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Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

blog.quindorian.org

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Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#81

Post by ece »

codetrotter wrote: post #73
ece wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I remember this, seems like Microsoft copied a good idea.

BartPE was inspired by what Microsoft had already done. From the http://www.optimizingpc.com/miscellaneous/manual_bartpe.html page linked above: > WinPE (Microsoft's tool Windows Preinstallation Environment) is used by system builders to install and configure the Windows operating system on new computers. WinPE is commercial software and only available for system builders. Bart Lagerweij saw the advantages of this to…

I didn't know WinPE was that old. https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/...

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#82

Post by cbetti »

wyldfire wrote: post #79
qwertox wrote: post #76

I was confronted with this last Saturday and ended up following this how-to. I simply couldn't believe that their tool required a PS/2 keyboard, when most modern Mainboards no longer have such a port. In any case, updating the firmware didn't fix the issue that my 980 Pro NVMes (all 4 of them) only have a write speed of between 400 and 500 MB/s (read is at ~6.7 GB/s), using Ubuntu 20.04. A WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe manages…

> updating the firmware didn't fix the issue that my 980 Pro NVMes (all 4 of them) only have a write speed of ... In order to see spec sheet read/write speeds you can/should bypass the filesystem and the buffer cache. On Linux you can write directly to the device node (make sure to enable O_DIRECT and make your write sizes big enough). EDIT: added a quote to clarify context

Is this a non-sequitur or are you trying to somehow explain the difference between the two drives noted in the comment you are replying to?

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#83

Post by m-p-3 »

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #49
m-p-3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be that your ISO doesn't have the required drivers for the storage controller to see the actual SSD. It's a pain that sysadmins knows all too well when deploying a corporate Windows image through SCCM/MECM, and why they need to often update the embedded drivers in the Preinstallation Environment.

Sure, but it also doesn't work when running a proper Linux distribution from that same SSD, exactly like the author of the article described. It's also an NVMe drive. I have a pretty vague idea of how PCI-Express drives work, but don't they go directly to the CPU without any storage controllers? It's more of a IDE/SATA/SAS/whatever thing.

It could be behind something like Intel RST (Rapid Storage Technology) or VROC (Virtual RAID on CPU).

Maybe you could turn that off in your BIOS settings if you don't specifically need the feature.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#84

Post by qwertox »

wyldfire wrote: post #79
qwertox wrote: post #76

I was confronted with this last Saturday and ended up following this how-to. I simply couldn't believe that their tool required a PS/2 keyboard, when most modern Mainboards no longer have such a port. In any case, updating the firmware didn't fix the issue that my 980 Pro NVMes (all 4 of them) only have a write speed of between 400 and 500 MB/s (read is at ~6.7 GB/s), using Ubuntu 20.04. A WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe manages…

> updating the firmware didn't fix the issue that my 980 Pro NVMes (all 4 of them) only have a write speed of ... In order to see spec sheet read/write speeds you can/should bypass the filesystem and the buffer cache. On Linux you can write directly to the device node (make sure to enable O_DIRECT and make your write sizes big enough). EDIT: added a quote to clarify context

nvme set-feature -f 6 -v 1 /dev/nvme0n1 (feature:0x6 (Volatile Write Cache))

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/testfile bs=10000M count=1 oflag=direct -> 1.4 GB/s

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/testfile bs=1000M count=10 oflag=direct -> 3.7 GB/s

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/testfile bs=100M count=100 oflag=direct -> 3.7 GB/s

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/testfile bs=10M count=1000 oflag=direct -> 4.0 GB/s

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/testfile bs=1M count=10000 oflag=direct -> 3.6 GB/s

nvme set-feature -f 6 -v 0 /dev/nvme0n1

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/testfile bs=10000M count=1 oflag=direct -> 412 MB/s

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/testfile bs=1000M count=10 oflag=direct -> 556 MB/s

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/testfile bs=100M count=100 oflag=direct -> 553 MB/s

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/testfile bs=10M count=1000 oflag=direct -> 482 MB/s

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/testfile bs=1M count=10000 oflag=direct -> 267 MB/s

The values I got in my first post were obtained through Ubuntu's "Disks" application which has a benchmarking dialog.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#85

Post by BenjiWiebe »

jabbany wrote: post #72
boomboomsubban wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Actually, since Win 10 you can run the OS indefinitely without a license. It just doesn't allow you to customize stuff like the wallpaper etc. Ref: https://www.howtogeek.com/244678/you-dont-need-a-product-key...

You can run Windows 7 indefinitely without a license, too.

You get a nag every now and then, and the desktop background keeps resetting to black. Can't remember if there's a watermark as well (10 has a watermark).

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#87

Post by ajb »

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #56
ajb wrote: post #2

" If it’s your boot drive, no luck there and you can try flashing while it’s mounted." Err no, that's when you boot from USB stick. Or do it from initramfs. Or anything, other than modifying the firmware of a drive you are running from.

Modern Samsung SSDs support online updates. Here's SMART from mine: Firmware Updates (0x16): 3 Slots, no Reset required Same thing as BIOS flashback in modern motherboards. Flash it and reboot, if anything is broken it'll roll back (hopefully).

Ok that makes more sense. TBH I would still boot from a USB stick though. But it makes sense they would implement that, why make ordinary users need to do that. After all, you might need to deploy a security patch these days without user intervention.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#90

Post by approxim8ion »

anaganisk wrote: post #35
beebeepka wrote: post #17

This is unfortunate. Can't do simple things easily, or at all, unless you boot windows. My mouse looked like Christmas tree until I installed some electron app on windows. There has to be a better way without the need to hack everything

I thought linux users wanted to be HaX0rs :p

I don't mind being a "HaX0r" if it means fiddling around with configs and code on my own system. That's not what's happening here though.
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