Question Are we supposed to update the firmware of all Samsung SSD?

[tablespoon]

Earlier this year, there were some talks about Samsung SSD having issues with the firmware and some users were recommended to update their firmware. Some sites said it is for 980 and 990 series but others said that the issue also affected other SSD such as the 870 Evo 4TB SATA and 970 Evo, Evo Plus, etc. Any official statement on this?

 

[In2Photos]

If there's an update I would do it. The issues with older firmware were rather severe in nature.

 

[WelshBloke]

If there's an update I would do it. The issues with older firmware were rather severe in nature.

Yeah this. It's really easy if you are running windows. Install Samsung magician and let it do its thing.
I'd recommend that people do a check for newer firmware on most new drives occasionally for the first couple of years regardless of vendor.
Not sure how you'd go about it if you use Linux.

 

[kschendel]

I dug up a procedure for doing the update on linux, but I don't recall it, as I decided "ain't broke don't fix." My 980 Pro has been in hard use for over 18 months with no issues, so I'm guessing that however I am using it doesn't provoke the bad behavior. If it had been a 990 Pro I might be more eager to jump in.

Anyway, yes, it should be possible on linux, and a bit of determined googling should get you the procedure.

 

[tablespoon]

Problem is I got several Samsung SSD formatted under MacOS. To check or update the firmware, I have to move all the files somewhere else, format them and do the checking and updating. Then, format back under MacOS and move all the files back. Is there a simpler way?

 

[WelshBloke]

Problem is I got several Samsung SSD formatted under MacOS. To check or update the firmware, I have to move all the files somewhere else, format them and do the checking and updating. Then, format back under MacOS and move all the files back. Is there a simpler way?

I'm not sure you'd have to do that. I updated an Intel drive through windows that just has a Linux install on it.

 

[manly]

Problem is I got several Samsung SSD formatted under MacOS. To check or update the firmware, I have to move all the files somewhere else, format them and do the checking and updating. Then, format back under MacOS and move all the files back. Is there a simpler way?

Firmware updates are non-destructive; it doesn't care what data (OS filesystem) is on the disk. Having said that, if your data has any value whatsoever, you should have backed it up already. Firmware updates aren't always bulletproof so plan accordingly.

TBH I'm more in the camp of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." SSD firmware updates should be "fine" and even recommended in this case. But in other cases, firmware updates sometimes remove/break functionality. I.e. PS3 removing OtherOS at one point or my Dell XPS BIOS update removing TPM support.

 

[WelshBloke]

...my Dell XPS BIOS update removing TPM support.

That sounds particularly annoying!

 

[manly]

That sounds particularly annoying!

I'm not aware I've ever used TPM 2.0 for anything, so I probably don't care. It's a requirement for official Windows 11 support, but my 7th gen. Intel CPU just misses out on support as well.

However, the story is a bit stranger than I'd remembered it. Under the aforementioned "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" doctrine, I hadn't bothered to upgrade the Dell BIOS since early in ownership. I run Linux full-time, and rarely boot into Windows 10. Windows updates only occasionally get installed, and I never bothered to pay much attention to the Dell updates mechanism that is pre-installed. Anyway, the BIOS revision that removed TPM was forced installed since 2020, and I wasn't even aware!

Over in the Dell forums, there is some chatter of users downgrading to an old specific BIOS revision to restore TPM. But if the offending update is a forced install anyway, this just temporarily fixes the problem, if at all. Another user also mentioned that the years of BIOS updates did have some useful bug fixes, which you lose by downgrading.

This was one of those quiet changes that Dell never described, or subsequently acknowledged. My best guess is there must be some security flaw in the TPM implementation that can't be fixed by firmware, so they decided to just disable it completely. Oddly enough, newer BIOS revisions than the one that removed TPM have not yet been quietly installed (nor do they restore TPM).

 

[Geegeeoh]

"if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
Wasn't there an SSD that will trigger read-only mode at some point for a stupid firmware bug?
You had to fix that before "it broke", no fix afterwards.

 

[manly]

There was an Intel consumer SSD that had a horrible write-amplification bug (around 2016 or so). But by the time a fix was available, a lot of damage had already been done to those drives. IIRC buggy consumer SSD firmware has cropped up from time to time, but is a lot less rare now than in the early days.