MP 7,1 Useful life for Samsung 970 EVO Plus blades installed in a Sonnet x16 PCIe card ?

[bxs]

Subject: Useful life for Samsung 970 EVO Plus blades installed in a Sonnet x16 PCIe card ?

For the first time, I've purchased the Sonnet PCIe x16 card to house 4x 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus blades. It has been installed in x16 PCIe slot in my MP7,1. It performs flawlessly for me and as it's configured as RAID-0 HFS+ using Disk Utility it delivers enormous data transfer rates compared to anything I have used in the past.

All storage devices have a limited life span and Flash/SSDs are no exception. Many say the SSD devices will outlast the life time of the computer or even the User!

I understand that SSD should not be loaded up continuously to have a small percentage of their space as 'free space' (maybe 10% is a number I recall).

With the huge data transfer rates this Sonnet/Samsung can provide, and if used heavily, the amount of data to/from (the important aspect is the amount written so I'm told) it will accumulate very quickly.

The Samsung blades do specify a warranty for 5 yrs, and on their web site state.... https://www.samsung.com/us/computin...ssd-970-evo-plus-nvme-m-2-1-tb-mz-v7s1t0b-am/

Exceptional Endurance

The new standard in sustainable performance. Get up to 600 TBW with a 5-year limited warranty for lasting performance. The 970 EVO Plus provides exceptional endurance powered by the latest V-NAND technology and Samsung's reputation for quality.

* TBW: Terabytes Written
* Warrantied TBW for 970 EVO Plus: 150 TBW for 250GB model, 300 TBW for 500GB model, 600 TBW for 1TB model.
* 5-years or TBW, whichever comes first. For more information on the warranty, please find the enclosed warranty statement in the package.

I have DriveDX which I intend to use to keep an eye on the Samsung blade's health, and in particular the total TB of data each blade has received.

I've been using this Sonnet/Samsung device for a little of a week and note that over this time time 1.5 TB of data has been written to the blades.

I also note that my internal Apple 1TB SSD has received almost 4TB of writes over the same period of time. Does anyone know what the TBW is for the Apple 1TB SSD in the MP7,1 ?

So let's say this rate of writing to the card continues. This then means 600 TB would be written over a period of 400 weeks or some 7.7 yrs. Let's say 8 yrs for a round number.

Questions:

1. Is the 8 yrs of use for my 970 EVO Plus blades a reasonable time to assume for their life span ?
2. Will the performance start to fall off as the 8 yr mark is approached ?
3. How credible is Samsung's 600 TBW for these 1TB blades ?
4. Should I simply complain to Samsung just before the 5 yr warranty period to have the blades replaced if I exceed or am fast approaching the 600 TBW ?
5. Is DriveDx a reliable application for monitoring the Samsung blade's health ?
6. Are there other DriveDx-like applications for monitoring Samsung blade's health ?
7. Does DriveDx provide some sort of warning/alert as the health of the blade deteriorates below some threshold ?

Thanks for any comments you might wish to respond with.

 

[bsbeamer]

Does DriveDx provide some sort of warning/alert as the health of the blade deteriorates below some threshold ?

Yes, that is main benefit of using the program. You can even set it up to email alert notifications. Just MAKE SURE you have it starting with your system and all of your drives are reporting.

 

[bxs]

Yes, that is main benefit of using the program. You can even set it up to email alert notifications. Just MAKE SURE you have it starting with your system and all of your drives are reporting.

Thanks....

I do not run Mail app on my MP7,1. I use my Apple ID Mail->iCloud.com for mail. Thus DriveDx will be unable to send me e-Mail alerts.

I've read the DriveDx docs and do not see anywhere where it is designed to use the stock bundled Apple Notifications feature. That would more convenient for me.

My other question is.... if DriveDX discovers one of my Samsung blades is failing, will this be sufficient evidence for Samsung agreeing to replace the blade if it's within its 5 yr warranty period.

 

[bsbeamer]

I do not run Mail app on my MP7,1. I use my Apple ID Mail->iCloud.com for mail. Thus DriveDx will be unable to send me e-Mail alerts.

It's pretty easy to basically setup a separate email address JUST for this purpose directly within Apple Mail.

I've read the DriveDx docs and do not see anywhere where it is designed to use the stock bundled Apple Notifications feature.

DriveDx works with Apple notifications.

if DriveDX discovers one of my Samsung blades is failing, will this be sufficient evidence for Samsung agreeing to replace the blade if it's within its 5 yr warranty period

That is a question for the retailer you purchased from and/or Samsung directly. Any drive that shows reports of failure should be replaced. That being said, there are always some loopholes in manufacturer warranties. Read the fine print. If longevity and warranty are your biggest concerns, buy PRO blades. In five years, it may be time to upgrade your SSDs (at least for capacity increase) anyway.

 

[velocityg4]

1. Seems reasonable based on your stated write usage. Is the 1.5TB per week in total or per SSD? As that's the difference of 7.7 years and 29.8 years.

2. It shouldn't (see article). Issuing a secure erase command can bring a lot of performance back as it quickly 0's out all the cells but that wipes the entire drive. Performance is hindered when writing over used blocks as they have to be wiped by the SSD before a new write to the block. But that gain would be quite temporary given the large amount of data you move.

3. TBW tends to be conservative. SSD often can last way past this rating (see article). I wouldn't be surprised if each SSD lasted for a couple petabytes each.

It's not as though it means the SSD will suddenly die. It's more like you'll have a lower confidence level of data being retained and more frequently come across dead cells. As you are moving huge files on and off the drive. You'll likely go way past the TBW rating. As you aren't filling it to 90% full. Then the remaining 10% being used for an endless stream of cache, log and swap files. You'll be more evenly spreading rewrites over the entire SSD.

4. They'll check the SSD and say nope tests fine. Then give it back two months later. Also they'll be worth about $10 each in five years.

5. Couldn't say. Drive monitoring apps seem like a bunch of hokum to me. It works right or it doesn't work right. If a drive doesn't work right. You'll know because it's disappeared or got really slow. SSD failure is often sudden. I'd like to think if you are moving this much data. You keep a backup.

Techreport Article: https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead/

 

[bxs]

Thank you...

1) The 1.5 TB is average for a single blade. Three 1TB blades were at the 1.5 and one 1TB that was recently installed to replace a 2TB blade was at around 0.6 TB.

2) That is good to know.... thanks. 👍

3) That is good to know.... thanks. 👍

4) Bummer.

5) Yes, I manually backup the Sonnet/Samsung. It's used for current Project data and when Project completed the data is moved off to an archive data storage device. So periodically, the Sonnet/Samsung device will be erased for a fresh start for next Project.

Thanks for the Techreport Article. 👍
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Just to be clear.... I'm extremely impressed with the Sonnet/Samsung combo. My expectations for it have been met. It has been plug&play without any issues whatsoever.

The minor issue I have with DriveDx is that its display for the 4 Samsung blades in the DriveDx sidebar was at first a bit confusing for me.... but have reconciled that now.

My 4x 1TB blades installed in the Sonnet card are setup as RAID-0 and I name the RAID "Swift-IO". The DriveDx display shows three of the blades as "Samsung SSD 970 EVO ..." in its sidebar with a grayish HDD icon to its left, and the last/other blade is displayed as "Swift-IO" with the yellow External icon to its left. See attachment.