Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Hard drive RPMs and data speed.

[Michael Mol]

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
<volkerarmin@××××××××××.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.)

-- 
:wq