Running disk diagnostics on Samsung SSD

[Haole Boy]

Aloha. I'm working on a machine where I want to see if there are problems with the Samsung 850 EVO SSD. SMART shows no errors (which I do realize is not a reliable indicator of a good drive).

Usually I run the manufacturer's diagnostic utiltiy in a situation like this. So, I downloaded / installed the latest version of Samsung Magician, but it reports that Diagnostics are not available for the 850 EVO (very strange...).

I then booted to Parted Magic and ran gSmartControl. No problems reported. Ran both short and long drive tests, both reported no problems.

Are there any other diagnostic tools that would be worthwhile to run?

Mahalo,

Harry Z

 

[lcoughey]

Get a full sector-by-sector clone/image. If you get read errors, it is bad. If you have reason to doubt, replace it anyway.

 

[Porthos]

but it reports that Diagnostics are not available for the 850 EVO (very strange...).

Seen that on a few Samsung's and also on Cruicals.

 

[HCHTech]

Did you happen to see THIS thread on Samsungs forums?

 

[Haole Boy]

Get a full sector-by-sector clone/image. If you get read errors, it is bad. If you have reason to doubt, replace it anyway.

OK. Thank you!

Did you happen to see THIS thread on Samsungs forums?

No, I did not see that thread. But that is not the problem I'm having. Magician will recognize the 850 EVO, but when I try to run the Diagnostics, it says that the drive is not supported for Diagnostics.

Mahalo for taking the time to respond!

Harry Z

 

[NJW]

Magician will recognize the 850 EVO, but when I try to run the Diagnostics, it says that the drive is not supported for Diagnostics.

I've seen this with OEM Samsung drives – is yours OEM or retail? (I presumed that Magician only supports retail SKUs.)

 

[MDD1963]

I'd suspect the SATA data cable, mainboard port, system's memory or general mainboard stability are suspect before I'd suspect the 850 EVO itself as inducing 'corruption'...

You can make a super large file, folder with 2-5 movies, whatever, store it, right click (if 7-zip installed then next option is viable!), take/record a CRC SHA/SHA-256 hash, copy duplicate the file a few times, move it, recopy it, recompute hash value...(if it changes, corruption is occurring...(for whatever reason)

Edit- although it seems to compute SHA-256 hashes at approx 200-250 MB/sec or 40 sec/GB), so, might take a while...depending on your test file size....but, so much as one byte dropped or altered, data changes drastically
My money is on...anything else as the cause, short of someone already racking up 200 TB of writes in a year on the drive as a database cache drive or similar...(This certainty, however, would likely guarantee that it is indeed the Samsung! Best to change it!)

 

[HCHTech]

No, I did not see that thread. But that is not the problem I'm having. Magician will recognize the 850 EVO, but when I try to run the Diagnostics, it says that the drive is not supported for Diagnostics.

Here is a paste of the bit I was referring to from that thread. It mentions that they use verification servers to determine drive status

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Re: Samsung 850 EVO "This Drive is Not Supported" with Magician 5?
‎04-25-2017 12:27 PM

Original Question:
I purchased a brand new MZ-75E500B/AM from BestBuy. Installed it into an Asus M51AD-B08 desktop. The SSD has the latest firmware. I have the latest Intel RST drivers installed. I have all of the latest system drivers installed. BIOS has AHCI enabled and Hot Plug Enabled. Im on Windows 10 Creators Update.

Magician 4.9.7 authenticates the drive as genuine and shows the drive fully supported. However, Magician 5 shows the serial, the name of the drive, AHCI enabled, Trim Enabled, Sata 6.0 interface, but the top portion shows "This drive is not supported". I'm at a loss as to why? Can anyone help me out? Thanks!


Accepted Answer:
I emailed Samsung support for SSD and here was the issue:

"It may have been a verification issue with our servers identifying the drives. Some users have reported the same issue with a 'Refresh' being the solution. We have contacted our Software Support regarding this."

So if issue happens again, problem is likely their verification server is down. Just keep refreshing until it's back up.

i imagine 4.9.7 doesn't use a verification server and that they implemented that in version 5 to thwart non genuine drives. Thanks for everyone's help!

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[MDD1963]

I mean, the 850 EVO has only been out for what, 2.5 - 3 years or so?

 

[labtech]

I recommend CrystalDiskInfo for SMART reading, as well. It seems to have better support for SSDs among free tools.