A lot of Samsung 990 PRO users have been complaining about their PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs since their release late last year, alleging that the premium drives are affected by a problem that alludes to rapid health degradation. It now appears that the controversy was well warranted, as a Samsung moderator has revealed that the company is prepping a firmware fix for its SSDs, confirming that there is a real issue with these drives. Pre-orders for the 1 TB ($169.99), 2 TB ($289.99), Heatsink 1 TB ($189.99), and Heatsink 2 TB ($309.99) models began on November 1, 2022, a time during which Samsung described the storage as being “well-suited for heavy gaming and productivity tasks.”
From a ComputerBase report:
[…] the editors have received a brief statement from Samsung on the problem. Accordingly, Samsung has taken note of the reports and is investigating the cause. Below is the original statement:
Samsung stands behind the quality of its SSDs, including the new NVMe M.2 SSD 990 PRO. We are aware of reports of this issue and are currently investigating as user configurations vary.
In the survey on ComputerBase, around 60 percent of the approximately 70 participants currently stated that their Samsung 990 Pro also loses percentages in the status parameter far too quickly. In another thread on Reddit , more people are reporting.
From a Samsung forum post:
Samsung is currently reviewing customer inquiries about anomalies related to the SMART Percentage Used (on Samsung Magician) and/or Health Status (on Crystal Disk Info) of the Samsung SSD 990 PRO.
We were able to recreate the error under certain conditions of use. To fix the problem, Samsung is expected to release a firmware update in February.