WD_BLACK 4TB SN850X NVMe 4TB for $230

[trs96]

This has really damaged Samsung's reputation and it's costing them millions and a large loss of customers.

Angry_old_dude hypothesized, "I'm working from the assumption that the accelerated wear is legit. [Assuming] a firmware update can't fix that. All it can do is fix the problem that was causing it. This would also mean that people who have drives with additional wear due to the problem will have to RMA the drive."

If Angry_old_dude is correct, it seems as though 990 Pro owners who have already experienced significant health declines will need to RMA the SSDs to replace them. Since Samsung has officially acknowledged the issue, customers should now have better luck than Neowin editor Robbie Khan had with the RMA process. Khan RMA'd his 990 Pro in January, and it was sent back to him because there was "no defect found."

While it appears that the 1B2QJXD7 firmware is indeed a band-aid at this point, 990 Pro owners who want to apply the update will need to do so using the Samsung Magician utility. However, we caution that while Samsung makes the update process easy for the users, there's still a tiny chance that it could fail, leaving your SSD inoperable.

From: Tom's Hardware

 

[trs96]

This really tells you that the use of a 3.5" HDD as a boot drive has dropped off a cliff. They can't give them away.
$43 off the retail price of a WD blue 500 GB. This is mostly because Windows 10/11 is unusable on a 5400 RPM HDD and almost as slow on a 7400 RPM drive. It would be a super cheap way to make backups but many 2.5" Sata SSDs are nearly as low cost and a lot faster.