Micron 5300 · 7450 · Samsung PM893 · PM9A3 · PM1643 · Intel D3-S4510 · P4510 · Kioxia PM6 · CM6 · WD SN840
Enterprise SSD recovery. Fast until the controller stops answering, and then all at once.
Five makers supply nearly every solid-state member: Micron's 5300, 5400 and 7450, Samsung's PM893, PM9A3 and PM1643, Intel and now Solidigm's D3-S4510 and P4510, Kioxia's PM6, CM6 and CD6, and SanDisk and WD's SN640 and SN840, under their own names and under HPE's, Dell's and Lenovo's. They fail at the controller and in the firmware, sometimes on a schedule, and they spend their endurance together: a write-intensive set that fitted six drives on one day reports six wear indicators at 100 per cent in one month. Cheap sets built from consumer drives bring consumer faults, the Samsung 870 EVO's early-2021 batches among them. One SSD member imaged is £300 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing, 3–4 days at the bench; some firmware failures leave nothing readable, and the free look says which before any charge.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668
Models we see, family by family.
Which kind of drive is it →| Family | Model strings | Interface, capacity and notes |
|---|---|---|
| Micron | MTFDDAK…TDS (5300), MTFDDAK…TGA (5400), MTFDKCC…TFR (7450) | SATA and NVMe · vSAN nodes |
| Samsung | MZ7L3… (PM893), MZQL2… (PM9A3), MZILT… (PM1643) | SATA, NVMe, SAS |
| Intel / Solidigm | SSDSC2KB… (D3-S4510), SSDPE2KX… (P4510) | SATA and NVMe |
| Kioxia | KPM6… (PM6), KCM6… (CM6), KCD6… (CD6) | SAS and NVMe |
| SanDisk / WD | SN640, SN840, and the LT-series under Dell's label | NVMe and SAS |
What tends to go wrong on an enterprise SSD.
Enterprise SSD members symptoms, and how long each gives you.
Not listed? Describe it on the form →What the message means on an enterprise SSD.
Describe yours to us →| What you see | The usual reason | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Several failed within minutes | A firmware clock | Stop; check the survivors' hours; assessed at controller level |
| Shows 0 GB | Controller halted | Assessed at controller level; model permitting |
| Predictive failure; wear at 100 per cent | Endurance spent | Image now |
| Failed after a power event | Mapping table inconsistent | Controller-level work where supported |
From the parcel arriving to your files going back.
Work we have closed →Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free
A case number goes on the parcel and a number on every drive the day it is opened, matched to the slot you wrote on it. An engineer settles what has actually happened before anything spins: the interface, the sector format, the firmware, the security state, and what the controller was saying when it stopped. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.
The drive on its own bench
A member drive is read on the equipment its interface needs: a SAS imager for SAS and NL-SAS, a SATA imager for enterprise SATA, a terminated SCSI or Fibre Channel controller for the legacy drives, a PCIe adaptor for NVMe. It is never put back in a server, and never in a controller that will try to rebuild. Drives that answer at full speed are imaged; drives with weak or failed heads go to the clean bench, where matched donors are fitted and the service area repaired before a sector is read.
Imaged once, at its native sector size
Every drive is imaged sector by sector, head by head where it needs it, with the bad areas last. Drives with 520- or 528-byte sectors are imaged as they are and the extra bytes stripped from the image, never the drive. Self-encrypting drives are unlocked on the imager with the key you supply. From then on the originals are not touched again.
The image, and the set
Where the set is healthy and one member was the job, the image goes back to you on a fresh drive, sector-identical, ready to rebuild from. Where the set is the job, every member is imaged and the array reassembled in software from the images: order, chunk size, parity rotation and the reshape point read from the drives' own metadata, the file system repaired on the virtual volume, never on the originals. The array work is covered in full on our RAID array site, and it happens on the same bench.
You see the file list before you pay
What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.
From the bench
- An SSD that reads should be imaged now. Controllers fail without warning and without a second chance.
- Do not update firmware on failed drives. The fix prevents the failure; it does not undo it.
- The free look says what is possible, and on some firmware failures the honest answer is nothing. It costs nothing to hear it.
What helps, and what harms.
Do this much first
- Stop, and read the power-on hours on every survivor
- Label the slots and send the failed drives
- Tell us the model strings and firmware revisions
- Send the survivors too if the set has failed
What sets us back
- Updating firmware on failed drives
- Re-adding a failed drive to see
- Rebuilding onto survivors on the same clock
- Assuming a drive that reads today will read tomorrow
Questions answered before you commit.
Can you recover an enterprise SSD that failed in a RAID?
Often. If the controller answers it is imaged at once; if not, it is worked at controller or chip level where the model allows. The free look says which, at no charge.
All my SSDs are showing wear at 100 per cent. What now?
Image the flagged ones now and plan for the rest. They were fitted together and they wear together.
What does it cost?
£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing; sets of two to four from £500 + VAT.
How long does it take?
3–4 days at the bench for one drive.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
Nothing gets worse while it is powered down.
Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. On most jobs an invoice only follows the data. Until that list reaches you, leave the server off and the drives in their slots.