[Discussion] F8 SSD Plus m2 drive disconnecting erratically

[TMroy]

We merely suspect that the poor soldering craftsmanship of the M.2 socket might be the cause—this is only a hypothesis, not a confirmed or known issue. Please try ​​swapping the SSDs​​ between ​​Socket 7​​ and ​​Socket 2​​, then observe whether the disconnection issue persists.

[athurdent]

We merely suspect that the poor soldering craftsmanship of the M.2 socket might be the cause—this is only a hypothesis, not a confirmed or known issue. Please try ​​swapping the SSDs​​ between ​​Socket 7​​ and ​​Socket 2​​, then observe whether the disconnection issue persists.

After the first event, I did not only reseat the NVMes, but also "shuffle" them. The one that was previously in slot 7 was removed and put in a different machine as a test, where it has been working without any failure since then.
The NVMe previously in port 2 was moved to port 4, and the (two weeks old) NVMe from port 1 was put into port 2; port 1 got a completely fresh one.

So, I already moved NVMes around after the first event, just for a different slot with a different NVMe to fail. If NVMe now in port 2 was problematic, it should have been acting up in port 1 while it was used in there - which it didn't.

Here's the smart data of the drive in slot 2, as we can see the drive (like all my drives in there) is reporting perfect health:

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=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning:                   0x00
Temperature:                        35 Celsius
Available Spare:                    100%
Available Spare Threshold:          10%
Percentage Used:                    0%
Data Units Read:                    11,486,151 [5.88 TB]
Data Units Written:                 5,250,593 [2.68 TB]
Host Read Commands:                 77,938,360
Host Write Commands:                36,989,949
Controller Busy Time:               521
Power Cycles:                       11
Power On Hours:                     378
Unsafe Shutdowns:                   1
Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
Error Information Log Entries:      0
Warning  Comp. Temperature Time:    0
Critical Comp. Temperature Time:    0
Temperature Sensor 1:               35 Celsius
Temperature Sensor 2:               34 Celsius

Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 16 of 64 entries)
No Errors Logged

It's very reassuring to know that there's no generally known issue, but I believe in my case, where a perfectly working NVMe in slot 1 starts getting problematic in port 2, there's not a problem with my drives. Also, all my drives are on the compatibility list ( https://terramasterus.myshopify.com/en- ... b3aef83d01 ) and Recommended.

As I already mailed this case with reference to this thread and my posts, it would be good if we could proceed with RMA.

Thank you so much!

[Nalies]

Samsung 990 m.2 drives dropping off line problem most likely solved. I was having the following problem. My two Samsung 990 Pro 1TB drives configured as a cache in my TNAS would randomly disappear. Tech support tried to fix the problem, even sent me a whole new TNAS box. I finally just gave up and let the two drives just sit in the motherboard unconfigured. About a week ago I found out that this was a known problem with the 990 drives. They were dropping off line in Windows PCs also. Firmware upgrades on the drives seen to have fixed the problem. There is no easy direct method for upgrading the firmware in the TNAS. My original firmware on the 990s was 4bxxxxx. I used a Windows 11 PC with m.2 slots to upgrade the firmware. I had to upgrade the Samsung Magician program, on the PC, to the latest version, 8.3.2, before it said my 990 disk needed to be upgraded to firmware, 7bxxxxx. Now the two Samsung 990 Pros are running smoothly in my TNAS and a third one, 4TB, is running in my windows PC.

[athurdent]

About a week ago I found out that this was a known problem with the 990 drives. They were dropping off line in Windows PCs also.

Nice hint, thanks!
While mine was stable after the hardware exchange, I updated my Samsungs anyways. You can do it on the NAS directly. Found that in a Reddit post, here are my notes:

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user@tnas:~# cd /Volume1/public/
user@tnas:/Volume1/public# wget https://download.semiconductor.samsung.com/resources/software-resources/Samsung_SSD_990_PRO_7B2QJXD7.iso

Make directories as you like, looks like this for me:

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user@tnas:/Volume1/public/samsung# mount /Volume1/public/Samsung_SSD_990_PRO_7B2QJXD7.iso /Volume1/public/samsung/rootfs/mnt/

user@tnas:/Volume1/public/samsung# gzip -dc /Volume1/public/samsung/rootfs/mnt/initrd | cpio -idv --no-absolute-filenames

user@tnas:/Volume1/public/samsung# cp -r /Volume1/public/samsung/rootfs/root/fumagician/* /Volume1/public/samsung/
user@tnas:/Volume1/public/samsung# umount /Volume1/public/samsung/rootfs/mnt
user@tnas:/Volume1/public/samsung# rm -rf /Volume1/public/samsung/rootfs
user@tnas:/Volume1/public/samsung# rm /Volume1/public/Samsung_SSD_990_PRO_7B2QJXD7.iso

I used screen for this part:

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./fumagician  



##############################################################################
#                            Samsung Electronics                             #
#                Samsung SSD Firmware Update Utility Ver. 3.1                #
#                   Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (c) 2022                   #
##############################################################################

SCANNING -> -> -> -> -> -> -> -> -> ->

##############################################################################
 ______________________________DISK(s) DETECTED______________________________
|#|               Drive Model               |    Serial Number    | Firmware |
|-|-----------------------------------------|---------------------|----------|
|1| Samsung SSD 990 PRO 2TB                 | S7HENU0************   | 5B2QJXD7 |
|2| Samsung SSD 990 PRO 2TB                 | S7HENU0************   | 5B2QJXD7 |
|3| Samsung SSD 990 PRO 2TB                 | S7HENU0************   | 5B2QJXD7 |
|_|_________________________________________|_____________________|__________|

Press any key to continue...

Reboot and done.