Consensus on Samsung HDD reliability?

[Groucho]

Given that there's a few data retrieval experts amongst this group I was
wondering if Samsung drive reliability is any worse than other brands these
days?

I ask because lately I'm reading a lot of negativity about them in various
forums. You can generally ignore the individual complaining of the odd
failure especially when they haven't properly checked out possible other
causes for HDD failure like power supply problems etc. But then you have
reports from individuals 'supposedly' in charge of X number of machines in
an IT department etc bagging them which does hold some weight with the
impressionable parrots running around the place repeating what they have
read.

 

[Rod Speed]

Given that there's a few data retrieval experts amongst this group

No there isnt.

I was wondering if Samsung drive reliability is any worse than other brands these days?

No it isnt.

I ask because lately I'm reading a lot of negativity about them in
various forums. You can generally ignore the individual complaining
of the odd failure especially when they haven't properly checked out
possible other causes for HDD failure like power supply problems etc.

And the technical term for their shit is 'pathetically inadequate sample'

But then you have reports from individuals 'supposedly' in charge of X number of machines in an IT department etc
bagging them

Easy to claim that is the case. Hell of a lot harder to actually substantiate that claim.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Given that there's a few data retrieval experts amongst this group I was
wondering if Samsung drive reliability is any worse than other brands these
days?

While I am not a retrieval expert, I have an opinion ;-)

I ask because lately I'm reading a lot of negativity about them in various
forums. You can generally ignore the individual complaining of the odd
failure especially when they haven't properly checked out possible other
causes for HDD failure like power supply problems etc. But then you have
reports from individuals 'supposedly' in charge of X number of machines in
an IT department etc bagging them which does hold some weight with the
impressionable parrots running around the place repeating what they have
read.

Generally, I think Samsung is no worse than Seagate or Hitachi.
In fact I have had a Seagate ES arrive defect (Made in China,
yeah!), while I have 5 Samsungs without problems.

It is possible that their 1TB drives have issues, though, at least the
first generation of firmware. My main supplier has the possibility to
comment on products and the 1TB Samsungs seemingly have had more
failures than usual in the first batch, with one person complaining
about having the 4th replacement drive. I suppose this person has a
different problem. Others have reported that the diagnostic tool from
Samsung reports errors (but not for the latest firmware revision) and
one person said, that while the Samsung tool reported errors, the full
SMART status under Linux was fine and the his drive actually worked
well.

Also, none of the people posting comments actually have reported
data-loss, which is odd. And the shop has 85 Samsung drives in stock,
while they need to order Seagate, Hitachi and WD. It is quite possible
that they sold several 100 Samsungs and only very few of the
others. The Samsung also have the best price, together with WD.

I happen to have one of the earlier 1TB Samsungs from exactly this
source and no problems so far. Granted, it is in an external enclosure
and has seen only 40h of use. But it has 800GB of data on it (Used for
backup. Yes, I have a second backup.) and two full SMART selftests did
not, so far, show any problems or problematic tendencies at all.

Arno

 

[Groucho]

While I am not a retrieval expert, I have an opinion ;-)

And thanks to both you and Rod for taking the time to express them.