Samsung SSD incompatible with AMD ?

[Phage]

Hi All

I have a Samsung 860 QVO 2Tb SATA SSD for storage on my ASUS C8H. It keeps just disappearing from the machine and only a hard boot will recover it again.

I've done all the usual,
Updated BIOS
Replaced SATA cable
Updated SSD firmware
Run Magician diagnostics

No luck

So I emailed Samsung, and they sent me this

"Please be informed that some Samsung SSDs such as the SSD 860 EVO can experience compatibility issues with if connected to motherboards older than 2017 or working with AMD.
This incompatibility can cause certain functions on the SSD to remain inactive such as Rapid mode, secure erase etc and can cause freezing issues on the computer or prevent the SSD from functioning optimally or from functioning at all.

This issue is due to these motherboards manufacturer’s refusal to meet the SATA requirements when manufacturing its motherboards.

This issue is not evident in previous SSD models because Samsung opted not to generate an error code that could show up when its SATA drives are connected to such motherboards.

This decision was made with the hope that these manufacturers will respect the requirements and act accordingly. That, unfortunately, has not been the case so far.

From the SSD 860 series onward, Samsung decided to generate an error code.

There, unfortunately, is no information from motherboard manufacturers yet regarding plans to have this rectified and we do not know for sure how soon this will be done."

Has anyone heard of such a thing ? Any suggestions ?

[kalniel]

Weird. Are all the SATA ports the same on that motherboard? On mine there's a mix from the chipset vs additional motherboard ones - if so try the other type. Otherwise you could ask ASUS about this specifically and see if they've got a firmware or driver update that improves compatibility. Worst case you could probably get a PCIe SATA riser fairly cheaply I guess.

[Corky34]

What storage controller driver are you using? AMD or Microsoft's.

[DanceswithUnix]

That doesn't make any sense.
I mean, that selective interoperability will only harm customers, not the likes of ASUS, specially if every other SSD vendor out there still works and only Samsung drives don't.
Besides, SATA at this point is pretty much end of life and not worth starting any sort of corporate fight over.

Hopefully this is just another case of a support person talking tripe.

I don't know where that would leave you with your drive though. A SATA card seems a sad way to spend your money. Can you use the BIOS to drop to 3GBps and see if that works?

Oh, and make a Linux live boot USB stick if you don't already have one. Such problems can drop some very interesting logs into /var/log/ if something odd is going on. You might be able to see the precise error.

[Phage]

Thanks everyone. Got the following reply on OCUK which has a very interesting link.

A bit of searching reveals quite a lot of people reporting issues that might be the same as yours, such as here: https://community.amd.com/t5/server-...yc/td-p/402737.

I couldn't find anything on exactly what part of the SATA standard is the issue. It sounds like this is mostly restricted to AMD's SATA controller.