[TRACKING] WD_BLACK SN850 sudden death

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
42

Just happened to me today. (ironically, I had just purchased an 1 TB extension card to do backups but hadn’t actually yet performed the backup. Hoping some kind of data recovery is available).
How is the SN850 attached: Internally
Was LUKS in use: N/A
Died after sleep or died on reboot/cold boot : After (short) sleep
Was the drive purchased from us? If so, which date(s): Yes, shipped as part of batch 5 - order date October 2nd 2021
OS: Windows 10
Model / SN: WD_BLACK™ SN850 NVMe™ - M.2 2230 - 500GB

laptop had just gone to sleep a minute or two, I plugged in my cell phone to charge off of the laptop port, a screen came up white for a few seconds, then it went dead and now the drive is not detectable in BIOS

I had fairly recently updated the Western digital firmware and application (maybe a month or two ago), and all the health parameters looked good. I was also only using about half the capacity of the drive, and was not using it heavily, so there shouldn’t have been an issue with wear patterns I wouldn’t think.

don’t see how it’s related necessarily to the SSD failure, but for some my Windows recovery USB that I created a couple years ago just seems to freeze when I try to boot off of it - even if I disable secure boot in BIOS.

43

I am on the WD Black SN850 as well, but I have no such problems that I can report, I have been using this for over two and a half years now. Here is the output of sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0n1 with the Serial Number removed.

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number: WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0
Serial Number:
Firmware Version: 614900WD
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x15b7
IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x001b44
Total NVM Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Unallocated NVM Capacity: 0
Controller ID: 8224
NVMe Version: 1.4
Number of Namespaces: 1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size: 512
Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64: 001b44 8b45aa3c00
Local Time is: Sat Nov 22 20:40:48 2025 IST
Firmware Updates (0x14): 2 Slots, no Reset required
Optional Admin Commands (0x0017): Security Format Frmw_DL Self_Test
Optional NVM Commands (0x00df): Comp Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat Timestmp Verify
Log Page Attributes (0x1e): Cmd_Eff_Lg Ext_Get_Lg Telmtry_Lg Pers_Ev_Lg
Maximum Data Transfer Size: 128 Pages
Warning Comp. Temp. Threshold: 84 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold: 88 Celsius
Namespace 1 Features (0x02): NA_Fields

Supported Power States
St Op Max Active Idle RL RT WL WT Ent_Lat Ex_Lat
0 + 9.00W 9.00W - 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 + 4.10W 4.10W - 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 + 3.50W 3.50W - 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 - 0.0250W - - 3 3 3 3 5000 10000
4 - 0.0050W - - 4 4 4 4 3900 45700

Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt Data Metadt Rel_Perf
0 + 512 0 2
1 - 4096 0 1

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

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02, NSID 0xffffffff)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 37 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 10%
Percentage Used: 2%
Data Units Read: 73,542,775 [37.6 TB]
Data Units Written: 72,139,708 [36.9 TB]
Host Read Commands: 2,892,894,858
Host Write Commands: 2,382,877,452
Controller Busy Time: 4,498
Power Cycles: 672
Power On Hours: 13,812
Unsafe Shutdowns: 123
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
Warning Comp. Temperature Time: 0
Critical Comp. Temperature Time: 71

Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 16 of 256 entries)
No Errors Logged

Self-test Log (NVMe Log 0x06, NSID 0xffffffff)
Self-test status: No self-test in progress
No Self-tests Logged

44

These ; to me. Look very much like grounding issues I had with my batch0. Reseat your components and, swap around your extension slots, if it persists try some klapton tape over areas which might be ‘pinching’. I didn’t ever experience this after a re-seat.

45

How is the SN850 attached: Internally.
Was LUKS in use: ??.
Died after sleep: After coming back from sleep
Was the drive purchased from us: Yes.
Which Linux distro and kernel: Windows 11

46

How is the SN850 attached: Internally.
Was LUKS in use: Yes
Died after sleep: No, started immediately after launching a virtual machine, got SMART warnings
Was the drive purchased from us: No.
Which Linux distro and kernel: Fedora 43, unsure about kernel

47

2nd time just today for me, on the replacement SSD framework sent almost 4 years ago

How is the SN850 attached: Internally

Was LUKS in use: No (I think, mostly default ubuntu install)

Died after sleep or died on reboot/cold boot: sleep

Was the drive purchased from us? If so, which date(s): Yes, it was already a replacement from Framework, sent 6/10/22.

Which Linux distro and kernel used in this instance: ubuntu 24.02 (again, I think, whatever LTS was when I installed it)

what’s the warranty time on that drive btw?

48

If you are experiencing a drive failure, please make sure you are filing a ticket so our support team can take a look.

49

Sudden Death
Sudden Death1130×848 225 KB

Apologies for this extraneous reply. I just couldn’t help myself. Hope you can find a resolution to your hardware problem.

50

This “Tracking” thread is over 2 years old, I don’t think there is any resolution lol.

51

Just had this happen…

How is the SN850 attached: Internally.
Was LUKS in use: Yes
Died after sleep: Yes. Woke from sleep, opened a window and got my first ever kernel panic (who knew that linux had a BSOD?)
Was the drive purchased from us: Yes
Which Linux distro and kernel: Arch linux. Latest.

Also stumbled across this thread… curious if anyone here has tried it? https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=43377

52

Just got out of trying out the usual stuff on my end.

How is the SN850 attached: Internally.
Was LUKS in use: No
Died after sleep: Yes, was using, closed lid moved to another room opening the lid I see black with power on.
Was the drive purchased from us: Yes
Which Linux distro and kernel: Ubuntu latest LTS

NVMe model:

WD_BLACK SN850 NMVe SSD 500GB

DOM: 28 Mar 2022

I’ve reseated the drive like 3 different times, used my ubuntu boot drive (I just moved to ubuntu from windows like 2 weeks before this issue.) and lsblk and the bios both showed no drive.

Will be opening a ticket as mentioned here. Might be my excuse to move to 1 or 2 TB, but really not great timing on my end.

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