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Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

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Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#61

Post by pixl97 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #57
tzs wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of an internal hard disk I had several years ago. I think it was a Seagate, but it might have been Western Digital. This was a retail drive bought at BestBuy, and the box specifically said that it worked with Windows, MacOS, and Linux, although it noted that their fancy add-on software only worked under Windows. No problem for me, because I didn't need the fancy add-on software. A year later the drive…

>I'm not sure what would have happened if I had been a purely MacOS and Linux household. Passthrough to a VM, though I suppose the Windows license could be an issue.

You can download 180 day trials of Windows server from Microsoft, no license needed.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#62

Post by scns »

trelane wrote: post #39
hef19898 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it work to update the firmware under Windows and then switch back to Linux?

Or, you could buy from hardware vendors that do the reasonable thing. Those who know of such HDD/SSD vendors (esp. those supporting lvfs) please chime in.

Crucial offers bootable ISOs to upgrade. My goto SSD brand for years now. Usually second to Samsung in performance but cheaper.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#63

Post by chiefsucker »

topynate wrote: post #18
fareesh wrote: post #15

Is there any significant benefit of updating firmware? Intuitively it seems like the risk/reward is very skewed towards not doing it. I've never really updated the firmware on any component other than routers or motherboard/bios.

It looks like the author was mining a particular sort of cryptocurrency which needs a lot of drive space. I guess he was trying to squeeze as much performance out of his SSDs as possible. For most applications I can't see why you'd really need to update your SSD firmware, unless the manufacturer messed up their wear-levelling or something like that in the release firmware.

Just to give you an example: Some Samsung SSDs have slightly strange TRIM behavior that basically seems to get unnoticed during normal workloads.

But when you build a Hackintosh with a recent version of macOS this exact TRIM behavior results in boot times of several minutes (compared to a dozen of seconds or so on a SSD with a better TRIM implementation).

I’m not saying Samsung will ever fix their TRIM implementation, but in theory this would be fixable by a firmware update.

And don’t get me even started on the crap that TRIM is, why we shouldn’t need it in the first place, and how convoluted its development was.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#64

Post by chiefsucker »

dncornholio wrote: post #50
fareesh wrote: post #15

Is there any significant benefit of updating firmware? Intuitively it seems like the risk/reward is very skewed towards not doing it. I've never really updated the firmware on any component other than routers or motherboard/bios.

This is a very good take. I've seen products being bashed on because they don't push out regular updates. In my opinion, the less updates the software needs, the better it is.

The less updates a software gets, the higher is the probability that you’re dealing with abandonware.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#65

Post by gsich »

ece wrote: post #38
dvratil wrote: post #24

Reminds me when about ten years ago, working in an all-Linux company there was an issue with some Lenovo docking stations. I don't recall anymore what the issue was exactly, just that something wouldn't work properly when you plugged in a laptop with Linux. The problem was solved by a firmware upgrade, but upgrading the docking station firmware was possible only from Windows. So there was this one poor person in IT w…

Windows PE/To Go has been a thing for a while now, it's a shame you can only make bootable Windows USB disks using the enterprise editions. Though Macrium Reflect (and possibly others) will let you make a USB "recovery disk" that might run the firmware update programs you'd like to run. edit: Windows PE won't do .msi, but .exe should work: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactur...

I think WAIK also runs on other editions. But it's not a nice click UI.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#66

Post by CoolGuySteve »

tzs wrote: post #53
dvratil wrote: post #24

Reminds me when about ten years ago, working in an all-Linux company there was an issue with some Lenovo docking stations. I don't recall anymore what the issue was exactly, just that something wouldn't work properly when you plugged in a laptop with Linux. The problem was solved by a firmware upgrade, but upgrading the docking station firmware was possible only from Windows. So there was this one poor person in IT w…

That reminds me of an internal hard disk I had several years ago. I think it was a Seagate, but it might have been Western Digital. This was a retail drive bought at BestBuy, and the box specifically said that it worked with Windows, MacOS, and Linux, although it noted that their fancy add-on software only worked under Windows. No problem for me, because I didn't need the fancy add-on software. A year later the drive…

Yeah my Ryzen CPU came with a free game but the only way to submit the form was to run some Windows tool.

I had to get the state consumer fraud bureau involved before AMD would honor their promotion.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#67

Post by bluedino »

ps wrote: post #6
snvzz wrote: post #3

This is some insanity that shouldn't be needed, when fwupd[0] exists. Samsung is to blame for this. [0]: https://fwupd.org/

I had run into the same problem with Kingston - no firmware on the web, update tool only for Windows. Had to ask local distributor to contact Kingston and ask for firmware. I was lucky to get it, but never bought another Kingston drive. I don't understand how datacenter SSD manufacturer can so blatantly ignore Linux.

Half the time you can't take the machine down to run those updates on the disks, anyway.

One day a long time ago Dell actually sent us the cheapest server they made, R200 or R300 to flash disks in because we had so many to do.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#68

Post by tzs »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #57
tzs wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of an internal hard disk I had several years ago. I think it was a Seagate, but it might have been Western Digital. This was a retail drive bought at BestBuy, and the box specifically said that it worked with Windows, MacOS, and Linux, although it noted that their fancy add-on software only worked under Windows. No problem for me, because I didn't need the fancy add-on software. A year later the drive…

>I'm not sure what would have happened if I had been a purely MacOS and Linux household. Passthrough to a VM, though I suppose the Windows license could be an issue.

I don't know if this is changed with Window 11 but 10 and earlier let you go a while between installation and entering a license key, at least for the consumer editions, so licensing should not be a problem.

The big issue with a VM approach in this specific case was that this was before Macs switched to Intel processors. My Mac was had PowerPC.

A VM might have worked on my Linux machine, although my recollection is that back then (early 2000s) VM passthrough was not very sophisticated. I remember trying Windows VMs for a few firmware things that involved proprietary vendor commands and finding that it was hit and miss.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#69

Post by vladvasiliu »

throwra620 wrote: post #28
vladvasiliu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After a couple of decades of updating firmware on things whenever possible, I'm yet to have a real issue. I used to be in the same boat, up until a few weeks ago when I updated the BIOS on my new work laptop. It's been a shitshow ever since: it takes around one minute to POST, the webcam isn't detected anymore, it doesn't go to sleep. And the best part? "Because this update contains security features, it cannot be…

Enable quick boot

Haven't seen any "quick" boot. There's a "fast" one, though, but toggling it doesn't do anything in this case.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#70

Post by hef19898 »

fsflover wrote: post #59
mavhc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad news, the ssd firmware is also proprietary

At least it doesn't contain adware (yet?). I can choose to trust Samsung (I already did when I bought their SSD) and not trust Microsoft.

SSD firmware adding ads to the files you save would be peak ad industry.
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