Samsung has a great reputation among PC enthusiasts when it comes to solid state storage. His SSDs in the company’s Pro series are often among reviewers’ top recommendations for users looking for fast storage for large work files, apps, and boot drives. But over the past year, this reputation has been tarnished by reliability concerns with Samsung’s 980 Pro and latest 990 Pro. It’s quite notable that custom PC maker Puget Systems, a top proponent of Samsung SSDs since the SATA days, has removed his 1TB and his 2TB Samsung drives from its lineup.
For Puget, the 22-year-old boutique PC shop’s problems with Samsung SSDs sold in bespoke systems began with the September 2020 launch of the 980 Pro. There are a surprising number of reports of Samsung drive failures, especially with his 2TB version of the 980 Pro.
“The most common failure mode we have found is that the drive suddenly locks into read-only mode, rendering the drive unusable. If the failed drive is the primary drive, the drive is replaced and the OS The system will be unbootable until is updated and will be reinstalled,” writes Chris Newhart, a Tier 2 repair technician at Puget.
Samsung recently released a firmware update to resolve the issue. Puget said he worked with Samsung for several months to resolve the issue.
In August, Samsung released the 990 Pro to positive reviews from publications such as PCMag and Tom’s Hardware. However, users started reporting reliability issues even with this updated model.
Back in January, Neowin reported that after about a week, one of the 990 Pro’s health dropped to 95% before writing 2TB to the drive. This was a dramatically different experience from other (unspecified) Samsung SSDs from 1.5 years ago, with over 40 TB written capacity and 99% health.
But the experience was decidedly not an anomaly.
As detailed by Tom’s Hardware, users across the web are reporting their rapidly deteriorating health, including Reddit, Twitter, and Overclock.net forums.one user reported that the 990 Pro showed 64% health with 2 TB of data written.
An approved return of the device reportedly prompted Samsung to factory reset the SSD, which it said was non-defective.
Samsung is reportedly working on the Puget issue, but has not made an official statement. In the meantime, the damage has been done and trust has eroded, like the apparent lifespan of the 990 Pro for some users.
For example, Puget has “migrated” from Samsung when it comes to 1TB and 2TB NVMe drives, and favors Sabrent offerings. Tom’s hardware today. William George, who worked in product development at Puget, wrote: [Samsung] Drives are actually declining at this rate, which is very concerning. “
Puget is far from being one of Samsung’s biggest partners, but the moves and publicity in the statement show the blow to Samsung’s SSD reputation over the past year. Puget has been very vocal about Samsung SSDs in the past, and has raved about their reliability. In 2016, it said Samsung’s SATA SSDs were “the most reliable PC components ever sold.” Such a strong endorsement of Samsung’s SSDs is precisely why Puget felt compelled to take a public stance on current drives.
Puget’s blog states, “The problem with the 990 Pro could be improper reporting of endurance loss.” The company is working with Samsung to “help reach a solution” for Puget customers and the general public.
We are helping customers who already have 980 Pro 2TB drives to install the latest firmware. The company continues to use Samsung’s 500GB 980 Pro.
