my remote desktop app working consistently is hit or miss.

Everything seems good with the 830 today, but I really wish I could get those extra 20MB/s I'm missing on the average. Every once in a while, for a few seconds every three loops, instantaneous speed jumps up to 160MBs for a short time.

Kingston SSDNow 40GB (X25-V)

627.04TB Host writes
Reallocated sectors : 05 21
Available Reserved Space : E8 99
POH 5663
MD5 OK

33.09MiB/s on avg (~72 hours)

--

Corsair Force 3 120GB

01 92/50 (Raw read error rate)
05 2 (Retired Block count)
B1 64 (Wear range delta)
E6 100 (Life curve status)
E7 10 (SSD Life left)
E9 691605 (Raw writes) ->675TiB
F1 920442 (Host writes) ->899TiB

MD5 OK

106.91MiB/s on avg (~72 hours)

power on hours : 2636

Getting close to 900TiB :)
I'll let it run until WRD stops decreasing before doing the data retention test.

--

http://www.ssdaddict.com/ss/Endurance_cr_20120112.png

I am using my 830 for normal work for more than a week now, Total LBA'a written is ~255 GiB, 177 raw value is 7. What is kinda strange for me the 235 value, which is "POR Recovery Count" according to the Samsung SSD Magician. Strange that Christopher has only 31 for the same SMART record. Anyone knows what "POR Recovery" means?

Thanks! :)

Forgot to write that my 235 value is 16.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by adrianu

I am using my 830 for normal work for more than a week now, Total LBA'a written is ~255 GiB, 177 raw value is 7. What is kinda strange for me the 235 value, which is "POR Recovery Count" according to the Samsung SSD Magician. Strange that Christopher has only 31 for the same SMART record. Anyone knows what "POR Recovery" means?

Thanks! :)

---

Gsmartcontrol reports that attribute as super capacitor health, though everything else refers to it as POR recovery. I dd some research and could not determine what is was.

POR looks to be related to caching (DRAM) and so the capacitor is part of that subsystem.

I would't worry at all, if it reaches some threshold it would be something to look out for though.

I think the 830 is pretty good drive. Assuming the drive does well in the endurance test, the combination of features, speed and the super capacitor make for one hell of a drive. It's could end up like the Intel 320 series, except fast.

I wonder if 235 attribute is actually the 830's "unsafe shutdown" equivalent. I won't be able to test that until I get back, but perhaps Ao1 or Anvil could try unsafely shutting an 830 down and see if 235 increments.

I do not think the 830 has a supercapacitor. The way gsmartcontrol works is if it does not have a specific model in its database, it uses entries from a similar model. In this case, another SSD that did have a supercapacitor used that same attribute number for its supercapacitor health.

I cannot find any documentation on the SMART attributes for the consumer 830, but I did find a datasheet on the PM830

http://www.samsung.com/us/business/o...30-mobile.html
http://www.samsung.com/us/business/o...I_Spec_0.2.pdf

Code:

---

ID Attribute Name
5 Reallocated Sector Count
9 Power-on Hours
12 Power-on Count
177 Wear Leveling Count
179 Used Reserved Block Count(total)
181 Program Fail Count(total)
182 Erase Fail Count(total)
183 Runtime Bad Count (total)
187 Uncorrectable Error Count
190 Airflow Temperature
195 ECC Error Rate
199 CRC Error Count
235 POR Recovery Count
241 Total LBA Written

---

I was pretty sure that it did have a supercapcitor -- or perhaps several smaller capacitors. But I could be wrong -- I usually am.

I seem to recall seeing the capcitor on a PCB shot of the 830 -- I wasn't just going by what GSmartControl said. The Magician software refers to the attribute in question as POR recovery count as well. As I said before, I'm away for a couple days, so I can't test this, but I believe that POR count might actually increment with unsafe shutdowns. I believe that attribute has increased on my drive a few days ago when I was SEing the drive and updating the FW, at which point I had to remove and reconnect the drive to SE it. I can check the SmartLog when I get back to see when it increased.

EDIT
No supercap/cache protection system on the 830 - consumer or OEM. Their 825 eMLC drive does have some kind of system on it. I had seen a picture of the PCB and saw what I thought was some kind of capacitor system, but it isn't. I bought a 120GB 320 because I didn't have a G3 Intel aside from the 311, and I know it has a couple caps on it instead of one "supercap". But that got me thinking, if the 830 ended up being that robust and that fast with cache protection, that there wouldn't really be a reason to get a 320 anymore. I'm still impressed by the 830, even with the initial problems I had, and the drive has operated flawlessly if not always as fast.


I've been looking back at the smart data every day, and I think that 235 is basically unsafe shutdown count. I went and back and looked at the SMART screen pictures, and for the two weeks I was gone at the end of December it was at 18. Then the day I did the FW update it increased to 31 from 21 -- I roughly had to cycle the drive by unplugging it about 10 times that day.

Host writes: 9,730 GiB
MWI: 66
P/E Cycles: 1,206
POH: 162
MB/s: 6.09