New NVME SSD already has bytes written?

[FRD]

Early 2023 I installed a Samsung 970 Evo Plus in my PC, but I didn't do anything with it directly after.

I was debating with myself whether to use it as boot drive or game storage. Eventually I decided to stay on my SATA SSD for booting and use this as a game storage. I created a new partition last December 2023.

Startup times for Windows and programs were minimal difference after all. Either way, that's not the point of this post (I ever asked that before actually).

 

It has been in my PC for over half a year, without creating the partition. Crystaldisk shows about 700 bootups and only 4 working hours.

However, it has 0 hours read, but 932GB written. How come?

This NVMe was brand new from the store, I personally took the Samsung seal from the box.

 

What happens in the background to the SSD when it is not in use? Once again, there wasn't even a Windows partition for this drive yet. Only discoverable in the BIOS.

[Average Nerd]

4 minutes ago, FRD said:

How come?

Might just be the aftermath of quality control at the factory, but I'm not entirely sure so don't quote me on that.

[FRD]

5 minutes ago, Average Nerd said:

Might just be the aftermath of quality control at the factory, but I'm not entirely sure so don't quote me on that.

I really feel like I should have checked Crystaldisk directly after installing to see if everything was on 0 or close to 0.

[Godlygamer23]

20 minutes ago, FRD said:

I really feel like I should have checked Crystaldisk directly after installing to see if everything was on 0 or close to 0.

When I RMA'd my Seagate SSD, I received a recertified SSD in its place. I checked the SMART data using CrystalDiskInfo, and the drive showed very little activity, presumably because it was reset by Seagate after fixing whatever issue it originally had(and whatever procedures they have in place when repairing drives). The minor amount of activity recorded was probably from Seagate testing it.

 

So based on what's being reported, I would contact Samsung about it, and see if they can tell you what happened, or probably happened.

[FRD]

2 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

When I RMA'd my Seagate SSD, I received a recertified SSD in its place. I checked the SMART data using CrystalDiskInfo, and the drive showed very little activity, presumably because it was reset by Seagate after fixing whatever issue it originally had(and whatever procedures they have in place when repairing drives). The minor amount of activity recorded was probably from Seagate testing it.

 

So based on what's being reported, I would contact Samsung about it, and see if they can tell you what happened, or probably happened.

It could be worth a shot, but I feel like it's probably out of warranty. I also probably waited too long to actually use it. Better to have had it kept in the box after all.

 

I understand it should be normal if it was refurbished, then it was technically used before. This one was new straight from the store.

Too bad Crystaldisk can't give any info of the time period or a graph when it was used. I am very curious to find out actually.

In the end it's not even 1TB of lifespan, but 932GB isn't the same as brand new either.

[Murasaki]

Given the amount written and the timeframe of your drive being on your system and with no partition theres very little chance this has happened overtime. In a day or two if the amount does not move you should have your answer.

[Godlygamer23]

2 minutes ago, FRD said:

It could be worth a shot, but I feel like it's probably out of warranty. I also probably waited too long to actually use it. Better to have had it kept in the box after all.

 

I understand it should be normal if it was refurbished, then it was technically used before. This one was new straight from the store.

Too bad Crystaldisk can't give any info of the time period or a graph when it was used. I am very curious to find out actually.

In the end it's not even 1TB of lifespan, but 932GB isn't the same as brand new either.

The data that one might observe though can be from testing. No different than buying a brand new car from the lot. It will have mileage on it, and the sub-assemblies themselves will have usage on them to determine that they're compliant. 

 

Having minor amounts of data being visibly transacted, along with time with it being on is to be expected. The values you're seeing seem to correspond to that. You're just seeing it because they maybe didn't do a reset after testing was completed. 

 

How long did you have the drive for? 

[FRD]

  

22 hours ago, Godlygamer23 said:

The data that one might observe though can be from testing. No different than buying a brand new car from the lot. It will have mileage on it, and the sub-assemblies themselves will have usage on them to determine that they're compliant. 

 

Having minor amounts of data being visibly transacted, along with time with it being on is to be expected. The values you're seeing seem to correspond to that. You're just seeing it because they maybe didn't do a reset after testing was completed. 

 

How long did you have the drive for? 

It has been in my PC for over half a year with no activity. Bought it in 2022 I believe, when SSD prices were dropping at least.

22 hours ago, Murasaki said:

Given the amount written and the timeframe of your drive being on your system and with no partition theres very little chance this has happened overtime. In a day or two if the amount does not move you should have your answer.

No change at all in numbers after a week or more, I checked once at the end of last year and once recently.

23 hours ago, FRD said:

I really feel like I should have checked Crystaldisk directly after installing to see if everything was on 0 or close to 0.

Quoting myself here. Problem solved. I actually had a screenshot when all numbers said 0 reads, 0 writes, 1 startup, 1 hour.

Now it has 0 reads, but 932GB written and staying there. I still wonder which background task would have done this. I didn't accidentally install something on here, because I kept it untouched after I made the new partition.

[Murasaki]

6 minutes ago, FRD said:

 It has been in my PC for over half a year with no activity. Bought it in 2022 I believe, when SSD prices were dropping at least.

No change at all in numbers after a week or more, I checked once at the end of last year and once recently.

Quoting myself here. Problem solved. I actually had a screenshot when all numbers said 0 reads, 0 writes, 1 startup, 1 hour.

Now it has 0 reads, but 932GB written and staying there. I still wonder which background task would have done this. I didn't accidentally install something on here, because I kept it untouched after I made the new partition.

Hmm interesting. Have you checked in Disk Managment if theres any hidden partitions on this drive?

[Godlygamer23]

7 minutes ago, FRD said:

Quoting myself here. Problem solved. I actually had a screenshot when all numbers said 0 reads, 0 writes, 1 startup, 1 hour.

Now it has 0 reads, but 932GB written and staying there. I still wonder which background task would have done this. I didn't accidentally install something on here, because I kept it untouched after I made the new partition.

If the drive was truly unformatted the entire time - no partitions whatsoever - then the drive could not have been used by the system, since there was no partition, and thus was not formatted in a way that Windows understands. 

 

Your original post shows a power-on time of 4 hours. Can you properly correlate that time to the system being online? How about the power-on count? 

[FRD]

On 1/23/2024 at 2:02 AM, Murasaki said:

Hmm interesting. Have you checked in Disk Managment if theres any hidden partitions on this drive?

I couldn't find anything. Just the unknown partition, locating that it's there, no formatted partition that Windows can read.

On 1/23/2024 at 2:04 AM, Godlygamer23 said:

If the drive was truly unformatted the entire time - no partitions whatsoever - then the drive could not have been used by the system, since there was no partition, and thus was not formatted in a way that Windows understands. 

 

Your original post shows a power-on time of 4 hours. Can you properly correlate that time to the system being online? How about the power-on count? 

It is very strange to me. It was only in my PC. All the power on counts can be right. I used my PC almost daily for that time period.

The only thing that could make sense to me is that all those 700 startups accumulated a total of 4 hours by having a (milli)second/seconds of working time at startup. Then again this still doesn't clarify the GB written when it was never formatted. I didn't even make a test partition.