MP 1,1-5,1 Using Samsung 870 QVO 8TB on cMP

[antonio99]

Hi,

I have a cMP running Sierra and recently got hand of a 8TB SSD (Samsung 870 QVO)

1) Apparently some people are reporting issues (drive not visible after warm reboot), while others report that it works fine, mainly if connected on the optical drive bays. I have not tried it yet on the cMP but drive firmware is SVQ02B6Q.

Caution! Troubles with 870 evo drives on cMP 5,1 !

Hi people, I wanted to install Mojave on a new 870 evo drive and it was a desaster ! In difference to my 860 ‘s the installer didn’t reboot into the 2’nd phase . I had to hard reboot ? Later on , the drive even had’nt been recognized . That happened also after starting from another mojave drive...

forums.macrumors.com

2) I also read that this kind of drive should be used for backup only and/or avoid too much writes.

However, it is not easy to know what to think of all those discussions, they are not conclusive.

I would like to use the drive, probably not for a boot drive, but at least as storage.
I'd prefer using it internally. I already tried the drive on an external enclosure with ASM1153E and seemed to work fine (was able to read the whole drive sectors)

What do you think ?

 

[tsialex]

Hi,

I have a cMP running Sierra and recently got hand of a 8TB SSD (Samsung 870 QVO)

1) Apparently some people are reporting issues (drive not visible after warm reboot), while others report that it works fine, mainly if connected on the optical drive bays. I have not tried it yet on the cMP but drive firmware is SVQ02B6Q.

Caution! Troubles with 870 evo drives on cMP 5,1 !

Hi people, I wanted to install Mojave on a new 870 evo drive and it was a desaster ! In difference to my 860 ‘s the installer didn’t reboot into the 2’nd phase . I had to hard reboot ? Later on , the drive even had’nt been recognized . That happened also after starting from another mojave drive...

forums.macrumors.com

Previous QVO drives do not work correctly when installed to a MacPro5,1 or MacPro7,1.

2) I also read that this kind of drive should be used for backup only and/or avoid too much writes.

QVO drives are archival drives, so, limited writes and shouldn't be used as normal or scratch drives.

 

[antonio99]

Previous QVO drives do not work correctly when installed to a MacPro5,1 or MacPro7,1.

I just made a test, installed it on the optical bay, primary SATA port (marked 'A') and did several warm reboots, sleep and shutdowns and the drive always comes back.

One thing I realise I did not test was letting the disks spin-down, could it be the power saving feature "put disks to sleep when possible" that could cause issues ? I did not see that explored before.

QVO drives are archival drives, so, limited writes and shouldn't be used as normal or scratch drives.

So good for backup then ?

I don't know much about SSD endurance, but I compared:
#1 Intel D3-S4510 (2 DWPD ~= 14016 TBW for 4TB)
#2 Samsung 870 QVO (2880 TBW for 8TB),
#3 Samsung 870 EVO (2400 TBW for 4TB)

with https://wintelguy.com/dwpd-tbw-gbday-calc.pl and while the Intel is better, it is less than an order of magnitude better.

I was expecting something in the one or two orders of magnitude better (10x or 100x), then again, I don't know much about SSD endurance.
Also, it seems the EVO vs the QVO have similar endurance, or did I miss something ?

 

[tsialex]

While in the paper QVO specs are great, real life experiences are extremely subpar. Price is great, but compatibility is non-existent and the limitations of QLC make the possible use cases very limited with Macs.

I've tested 1 to 4TB 870 QVO drives with MacPros and all failed overtime - maybe the firmware for 8TB 870 QVO have better compatibility or more probably you just did not yet tested it enough to see the failures.

Backups are not the archival type of workflow, there are lots of frequent small writes and erases for the incremental changes. Archival workflow types are write one time, read frequently, like storage of large audio/video libraries and video playback.

 

[antonio99]

While in the paper QVO specs are great, real life experiences are extremely subpar. Price is great, but compatibility is non-existent and the limitations of QLC make the possible use cases very limited with Macs.

I've tested 1 to 4TB 870 QVO drives with MacPros and all failed overtime - maybe the firmware for 8TB 870 QVO have better compatibility or more probably you just did not yet tested it enough to see the failures.

I see, thanks. Should I expect something worse than the drive not showing up after a warm reboot ?

Backups are not the archival type of workflow, there are lots of frequent small writes and erases for the incremental changes. Archival workflow types are write one time, read frequently, like storage of large audio/video libraries and video playback.

Thanks for the explanation.
I will keep an eye on the drive's health.

 

[antonio99]

I'm posting a few links I found, not sure if they are related to the "disappearing drive when warm reboot":

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ity-hard-drives.1971809/page-12?post=29878313

Is 3.3 v necessary for basic functionality of any SATA drives ? How to check if a drive uses it?

Am I correct in understanding that no SATA hardrive needs 3.3V for "basic" (identification/read/write) operations? Should a drive have 3.3V specs written on its front along with 5V and 12...

electronics.stackexchange.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/7fx0i0

How to Fix the 3.3V Pin Issue in White Label Disks Shucked From Western Digital 8TB Easystore Drives

How to Fix the 3.3V Pin Issue in White Label Disks Shucked From Western Digital 8TB Easystore Drives: If you find this instructable useful, please consider subscribing to my Youtube channel for upcoming DIY tutorials concerning technology. Thank you!

www.instructables.com

SATA - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[tsialex]

I see, thanks. Should I expect something worse than the drive not showing up after a warm reboot ?

Thanks for the explanation.
I will keep an eye on the drive's health.

QVO drives frequently kernel panic.

 

[antonio99]

QVO drives frequently kernel panic.

Just to be sure, IIRC, from what I read this is happening on SATA2 interfaces, right ?
Would that issue be mitigated by putting it on a SATA3 adapter (eventually USB adapters) ?