Why were Sandforce-based SSD v5.03/5.04 firmwares removed? (Patriot/Kingston/etc)

[jrichrds]

I have a few Sandforce-based SATA3 SSDs...Patriot Pyro, Patriot Pyro SE, Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3. They all had either v5.03 (Kingston) or v5.04 (Patriot) firmware released to fix the non-working TRIM in v5.02. Then many months later, 5.03 and 5.04 were removed with nothing newer to replace it. I've found people asking in the Patriot forum why the firmware was removed with no response from Patriot. Anyone know why? Is there a bug in those firmwares that's worse than broken TRIM?

 

[JellyRoll]

Patriot is leaving the SSD business. So it's hard telling what their motivation is.

 

[razel]

I was wondering the same thing, until I began reading reviews of the newer Kingston v300 and that it's firmware was something like 5.04 or 5.05. Perhaps Kingston doesn't want to cannibalize it's sales because as you know the 5.03 firmware that fixed TRIM also performed better in real-world benchmarks.

I wasn't much of a fan of that Sandforce controller, until they fixed TRIM and I noticed that they do real well with real-world read benchmarks like Anand's light-workload read bench. The better Sandforce's all occupy the top ranks even when compared to newer 2012/2013 controllers (Samsung 840, OCZ Vector, Corsair Neutron). I ended up buying two Kingston HyperX 3Ks. One I was able to upgrade to 5.03, but the other purchased a few months later, Kingston's firmware didn't want to install, then a few weeks later, they pulled the file off their site. Interesting.

 

[OS]

I noticed this also, I have a Kingston V+200 which is sandforce based and I recall I managed to update the firmware once and it's on 503 now, but also now whenever I go to the Kingston website, there are no available firmware updates. I was wondering if my memory was getting bad or something.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

From the day I got my v300, I wondered why there were no firmware updates. I guess I can be happy, maintenance free.

 

[motsm]

I have a Sandisk Extreme, and their fixed trim firmware is still available, I believe it was based on 5.04.

 

[Cerb]

I can't imagine they would pull it for performing better than other drives. That would be too risky, IMO. It would also not offer any good return to the company. I think that one should be left to the tin foil hat wearers .

Look at it like this:
1. Person buys SSD from Company, expecting TRIM, a stated feature supported, to work, which gives good steady-state performance.
2. Person finds TRIM is not working.
3. Company fixes it, once they verify the new firmware works well enough. It now works as it was originally advertised.
4. Company finds that these older drives now perform as well or better than their newer ones, and pull the update, because the new one needs to look better.
5. Person finds small shred of evidence that this was done due to the improved performance. Company has now reneged, and has broken a fixed part, effectively.
6. Person finds lawyer, and other persons. Lawyer makes money. Company gets a lot of hassle. Person and persons get crap in the end, but the satisfaction of having annoyed Company's management.

I wonder if there were compatibility issues that took awhile to start being noticed? I could definitely see the CS people at some of these companies having no more of a clue about something as generally esoteric as a firmware download going missing, and thus there being a lot of silence from them.

 

[spandexninja]

Yeah I noticed that the Kingston HyperX 3K firmware is gone.

 

[johny12]

I noticed this also, I have a Kingston V+200 which is sandforce based and I recall I managed to update the firmware once and it's on 503 now, but also now whenever I go to the Kingston website, there are no available firmware updates. I was wondering if my memory was getting bad or something.

@OS it is nothing like your SSD is getting bad if you do not have the latest firmwares. What should concern you here is your device performance. If you are happy with this, then I would advice you to forget the updates & enjoy the new technology

 

[HighEndToys]

I know why...you can read about it on TweakTown in a couple of days

 

[billybob-ssd]

I didn't know Patriot was bailing on SSD's....

 

[billybob-ssd]

I know why...you can read about it on TweakTown in a couple of days

Is this part of that deal where Intel gets the exclusive Sandforce firmware tweaks it produced or has that deal expired already?

 

[JellyRoll]

The 'intel secret fw' was just marketing fluff imo.

 

[jrichrds]

I ended up buying two Kingston HyperX 3Ks. One I was able to upgrade to 5.03, but the other purchased a few months later, Kingston's firmware didn't want to install, then a few weeks later, they pulled the file off their site. Interesting.

I had the same issue installing 5.03 on a newer HyperX 3K that came with 5.02 (no issue with the older one that came with v3.xx firmware). I ended up e-mailing Kingston, and there are actually different versions of the firmware file for specific revision #s of the HyperX 3K. If you e-mail their tech support with the revision # of your drive (e.g. 9904447-074.A01LF), they'll send you the correct 5.03 firmware.

So Kingston will still send 5.03 firmware to customers. But the confusion with newer revisions of the drive needing specific firmware may be a reason they removed the firmware update from the website.

 

[jrichrds]

I didn't know Patriot was bailing on SSD's....

I wasn't aware of that either, but found this article:
http://www.storagereview.com/consumer_ssd_market_finally_consolidating_patriot_memory_phasing_out

It doesn't say they're completely out, but that they're "reducing their exposure."

 

[HighEndToys]

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/29396...rmware-trim-enabled-for-adata-ssds/index.html

The 5.0.7a change log, at least the public one is there. We are still tracking down 5.0.3-5.0.5 change logs to see what all has changed. No one is willing to send over exactly what we're looking for....or we aren't trying hard enough.

 

[Hellhammer]

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/29396...rmware-trim-enabled-for-adata-ssds/index.html

The 5.0.7a change log, at least the public one is there. We are still tracking down 5.0.3-5.0.5 change logs to see what all has changed. No one is willing to send over exactly what we're looking for....or we aren't trying hard enough.

All the updates have just been bug fixes, nothing that would really be interesting.

 

[spandexninja]

I know why...you can read about it on TweakTown in a couple of days

Is the article out yet?

 

[Emulex]

anyone ever find a decrypted firmware? This is arm so it should be easy to reverse engineer. Would be fun to see how they work, how the clocks, ram etc are setup. I bet you could over/underclock , alter idle settings , reset the counters (!!) would be fun to run through IDA PRO!

 

[jrichrds]

Someone in another forum was told by Kingston tech support there should be a v5.08 firmware out for their HyperX SSDs. Not sure if that'll actually happen, since the HyperX SSDs have been discontinued. I wonder why they discontinued them...the HyperX branding doesn't seem to be a bad thing, and the HyperX SSDs seemed pretty popular (the 3K version at least).

 

[Doomer]

Patriot is leaving the SSD business. So it's hard telling what their motivation is.

Yep, if you shoot yourself in the foot when you're leaving the starting gate, you'll never win the race.

 

[rseiler]

Any further word on a new HyperX release?

In case anyone needs it, this is 5.03, along with Kingston's warning about it.

We have discovered that certain configurations of our HyperX 3K SSDs cannot be updated to Firmware 503 (released August 2012) with the utility that we had posted on the support site.

To ensure the best customer experience possible, we have removed the FW 503 update and are in the process of updating the firmware upgrade package. We will post the latest version once it is thoroughly reviewed and tested.

http://media.kingston.com/support/downloads/SH103_503fw_win.zip

 

[jrichrds]

Any further word on a new HyperX release?

In case anyone needs it, this is 5.03, along with Kingston's warning about it.



http://media.kingston.com/support/downloads/SH103_503fw_win.zip

I contacted them a couple months ago and they hadn't released anything newer yet. And yup, the firmware file they used to have on the website didn't work on one of my HyperX drives. But if you e-mail tech support with your specific part #, they'll send you the right firmware upgrade file. I recall there being a FTP site in which there were a handful of different firmware upgrade files for different revisions of the drive.

Although being discontinued since near the beginning of the year, the 120GB HyperX 3K is still selling.

 

[jrichrds]

Kingston posted v5.26 firmware for the HyperX 3K SSD a couple months ago:
http://www.kingston.com/us/support/technical/downloads?product=sh103s3&filename=SH103S3_526_Win

Updated from v5.03 without issue.

Now their site is no longer saying the HyperX 3K is discontinued, but it looks like the regular (higher end) HyperX was discontinued and they added a lower-end HyperX Fury SSD to the lineup.