PSAs: Introduced final 12 months, the Samsung 980 Pro SSD is a stable possibility for anybody trying to improve to a solid-state storage resolution, regardless of its excessive price per gigabyte. However, in the event you purchased it a couple of months in the past, you may need to replace its firmware now.
Computer maker Puget Systems has reported that some clients are contacting it complaining about failing Samsung drives. This drawback appears to solely happen on Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSDs. The 500GB and 1TB fashions look like unaffected.
Puget Systems says the issue is within the arduous drive’s firmware. The bug triggered SSDs with authentic firmware to modify to read-only mode. This discomfort renders the drive completely unusable for storage, however it could additionally trigger the pc to malfunction when used as a boot drive.
While Samsung has but to situation an official warning or assertion, Puget Systems has labored intently with the corporate on the matter. Samsung stated its clients ought to improve to the most recent firmware as quickly as doable. The model is 5B2QGXA7.
The affected firmware model is 3B2QGXA7. Some newer drives have model 4B2QGXA7 put in, which Puget says ought to work effective, however in the event you’re paranoid or do not know your model quantity, it would not damage to stay to Samsung’s recommendation.
To replace the 990 Pro’s firmware, go to Samsung’s help web page and obtain and set up the SSD Magician app (above). Launch the software program, click on the Update button, and choose the suitable possibility within the new display screen (beneath).
Puget has contacted all affected clients through e-mail. If you bought the drive instantly from Samsung, you might have acquired communications about this situation.
Puget famous that the 990 SSD is considered one of its “most dependable components.” However, a small variety of 990 Pro customers have reported speedy declines in disk well being. In one occasion, an proprietor seen that the drive was dropping about 1% of its rated life per week. Another stated he misplaced 64% after writing solely 2TB. That’s not a great signal for a drive rated at 1,200TBW.
It’s unclear if these reviews are associated to a firmware bug, however the timing is spot on. Once the SSD reaches its write restrict, it switches to read-only mode. So an proprietor all of the sudden reporting a drive failure could not have seen that their SSD’s well being has declined quickly since buy.
