New Samsung X5 hard drive died almost immediately on a new iMac

[slidewilson]

I've had my new iMac 5k Retina (3.6ghz Core i9) for about a week and it's been a great experience. Bought a 500GB Samsung X5 to use as a working drive for video/photo projects. Arrived today, I formatted it for Mac (as I had read was a good idea), no issues there. I moved a few video files to the drive to see how that worked - it was so fast! Then, about 10 minutes later, the entire drive just died. Disconnected and won't mount or show any life (not visible in disk utility).

I tried a different Thunderbolt cable, that wasn't it. Spoke with Apple Support, they suggested trying an upgrade to Catalina (from Mojave), which I did, but it hasn't brought the drive back to life. I spoke with Samsung, and they were impressively unhelpful (they sent me a link to the *T5* technical specs page.. thanks).

Seems crazy to have an expensive drive like this work out of the box and then suddenly completely die. The files I moved to the drive weren't backed up - I usually have backups of everything but didn't really think about the possibility this could happen, and it's gonna represent at least a few hours of reshooting.

Any thoughts out there on a fix?

Thanks!

 

[chscag]

I would call Samsung support back and obtain an RMA or return the X5 for a refund if purchased locally. I've got two Samsung T5 drives which I use for backup and externally booting Catalina and they work perfectly. You may have received a dud. Return it.

 

[slidewilson]

I would call Samsung support back and obtain an RMA or return the X5 for a refund if purchased locally. I've got two Samsung T5 drives which I use for backup and externally booting Catalina and they work perfectly. You may have received a dud. Return it.

Sounds good.. a really frustrating experience. Any idea if data might be recoverable?

 

[Clix Pix]

Something is definitely not right there, and I agree with chscag that the best thing to do now would be to call Samsung back and get a replacement, or simply go to the store from which you purchased the thing and return it, or if it's an online purchase at Amazon, return it there. I've got three X5s and all of them have worked flawlessly from Day One and the oldest is now around a year old so it has lived through Mojave and now is doing just fine on Catalina. No problems with any of my three X5s or any of my T5s that I also use. This must be so frustrating for you right now!

 

[slidewilson]

Something is definitely not right there, and I agree with chscag that the best thing to do now would be to call Samsung back and get a replacement, or simply go to the store from which you purchased the thing and return it, or if it's an online purchase at Amazon, return it there. I've got three X5s and all of them have worked flawlessly from Day One and the oldest is now around a year old if I recall correctly. This must be so frustrating for you right now!

Glad to hear you've had positive experiences with them! It's funny, I've been using Western Digital/Seagate spinning drives for years and have never had a problem. Now this happens right out of the box.

I'm on with Samsung now and I'll see what they say. It's always shocking to how awful their customer support is in comparison.. always several minutes between responses. Oh well!

 

[Clix Pix]

I've had no problems with any of the T series Samsung external drives, either, starting with the very first ones back with the T1. I've had the T1,the T3 and the T5 and all have been going strong through the years, and my X5s have been so far as well.....

Good luck with this and I hope you can get a replacement or a resolution to your problem!

 

[slidewilson]

Something is definitely not right there, and I agree with chscag that the best thing to do now would be to call Samsung back and get a replacement, or simply go to the store from which you purchased the thing and return it, or if it's an online purchase at Amazon, return it there. I've got three X5s and all of them have worked flawlessly from Day One and the oldest is now around a year old so it has lived through Mojave and now is doing just fine on Catalina. No problems with any of my three X5s or any of my T5s that I also use. This must be so frustrating for you right now!

Just to confirm, you're running an X5 on Catalina without problems right? The Samsung rep just told me this:

"On March 07, 2019 Mac released a new OS Catalina and this OS causes incompatibility with our recent version of SSD.

The HQ team is currently working on a software update to rectify the issue and there is no ETA.

The Head Quarter team is working to solve this issue."

But it's working for you?

 

[chscag]

That sounds like BS from Samsung. You already formatted the X5 for your Mac so what software update are they talking about? No software was on the X5 when you used it. They may be referring to a firmware update but if @Clix Pix is using one successfully that can't be it either.

 

[Clix Pix]

Just to confirm, you're running an X5 on Catalina without problems right? The Samsung rep just told me this:

"On March 07, 2019 Mac released a new OS Catalina and this OS causes incompatibility with our recent version of SSD.

The HQ team is currently working on a software update to rectify the issue and there is no ETA.

The Head Quarter team is working to solve this issue."

But it's working for you?

The very first thing I do when I get a new external SSD is to run it through Disk Utility and blitz out any proprietary software/firmware placed on it by the manufacturer, and I configure it to APFS and we're good to go. I have had no problems with Catalina, and in fact the most recent X5 I bought was after Catalina was already installed on my computers. The other two X5s had no problem, either, with the upgrade from Mojave to Catalina.

I don't need or want the proprietary software/firmware and simply getting rid of that on both T5s and X5s seems to prevent a lot of problems that others are reporting, so I think that I'm on to something here. If you've been trying to work with your X5 and still retaining/using its proprietary software/firmware, the answer to your problems is right there -- try an experiment: get rid of it and see what happens.....

 

[Fishrrman]

OP asked:
"Any idea if data might be recoverable?"

If the drive has "gone dark" on you, my estimation is:
Not a chance.

Send it back for another.
But... I, too, have heard about problems with the x5 and Catalina.
Check "macintouch.com".