Am Donnerstag 27 Oktober 2011, 15:17:45 schrieb Michael Mol: > On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann > > <volkerar...@googlemail.com> wrote: > > Am Donnerstag 27 Oktober 2011, 13:51:47 schrieb Michael Mol: > >> Just don't buy a SAMSUNG drive. I know, I know, everyone has their pet > >> "Don't Buy Hard Drives Made By $x" experience. > >> > >> Here's mine. > >> > >> I bought a 1TB SAMSUNG drive for cheap from Newegg at a Black Friday > >> sale a couple years ago. It failed on me. Around the same time, I > >> identified some flaws in the firmware which I considered severe[2]. > >> > >> I RMA'd the drive, including a full report on the failure and the bugs > >> I'd found in the firmware. I received the new drive in the mail. Same > >> exact model. Same exact firmware revision.[1] It failed on me within > >> three months. I attempted another RMA, the drive's serial number was > >> rejected by their system, and I never heard back. > >> > >> So, I recommend not buying SAMSUNG drives for a combination of: > >> 1) Historical evidence of poor firmware design. (reference smartctl's > >> man page; SAMSUNG is the only manufacturer I know of to get two > >> user-selectable workarounds in smartctl.) > >> 2) I received a failed drive, which was RMA'd, the subsequent drive > >> failed shortly thereafter, and couldn't be RMA'd using normal > >> channels. > >> 3) No acknowledgement (or even denial) of the firmware issue. > >> > >> [1] Ok, sure, there's no way they'd be able to whip out a new firmware > >> revision in time for an RMA. That wouldn't make sense. But they might > >> have sent me a drive with a different firmware revision. Or a > >> different model. As it stood, they sent me back a device I'd already > >> identified as systemically defective. > >> [2] It claimed to support logging, but any failed test didn't get > >> appended to the log, but erased and replaced it. I can probably dig up > >> nearly all the details, but not quickly, since I'm at work. However, > >> since you're on the cusp of making a purchase, I thought I'd give you > >> fair warning... > > > > /dev/sda: > > > > Model=SAMSUNG MMCRE64G5MXP-0VB, FwRev=VBM1901Q, SerialNo=S0FDNEAZ600013 > > > > /dev/sdb: > > > > Model=SAMSUNG HD502IJ, FwRev=1AA01109, SerialNo=S13TJDWQ346413 > > > > /dev/sdc: > > > > Model=SAMSUNG HD753LJ, FwRev=1AA01113, SerialNo=S13UJ1CQB07158 > > > > /dev/sdd: > > > > Model=SAMSUNG HD502HJ, FwRev=1AJ100E5, SerialNo=S20BJDWS913888 > > > > /dev/sde: > > > > Model=SAMSUNG HD103SJ, FwRev=1AJ10001, SerialNo=S246JD1Z910209 > > > > /dev/sdf: > > > > Model=SAMSUNG HD103SJ, FwRev=1AJ100E5, SerialNo=S246JDWSA20722 > > > > the 2tb drive is not connected at the moment - but, hey it's a Samsung - > > ans so quiet, that I sometimes forget to turn it off. > > > > Oh, yeah it was THAT 2tb drive with the smart bug. > > > > Which was solved with an easy to do firmware update. > > I checked at the time. There was no firmware update, and, to my > knowledge, there never was for the drive model that failed on me. > Shortly after my second drive failed, Newegg discontinued selling > model. (The most I remember about the model number can be expressed as > a regex: HD10.*UI. I don't remember the firmware revision. > > It was the combination of historical problems, personal incidental > experience and terrible customer service that led me to swear off > SAMSUNG drives. Take away any one of those issues from my experiences > at the time, and I'd consider buying another drive from them. > > You've got six working drives of various sizes, models and firmware > revisions. Good for you. I've got a still-functional 40GB IBM > DeathStar. (It's not powered up right now, but it never failed on me > after five years of use.)
and I had 5 death stars failing on me. ... -- #163933
