Samsung 840 EVO SSDs suffer from performance degradation

By JJ_
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Grand Master

+Matthew S. Subscriber²

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any word on when the firmware patch will be available? 

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+Zlip792 MVC

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any word on when the firmware patch will be available? 

 

Mentioned on last page: https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1229617-samsung-840-evo-ssds-suffer-from-performance-degradation/page-3#entry596593603

 

October 15th..

 

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8570/firmware-update-to-fix-the-samsung-ssd-840-evo-read-performance-bug-coming-on-october-15th

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JJ_

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Seagate used to have these issues and developed a bad reputation because of this. Sorry to see Samsung is suffering from this too.

The standard Samsung 840 and 840 EVO's are affected by this. I have a Samsung 830 from 2012 just before they went EOL. I installed Windows 7 on it when I first got it and it's never been defragged or had its performance optimised. It's read/write speeds are as good as they were on day 1.

I would still recommend Samsung SSD's, just not the standard 840/840 EVO until there's a firmware fix. 840 & 850 Pro models are unaffected. The only downside is their high cost

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Ace

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Wonder if the upgrade will be able to be installed while in a RAID stripe, and if not there has got to be a bootable ISO to apply it outside of Windows I would hope.

 

http://techreport.com/review/27212/samsung-840-evo-update-fixes-slow-reads-with-old-data

 

If all goes well with final testing, the 840 EVO Performance Restoration tool will be released this week. There are still some associated caveats, like the updater not working with SSDs in RAID arrays or with older AMD SATA drivers, but those restrictions aren't too different than those that typically come along with new SSD firmware.

 

Fixing the problem is a two-part process managed by Samsung's appropriately named Performance Restoration tool. First, the utility flashes the SSD's firmware with the new EXT0CB6Q revision. Then, it reboots the system and completes the restoration process, which we're told involves "conditioning" the NAND. The entire process is non-destructive, so it shouldn't compromise any data on the drive. It also only needs to be run once. That said, the target drive must have at least 10% free capacity for the tool to work its magic.
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Brian M. Veteran

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The standard Samsung 840 and 840 EVO's are affected by this. I have a Samsung 830 from 2012 just before they went EOL. I installed Windows 7 on it when I first got it and it's never been defragged or had its performance optimised. It's read/write speeds are as good as they were on day 1.

I would still recommend Samsung SSD's, just not the standard 840/840 EVO until there's a firmware fix. 840 & 850 Pro models are unaffected. The only downside is their high cost

All of my drives are 840 Pros, and none of them have ever missed a beat, however...

It's mistakes like this though that will put people off buying them in the future. I know I'd think twice on buying a future Samsung model knowing that they have let issues like this past QC. It's similar to OCZ - I had numerous OCZ Vertex 2 drives fail on me, which has in effect stopped me buying any OCZ drives - no matter how good or problem free the current models are.

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xendrome

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So it appears there is NO way to run the update/fix if you are using RAID. Which is somewhat expected, however if you want to temp set your RAID to AHCI and use a bootable ISO to do the firmware part. Guess what, NO GO, There is no .ISO offered. So it must be run within Windows as far as I can tell.

 

So I am not going to break my RAID, installed windows on 1 drive, boot up, install the update, shutdown, install windows on the other drive and repeat.

 

Can anyone else confirm there is no ISO for the Firmware portion?

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Elliot B.

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Will running the Performance Restoration Software format the drive?

 

My 840 EVOs are the main boot drives on my PC and laptop :/

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+LogicalApex MVC

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Will running the Performance Restoration Software format the drive?

 

My 840 EVOs are the main boot drives on my PC and laptop :/

It isn't supposed to, but always have a backup as things don't always go as they are supposed to go. For instance, a power failure during the restoration will lead to widespread data corruption... or a BSOD during...

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RedOak

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Your data will still remain.

 

But.......

 

Always make a backup anyway! 

No problem :)

AMEN to the backup. I keep 4 backups each of the 2 OS drives, EVO 840 250s, and at least 4 copies of my files drive, Vertex 4 256. These backups are stored on 2 EVO 840 1 tb drives.

Reminding to backup can never be over done.

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DeaconFrost88

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Thanks for posting this info.  I wasn't aware of an issue with my drive.  I'll be running the Restoration software tonight.

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ViperAFK

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All of my drives are 840 Pros, and none of them have ever missed a beat, however...

It's mistakes like this though that will put people off buying them in the future. I know I'd think twice on buying a future Samsung model knowing that they have let issues like this past QC. It's similar to OCZ - I had numerous OCZ Vertex 2 drives fail on me, which has in effect stopped me buying any OCZ drives - no matter how good or problem free the current models are.

Considering the nature of the issue (only happens with pretty old data) I can see how that could get past QC. Considering this isn't a drive failure issue like with OCZ, and they released a fix for it already I don't see how its a huge deal.

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Praetor

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Wonder if the upgrade will be able to be installed while in a RAID stripe, and if not there has got to be a bootable ISO to apply it outside of Windows I would hope.

 

it's simple but it will take some time: take 1 of the drives outside of the RAID, perform the update, connect the drive back into the array and wait for the rebuild; repeat the same fo the next drives or just image the system, break the array, perform the update, create a new array and restore the image.

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FrancoisC

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The app for updating the firmware and "recalibrating" the SSD is out. Non destructive, but backup just to be on the safe side as always :)

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