I used HD Tune trial before to know when my 840 Evo encountered read issues early this year.  But that trial period is long gone.  Is there a freeware program that can tell me something?

 

I've used crystal disk but from my understanding that only write and reads a new portion of the SSD.  And the Samsung 840's have issues with old sectors.

Try HDTach. Have you gotten the latest Samsung firmware and Samsung Magician (4.6)?

 

Cheers!

 

Luke

I didn't grab the very latest firmware...  I did get the initial one when the 840's suffered from the bad old sectors.  But another user here says it can happen again.

 

I want to see if my read speeds are low again.  I got the magician as well... all green there

 

I tried HD Tach but it said I needed WinXP hehe  Do you know of a newer version?

I didn't grab the very latest firmware...  I did get the initial one when the 840's suffered from the bad old sectors.  But another user here says it can happen again.

 

I want to see if my read speeds are low again.  I got the magician as well... all green there

 

I tried HD Tach but it said I needed WinXP hehe  Do you know of a newer version?

 

Yes, the previous fix didn't completely resolve things - the latest firmware update will have the drive refresh sectors in the background while it's operating. It's a bit of a hack, but should resolve things.

 

Samsung Magician has a benchmark in it - I have a pair of 840 EVOs in my rig that we can compare numbers with. Install 4.6, and run a benchmark. Then upgrade the firmware and run the performance restoration (The "Advanced", not the "Standard") and run the benchmark again.

 

Cheers!

 

Luke

Will it delete my files?

I've run it twice (once with the old version, once with the new) and it ran just fine. That said, YMMV.

Cheers!

 

Luke

I did the bench but it's not the newest firmware yet

 

Seems fine... unless their bench takes the most recent data...  without HD Tune is tough to know for sure

 

TechSpot recommends HDTune and ReadSpeedTester for testing the EVO drives.  The latter software (free) can be found here: http://www.techspot.com/downloads/6712-ssd-read-speed-tester.html

 

HTH

 

Greg

I grabbed that RST program and holy moly....  uber slowdowns on the older data again.

 

Goll dang it Samsung...  they should give everyone 850's as a replacment...  *sigh*

 

And marked improvement with new firmware AND performance optimization with the Magician...

 

You should hang onto to the RST app and check the drive again in a few weeks.  The algorithm Samsung continues to tweak is very much like trying to hit a moving target... a lot of variables to nail down.

 

Greg

Do the 850's have this? I read the nand is similar and its TLC which appears to be a factor for this issue.

Hard to say, and certainly Samsung ain't sayin', but I'll take the rather simplistic (and protective) position for now that their TLC chips are, well, shall we say... unpredictable.  Glad I have an 840 Pro that uses MLC (and an 830 in one of my wife's lappy's... both have been flawless).  This TLC issue Samsung is dealing with is challenging.  HD Tune and RST are the only apps that do not write new data to SSD's, which makes them the only candidates at this time for evaluating Samsung's TLC drives.  RST should serve you well in monitoring the drive.

 

Good luck... and I agree with you about them giving their customers a drive that works as advertised.  Even if it means doing an EVO to PRO swap!  They simply must make it work for their customers!

 

Greg

 

 

Good luck... and I agree with you about them giving their customers a drive that works as advertised.  Even if it means doing an EVO to PRO swap!  They simply must make it work for their customers!

 

Strictly speaking, it does work. Compared to a lot of earlier SSDs (can you say OCZ?) this is infinitely more benign than randomly turning into a brick.

 

My prediction is that the latest firmware will resolve the problem, mostly because it's a crude and brute-force solution - just rewrite cells that haven't been written to in a certain period of time. It's simple, and if the cost is 2x the write volume, that's a pretty good price to pay.

 

We're still on the leading edge of flash storage technology, but considering some of the issues I've had over the years with "reliable" spinning rust, I can't complain.

 

Cheers!

 

Luke

 

 

I used HD Tune trial before to know when my 840 Evo encountered read issues early this year.  But that trial period is long gone.  Is there a freeware program that can tell me something?

I know you've already found another free program to check your drive with but just wanted to mention for other readers that the regular (non PRO) HT Tune 2.55 is free to use with no trial period that expires. It is limited to read test only (where the PRO version will let you test writes as well). But to test read performance degradation of the Samsung disks the HD Tune 2.55 works fine.