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December 20th, 2024 18:31
Precision 3680 Tower Storage Matrix Help
Reference pp15-17 of the Dell Precision 3680 Technical Guide
Hello, I'm looking for help deciphering the storage matrix in the above-referenced document for a Dell Precision Desktop Workstation 3680.
BACKGROUND
These workstations come with a motherboard that has three M.2 2280 slots for SSD storage.
My current configuration has the boot SSD in the factory installed location, presumably in (according to the chart) the "1st M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD CPU lane." I have also installed two identical Samsung 990 PRO 2TB w/heatsink SSDs into the remaining SSD slots and have set them up as a RAID-1.
The problem is that, although the BIOS, Windows 11, and the Intel Storage App seem to like this enough to allow me to set it up, after the computer is put into service for about 2 weeks as a file server, the RAID-1 array (set up as E: withing Windows 11) simply vanishes. One minute network workstations will be happily reading and writing to the network share on the E: drive, and then the next minute, there is no share on the network, there is no E: drive on the computer, and upon restart into the BIOS, there are no Samsung 990 PRO 2TB SSDs installed in the computer.
Perhaps after the next restart into the BIOS the 2 Samsungs will magically reappear and when the computer starts into Windows 11 all is back to normal and the share magically reappears and all is right with the world.
Or not.
This computer is covered by Dell's Next-Day On Site Business Service Plan, and so far has had two on-site tech visits, two replacement motherboards, and a vacation to Dell's depot in Houston for more repair. The BIOS has been updated to the latest available (at this writing the most current is 1.10.1). The Intel Storage app is the most current available. Samsung Magician says the SSDs are up-to-date.
None of that has changed a thing--the drives still occasionally disappear.
QUESTION/HYPOTHESIS
The way I interpret the storage matrix, if I want to implement RAID-1 in either the C1 or C2 configuration group, the two RAID-1 member disks have to populate the 1st and 2nd Slots.
This is NOT the way I have it set up now---currently the two members of the RAID-1 array are populating the 2nd and 3rd slot.
Could that be why the two RAID-1 array member disks simply disappear on occasion?
DanInPhilly
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April 4th, 2025 12:22
Here's another update.
As of this writing on 4/4/25, the customer has yet to report another instance of the drives disappearing, making it over a month with no problems.
So it would seem that the problem was with compatibility between the two Samsung 990PRO SSDs and the motherboard on this Dell Precision 3680. Once the Samsungs were removed and the Western Digitals were installed, no further disappearing drive issues have occurred.
DanInPhilly
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February 26th, 2025 22:50
Here's an update.
On Dec 30, 2024, I reconfigured the disks in this computer to comply with the official Dell storage matrix described above, in that the two Samsung SSDs are just regular storage and are not configured as any sort of RAID. So this computer has a WD 512GB SSD as the boot disk and 2 each Samsung 2TB SSDs as separate storage disks NOT set up in any sort of RAID config.
After operating normally for about two months, I was informed today by the customer that the computer once again played "hide the salami" with the shared storage drive. Will report to Dell Support.
DanInPhilly
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March 14th, 2025 16:18
Here's another update.
Before contacting Dell Support I Googled up the Samsung 970 PRO SSDs and found that these disks have a history. When they first came out many people were reporting that their health stats as shown in the Samsung Magician app was unexpectedly and rapidly deteriorating, and that there was a firmware fix issued by Samsung that was purported to address the issue.
More recently, others have been posting about them doing a disappearing act, just like mine have. Some of the people have stated they sent the disks back to Samsung for RMA. I decided to kick the Samsungs to the curb and replace them with Western Digital Black SSDs of the same size. It's been more than two weeks since they were replaced and the customer has not yet reported a reoccurrence of the disappearing drive problem. It's still too early to declare victory....if the system can go an entire month with no drive issues, then I might consider the problem to be fixed. If it pans out this way, that means that Samsung 970 PRO SSDs might have some sort of compatibility issue with Dell's configuration of their Precision 3680 line.
(edited)