Samsung hard drives...

[acstech]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

Really! I've seen the problem across Nvidia and Intel chipsets, with differing cables. Sorry, the drive is at fault.

You're just lucky. I sell these things (in computers), I would suggest that my sample size may be a bit larger than the average person.

I do still have a couple out there that are working properly. Like I said, luck.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

An update to my original post:

I used a jumper to limit the offending drives to SATA 150. The errors on those drives went away, and they are functioning normally again. I would still prefer that they functioned at full speed, but it's not noticeable anyway.

Just a few days ago someone else had an OEM Samsung drive (not the Spinpoint) with the same error. Apply jumper to limit to SATA 150, and problem goes away. Didn't even need to take the computer back with me.

Apparently some of their controllers have problems with operating at SATA 300.

No such problem with a Samsung HD320KJ I have, from 2007.

Thus, it looks like a problem with your IDE (also SATA) cable or controller.

[c_hegge]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

Most of the samsung HDDs I come accross in computers develop bad sectors after a few years. That is why I prefer Seagate and WD. I'm not a big fan of Hitachi or Maxtor either.

[kc8adu]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

you own a paperweight.rma if possible

i was searching for something else on my HDD today and i've found the screenshots i made back then (just before i RMA'd it)





and this link here (online analysis of SMART values read out by speedfan)

http://www.hddstatus.com/hdrepshowre...ation=F47E08A1


left HDTune running overnight... every block after those pictured above was red (=bad)... and it still wasn't done checking the whole HDD after 12hours lol

and BTW: this "(Keine Rückmeldung)" in the title bar means that windows thought HDTune wasnt reacting anymore (crashed).. 100% CPU load all the time..

---

edit:

quote from that online analysis..
OMG

OMG OMG

[Scenic]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

nope.. bought those from 3 different shops (2x one HDD, 1x 2 HDDs).
all of them were new bulk HDDs (sealed in that WD labeled antistatic bag with those small silica gel bags inside).

i had problems with 4 drives out of 6 (all WD RE2 HDDs)

2 worked fine from day 1 (and they seem to still do.. no complaints from customers yet), the other ones were DOA (no spinup) or had tons of bad sectors. replacement HDDs for those drives (RMA) worked fine without problems..

i'll take that as bad luck.. maybe shipping (DHL is known _not_ to be careful with some packets sometimes..) or maybe i got some monday-HDDs or something..!? i don't know..

all other HDDs i bought from those shops worked fine since day 1 ..so i don't think those shops are to blame for that..

anyways.. both shops don't have RE2's in stock anymore... only RE3's..

edit: okay.. one of those shops still has a RE2 in stock, but only a 160GB one.. all others are RE3's ..

i was searching for something else on my HDD today and i've found the screenshots i made back then (just before i RMA'd it)





and this link here (online analysis of SMART values read out by speedfan)

http://www.hddstatus.com/hdrepshowre...ation=F47E08A1


left HDTune running overnight... every block after those pictured above was red (=bad)... and it still wasn't done checking the whole HDD after 12hours lol

and BTW: this "(Keine Rückmeldung)" in the title bar means that windows thought HDTune wasnt reacting anymore (crashed).. 100% CPU load all the time..

---

edit:

quote from that online analysis..

NOTE : your hard disk has 1365 reallocated sectors

OMG

The overall fitness for this drive is 0%. The overall performance for this drive is 96%.

OMG OMG

[bgavin]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

Every Samsung drive I have removed from a client system is a dead Samsung drive.

I wouldn't buy a Samsung on a bet.
No Maxtors.
No Fujitsus.
No Seagates until they get their quality problems back under control.

[acstech]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

The failures don't show up right away. Sometimes they take over a year to show up, but usually it's right around a year.

If you have a computer with a reasonably new SATA Samsung hard drive handy, do me a favor. Go look in the event viewer. In XP, it's under the control panel, administrative tools, event viewer. Then look under system. Tell me if you see any events with the id 9,11, or 51. If you do, then you have a problem, even though things might seem to be working fine.

[KeriJane]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

Hello.

I've had lots of good luck here with most hard drives. I attribute my good fortune to using decent-quality PSUs.
I haven't seen any Samsung failures, even when a Fuhjyyu'd TruePower took out a motherboard and a Hitachi hard drive.... the Samsung drive managed to survive.

I mostly use modern Deathstars with only the one Antec-inspired failure. They have a great AAC that can be set to make them virtually silent.

I also use a lot of WD even though I had to replace a newer one in a VAIO desktop that seized and would not spin up. Right now I have 2 GreenPower 1TBs in a RAID enclosure and a Black Caviar as my MacOS drive. All work flawlessly.

The few Maxtors and Seagates I've come across don't impress me. Too hot and too noisy. No actual failures though.

Have Fun!
Keri

[NxB]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

The wd caviar 3-6gbs can be thrown against a wall and still work, lol.

[Junk Parts]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

The only SamSung drives that I ever had were old, I mean old! These drives were in the mega bit sizes, not gigs. They got put in the bin without any failures simply because they were too small, and too slow for any modern PC.
I bought a 586 class PC with a few Fujitzu 10 drives in it, and I was in a whole nother world of "speed!" All the Fujits died at about three years old.
Now being that those drives at the time were expensive I started using older but larger used WD drives. Many of these were very noisy but they worked ok. They were not near as fast as the Fujits but faithful if you know what I mean. This is up until one night when I lost 3 months of Union co-pay records that belonged to my union local hall. Yes I backup, and save all the time. Fact is that the files ended up being saved in some unreadable area of a "good" quiet drive with S.M.A.R.T. turned on. Luck for me that all these file were mirrowed at the Hall. I switched to Maxtor! I think I bought maybe five of these before I figured out that they were bad drugs! I switched back to WD maybe four years ago and have not had a single dive failure in our home PC's since. No they are not the fastest, but they work, and seem to keep working.

[NxB]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

I buy mostly WDs. Only one has ever catastrophically failed on me. I RMA'd it. I've seen a high failure rate on samsung drives too, the 160s and 250s. Its usually with people who have a dust colony living in their computer. A lot more logic board failures than platter failures though.

[Fatal0E]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

That sucks you are having such bad luck with them. I look to Samsung for all my personal work. My boss buys what ever is cheap, usually WD or Seagate. We have been having much better luck with the WD drives over the Seagates. The last Samsung drive I had fail was I think a 60gb many moons ago.

[acstech]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

Samsung hard drives are like playing with snakes; sooner or later, you're going to get bit!

One of the ones with the transfer rate set down failed. Same controller error bulls***. I've got a 250GB WD RE1 on the way for replacement.

Anyone have experience with the new Hitachi Deathstars, er, Deskstars?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

>hmm.. i only know about some problems on the WD RAID Edition 2 (RE2)
they had a lot of DOAs or had 80% bad sectors directly after unboxing..

exactly the opposite of pcbonez' experience mentioned here
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...=re2#post60899

Yes but quantitatively I have only have 3 RE2 and somewhere between 20 and 30 RE. So far I only use the RE2 for non-critical temp stuff like recoding TV shows because I don't trust PMR yet. Using the RE2 is more or less a test.

.

[acstech]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

An update to my original post:

I used a jumper to limit the offending drives to SATA 150. The errors on those drives went away, and they are functioning normally again. I would still prefer that they functioned at full speed, but it's not noticeable anyway.

Just a few days ago someone else had an OEM Samsung drive (not the Spinpoint) with the same error. Apply jumper to limit to SATA 150, and problem goes away. Didn't even need to take the computer back with me.

Apparently some of their controllers have problems with operating at SATA 300.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

I've got a Diamondmax 10 200gb drive that's probably 4 years old. Got it for cheap from staples back when 200gb drives were pricey. I've never trusted it, and never put any mission-critical data on it. But... it has proved me wrong. And then there's the slimline drives... every one I've come across was bad or failing.

The slimline ones suck! I always thought that they weren't like Maxtor!

The slimline ones usually work fine, then become slow to be ready, they have a bad habit of holding up the OS boot time, then eventually disappears from the BIOS.

And I managed to make one give the click of death, which is hard to hear, must have the ears real close, after running utilities, when running SpinRite, IIRC.

[dood]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

I've got a Diamondmax 10 200gb drive that's probably 4 years old. Got it for cheap from staples back when 200gb drives were pricey. I've never trusted it, and never put any mission-critical data on it. But... it has proved me wrong. And then there's the slimline drives... every one I've come across was bad or failing.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

I've had a few assorted PL40's and P80's suffer nonreallocable bad sectors, even when the drive has plenty of spare sectors it won't reallocate them.. Maxtors i've had fair luck in the past, but the whole Diamondmax 8/9/10 thing has kinda put a damper on them for me.. WD's tend to work well for a good amount of time, but i've seen a decent number of failed ones.. Seagates i've seen by far the least failure in the field.. I'd say most of the desktops i've worked with had either Seagate or WD in them..

I have a Maxtor 6Y060P0, which is a DiamondMax 9 and it's going strong.

[gg1978]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

I've had a few assorted PL40's and P80's suffer nonreallocable bad sectors, even when the drive has plenty of spare sectors it won't reallocate them.. Maxtors i've had fair luck in the past, but the whole Diamondmax 8/9/10 thing has kinda put a damper on them for me.. WD's tend to work well for a good amount of time, but i've seen a decent number of failed ones.. Seagates i've seen by far the least failure in the field.. I'd say most of the desktops i've worked with had either Seagate or WD in them..

[bgavin]

Re: Samsung hard drives...

One question to ask is, "does it have a Low Level Format utility?"

Another is, "Will they do a warranty cross-ship, secured by a credit card?"
(Seagate = NO, Western Digital = YES)
A month downtime is an AWFULLY long wait for a customer.

Then you have to ask, "Is it a Maxtor?"

If yes, then