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Samsung Portable SSD T7 doesn't seem to work well with Linux tools. The drive is recognized by the OS and basic functions work fine.

However, hdparm won't report anything about the drive: SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Neither will smartctl: /dev/sda: Unknown USB bridge [0x04e8:0x4001 (0x100)] Only if i specify the device type as suggested it shows something, but the output is incomplete and i can't see any SMART values:

# smartctl -a -d scsi /dev/sda
smartctl 7.2 2021-01-17 r5171 [x86_64-linux-5.11.14-100.fc32.x86_64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Vendor:               Samsung
Product:              PSSD T7
Revision:             0
Compliance:           SPC-4
User Capacity:        500.107.862.016 bytes [500 GB]
Logical block size:   512 bytes
LU is fully provisioned
Rotation Rate:        Solid State Device
Logical Unit id:      0x5000000000000001
Serial number:        <edited out>
Device type:          disk
Local Time is:        Fri May 14 11:48:08 2021 CEST
SMART support is:     Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is:     Enabled
Temperature Warning:  Disabled or Not Supported

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Health Status: OK
Current Drive Temperature:     0 C
Drive Trip Temperature:        0 C

Error Counter logging not supported

Device does not support Self Test logging
  1. Does anyone know what i can do to be able to interact with the drive?
  2. Is using the drive sensible in the long run? I know Linux is not officially supported by this drive and i won't be able to use hardware encryption or update the firmware from a Linux OS, but the unavailability of SMART data concerns me.
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  • 1
    SMART often won't transmit over USB
    – Tetsujin
    Commented May 14, 2021 at 10:15
  • @Tetsujin Is there some way to make it work perhaps? Or would i have to open the drive and connect to the internal port?
    – yakom
    Commented May 14, 2021 at 10:22
  • So long as the external case isn't doing any sector size manipulation - but what precisely are you trying to achieve?
    – Tetsujin
    Commented May 14, 2021 at 10:24
  • @Tetsujin Nothing in particular, but checking on SMART data once in a while would be useful. Without it the drive seems like a complete blackbox that i have no visiblity into and which can fail at any moment.
    – yakom
    Commented May 14, 2021 at 10:38
  • 1
    Some newer-spec interfaces can handle SMART. idk whether this started at USB3 or later, but it would seem your choice is a 'smarter' [no pun intended… honest;) enclosure, or mount it internally - or just stop worrying about when it might fail & keep your backups up to date; far more productive overall.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented May 14, 2021 at 10:46

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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This issue has been fixed with pull request #102. The update to drivedb, tells smartctl to use -d sntasmedia; If your drivedb is current, it will now 'just work', if backrev, manually add the -d sntasmedia argument. You can update the drivedb independently of smartmontools by using the update-smart-drivedb command.

Example output:

# smartctl --version
smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [x86_64-linux-6.1.0-3-amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

smartctl comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free
software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License; either
version 2, or (at your option) any later version.
See https://www.gnu.org for further details.

smartmontools release 7.3 dated 2022-02-28 at 16:33:40 UTC
smartmontools SVN rev 5338 dated 2022-02-28 at 16:34:26
smartmontools build host: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
smartmontools build with: C++11, GCC 12.2.0
smartmontools configure arguments: [hidden in reproducible builds]
reproducible build SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH: 1665910132 (2022-10-16 01:48:52)

# sudo smartctl -x -q noserial /dev/sdd
smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [x86_64-linux-6.1.0-3-amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number:                       Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch
Firmware Version:                   FXG42P2Q
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID:            0x144d
IEEE OUI Identifier:                0x002538
Total NVM Capacity:                 1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Unallocated NVM Capacity:           0
Controller ID:                      5
NVMe Version:                       1.3
Number of Namespaces:               1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity:          1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Namespace 1 Utilization:            109,867,008 [109 MB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size:     512
Local Time is:                      Thu Feb 16 13:11:16 2023 PST
Firmware Updates (0x16):            3 Slots, no Reset required
Optional Admin Commands (0x0007):   Security Format Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x001f):     Comp Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat
Log Page Attributes (0x03):         S/H_per_NS Cmd_Eff_Lg
Maximum Data Transfer Size:         512 Pages
Warning  Comp. Temp. Threshold:     54 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold:     56 Celsius

Supported Power States
St Op     Max   Active     Idle   RL RT WL WT  Ent_Lat  Ex_Lat
 0 +     4.83W       -        -    0  0  0  0        0       0
 1 +     3.54W       -        -    1  1  1  1        0       0
 2 +     3.04W       -        -    2  2  2  2        0       0
 3 -   0.0500W       -        -    3  3  3  3    26000    1000

Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt  Data  Metadt  Rel_Perf
 0 +     512       0         0

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning:                   0x00
Temperature:                        23 Celsius
Available Spare:                    100%
Available Spare Threshold:          10%
Percentage Used:                    0%
Data Units Read:                    30,173 [15.4 GB]
Data Units Written:                 1 [512 KB]
Host Read Commands:                 141,544
Host Write Commands:                9
Controller Busy Time:               0
Power Cycles:                       2
Power On Hours:                     1,031
Unsafe Shutdowns:                   1
Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
Error Information Log Entries:      0
Warning  Comp. Temperature Time:    0
Critical Comp. Temperature Time:    0
Temperature Sensor 1:               23 Celsius
Temperature Sensor 2:               22 Celsius

Warning: NVMe Get Log truncated to 0x200 bytes, 0x200 bytes zero filled
Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 16 of 64 entries)
No Errors Logged
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5

Actually scratch my comment.

Apparently the drive has an NVMe drive inside. There's currently no ATA PASSTHROUGH equivalent command for them in any of the SCSI standards. Therefore, regardless of how much hdparm / smartctl supports NVMe drive, when it's in an USB enclosure you can at best get generic SCSI support (i.e. NVMe commands that can be directly translated/mapped from SCSI commands).

In fact unlike the case of (S)ATA drives, NVMe-to-SCSI translation is currently (or, was) only maintained as a reference by the NVM Express Work Group (Also known as NVM Express Inc., apparently), while SAT is a proper SCSI standard maintained by the INCITS T10 committee.

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4
  • That's something i could not establish, where did you find this information?
    – yakom
    Commented May 15, 2021 at 6:16
  • Well, if you want to read about SAT / ATA PASSTHROUGH, there's t10.org/drafts.htm#SAT; for the NVMe-to-SCSI translation reference, just Google nvme scsi should give you links to some versions of PDF of it (I don't see it being listed on the website properly; maybe the organization don't even actively maintain the reference anymore). For the fact that P7 is an NVMe drive, just Google the model seems to tell.
    – Tom Yan
    Commented May 15, 2021 at 6:33
  • It might also worth mentioning that SMART isn't as standardized in SCSI as it is in ATA/ACS. If you Google e.g. ata acs-3 to get a (pirate?) copy of ACS-3 (draft), you can see a feature set / commands of SMART being defined in it, but you won't find that in the SCSI standards. See sg.danny.cz/scsi/smartmontools_scsi.html#smart if interested. (NVMe seems to have a kind of properly standardized SMART / Health Information "log page" btw.)
    – Tom Yan
    Commented May 15, 2021 at 6:49
  • I wasn't specific enough, but you're right, it's a NVMe drive. I only found it when i knew what to look for. Thank you for the explanations.
    – yakom
    Commented May 15, 2021 at 6:54

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