Samsung 870 EVO SSD misidentified

[Wisewiz]

New 250 GB SSD, verified as genuine by Samsung, but Speccy says it's 750 EVO, when it's really 870 EVO. Other specs software confirms 870. What's up?

[Guest johnccleaner]

Very curious; I've got an 850 EVO in my personal computer that is identified correctly as such. (Not exactly the same thing, of course, but similar enough that it seemed worth comparing.)

I'd recommend emailing a Speccy Snapshot to our support team at support@ccleaner.com (mention that the drive should be seen as an 870 Evo, of course) so that our development team can look into this further for future versions of the software.

[Wisewiz]

Thanks for the suggestion, JC, Will do.

[Wisewiz]

I have to wind up this thread by apologizing. I assumed that Speccy was misreading the disk, but it turns out that it was correctly reading the branding that's in the disk (internally). The mistake is Samsung's: Samsung has labelled at least some of its 870 EVO 250GB SSDs as 750 EVO 120GB SSDs, and the Windows Device Manager, the "wmic diskdrive get model,serialNumber,size,mediaType" command, and Speccy are in agreement about the label, even though Speccy has the correct specs listed as "Capacity" and "Real size" for a 250GB disk, and Disk Management has the correct capacity displayed. Samsung's Magician is probably working from the serial number, not the label. In any event, the disk is great, it's fast as lightning, and it has the capacity I paid for, so I'm going to live with the incorrect internal labelling. Sorry, guys.

Dan

[Guest johnccleaner]

Hey, nothing to worry about - thanks for letting us know what you found! That is a... weird thing for Samsung to do (I wonder if it saved them having to certify another set of drivers or something?), but at least that's one mystery sorted out, then.

Definitely a good call comparing with Device Manager,  though (and WMIC) - I figured you'd already done so, at least for Device Manager, when you mentioned the other spec software, or I'd have suggested it. As a general rule, Speccy should match what the Device Manager reports, so at least in that respect it seems the software's working correctly. Still so strange that the drive is mislabeled like that, though; hopefully it's a practice Samsung's discontinued. 

[Wisewiz]

My assumption was that it was simply a mistake: the machinery that was churning out 750-120GBs was just not reset correctly to mark the next batch (the 870-250GBs) as such. OTOH, I do know where assuming gets you. Thanks. 

P.S.: On the Amazon.ca site where I purchased this disk, there was an odd note in the description: "Canada Version." I've never heard of Samsung or anyone else making a country-specific variety of storage devices, and it occurred to me that maybe the mis-labelled disks were unloaded to the Canadian market on purpose. In fact, I like the performance of this disk so much that I've ordered two more of the same for use in my other two PCs. It will be interesting to see whether the new ones arrive with the correct internal labels.

P.P.S.: Amazon.ca ran out of stock for this disk, and was experiencing some delay getting new stock from Samsung. Maybe the mis-marked ones were EOTL, and the new ones will be correctly coded.

[Andavari]

16 hours ago, Wisewiz said:

P.S.: On the Amazon.ca site where I purchased this disk, there was an odd note in the description: "Canada Version." I've never heard of Samsung or anyone else making a country-specific variety of storage devices

Some manufacturers have did that before. For example ADATA has or had an SSD that was sold on Amazon.com that was exclusively sold in the U.S.A.

[Wisewiz]

Thanks for the observation, Anda. I didn't know that.

It does make you wonder exactly why they would produce a country-specific storage device. Seems extremely unlikely that there's anything nefarious going on here. I think Samsung just goofed.

We'll see what happens when my new SSDs arrive.

[hazelnut]

27 minutes ago, Wisewiz said:

Thanks for the observation, Anda. I didn't know that.

It does make you wonder exactly why they would produce a country-specific storage device. Seems extremely unlikely that there's anything nefarious going on here. I think Samsung just goofed.

We'll see what happens when my new SSDs arrive.

A little bit of info here on the /AM title of SSD

https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/317637-canadian-residents-beware-of-samsung-ssds

[Wisewiz]

1 hour ago, hazelnut said:

A little bit of info here on the /AM title of SSD

https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/317637-canadian-residents-beware-of-samsung-ssds

Thanks, Nut. That was an interesting read. There are many electronics products on Amazon.ca marked "[Canada Version]" and for most of them if you read the "small print," you find that all it means is that the US-specific warranty doesn't apply. Fortunately, I'm no more worried about the warranty on a genuine (checked with Samsung and confirmed) Samsung SSD than I am about the warranty on my first COVID shot.

Wait a minute. Maybe I'd better think that out again.

Dan

[Andavari]

Yeah, storage drives that have personal files on it are a very grey area for allot of us to do a warranty claim on. It might be a different thing if SSDs were still very expensive even for small capacity sizes but that's not an issue anymore.

[Wisewiz]

Well, I've installed and begun using one of my new Samsung 870 EVO 250GBs, and things are getting curiouser and curiouser: like the first one, this one is recognized correctly and called genuine by the Samsung Magician software, but this one is called a Hitachi Hajaan SSD by Speccy and by Device manager. I have no idea what's going on here.

[Side note]: I had a Kingston 250GB as main disk and an old Sandisk 120GB as second disk on that machine. I used MR to clone the main disk to the new Samsung, then installed the new one and moved the Kingston to the second drive slot after I cloned the Sandisk to the Kingston. We're always commenting about how you'll see a marked difference in speed if you replace HDDs with SSDs, but for most uses, that speed increase is not as marked as it is when you use the disks for significant, time-consuming tasks. In my case, with the Kingston-Sandisk configuration, MR consistently took about 7.5 minutes to make an image of the Kingston disk to the Sandisk disk. The first thing I did after I swapped these disks in and made sure the computer booted properly and the drives were labelled properly was run MR to image the new Samsung to the Kingston. Three (3) minutes flat! Now *that's* a difference you can see!

So I'm happy with my new disk, but I don't understand why it's being called a Hajaan.

[Andavari]

Since Samsung Magician is correctly identifying it that's what's most important, and is another reason to buy Samsung branded drives be it SSD, USB Flash Drive, or SD Memory Cards because they have a utility that clearly states if they're genuine - and big stores like Amazon are not immune to selling counterfeits.

Edit:
Note that SanDisk/Western Digital has an SSD utility called DashBoard that will also very if they're genuine.

[Wisewiz]

I agree, and I trust Samsung's verification of the disk. It stands to reason that if Samsung could see any evidence that it's bogus, they'd tell me in no uncertain terms, and urge me to replace it with a genuine Samsung product. I'm a happy camper, enjoying my stellar speeds but just still curious about the on-disk signals that Device Manager and Speccy are reading. After all, Windows doesn't use some magical power to identify your printer, your keyboard, your mouse, your USB drive, or your monitor; it reads the on-device information when you connect those things, if there is any, and labels them generically if there isn't any (e.g., "PnP monitor"). It's not a mystery that's going to keep me up at night, though.

Oh, and I still have a third new Samsung 870 EVO 250GB SSD I haven't installed anywhere. When I get around to cloning my wife's current off-brand SSD main disk and installing the Samsung, I'll look with interest to see what labelling Device Manager and Speccy will draw from this one.

Thanks for your support, Andavari.

Dan

[hazelnut]

Just wondering in the very back of my mind what Speccy and Windows would show if you did a clean install on the SSD instead of a clone.

[Wisewiz]

hazelnut,

I hadn't thought about the possible effect of previously installed differently branded SSDs on the cloning process. You're absolutely right to wonder, and I'm now wondering why I didn't think of this. I'll absolutely check out the third SSD (without the cloning effect) when I put it into service. Thanks for thinking of this possible explanation for the mis-labelling. If I recall correctly -- and at my advanced age, that's far from a sure thing -- the one that's being called Hajaan is in a computer that originally had a Hajaan-branded SSD as its main disk, and the one that's being called a Samsung 750 120GB is in a machine that once had a 120GB disk. There is no Samsung 870 EVO 120GB currently (I think), but there WAS a Samsung 750 120GB. Well, woohoo! Thank you very much for wondering about what was obvious to you but not at all obvious to me. Windows is more confused than I thought, and its memory is longer than mine.

[Wisewiz]

Actually, that should read "Windows is LESS confused than I thought, and its memory is longer than mine."

[Wisewiz]

It's all fixed now, and Device Manager and Speccy display the correct identification in both brand and size. A little Device Manager checking (Properties\Events tab) and a tiny bit of registry editing (Friendly Name, where necessary) and it's fine.