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Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

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Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#121

Post by rstuart4133 »

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…

> Reminds me when about ten years ago ... but upgrading the docking station firmware was possible only from Windows.

For me, it was less than 10 days ago. The battery on my Thinkpad X1 (that has 5 years onsite warranty) stopped charging. I run Debian, and had got rid of the Windows partition entirely. They demanded a battery report from Windows. It took a long time, but I was able to convince them the report from their extended battery test in the BIOS saying the battery had failed sufficed, and the battery was replaced.

The new battery lasted about 1 month, then it developed the same fault. Same story - after a day worth of arguing, they agreed to replace the battery.

That battery lasted 3 days, then developed the same fault. The story went the same way, right up until they said they fix it by replacing the battery to which I responded "I don't think that's a good idea". (By this time I had developed suspicion the USB-C chipset was somehow killing the battery.) The next step was to replace the motherboard until I filed a Windows battery report. No amount of pleading "hey, you have a report from your own BIOS saying the battery is faulty, it doesn't charge while in the BIOS when no OS is running, and it should charge while off when _nothing_ is running - what possible influence could Windows have on this" worked.

They sent a link me what they said was a "live Windows" USB recovery drive. It was a Windows program. I was able to run it Windows in an kvm instance. It wasn't "live Windows" of course - it was a "wipe SSD with a fresh install of Windows" USB. Not being keen on wiping all my work and risking a backup not working, I bought a new SSD, and let it wipe that. It took about a wasted day (I'm a contractor) to install Windows, let it upgrade itself, and then install the latest Lenovo drivers for everything (which they insisted on), then run the battery report. During the time the laptop started freezing - but it turned out unplugging the 4K USB-C Philips monitor fixed that, adding more evidence to my theory the USB-C interface was on the way out.

The motherboard is scheduled to be replaced today. I'm betting they won't bring a battery and replace the one the USB-C chipset has killed. They go to all this trouble to provide good diagnostics in the firmware, and then don't train their staff to use it. I'm sometimes gob smacked by just how much time these companies cost themselves.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#122

Post by brycemice »

I've ran a multitude of linux distro's on the 980, 860, and 860 pro for the last few years with no issues. 48 hours ago I finished buildning a Ryzen 5800x system on an ROG Strix B450-F motherboard and I've had no issues booting with the 980 & 860 Pro...860 Pro is a 2.5 SSD the rest are m2.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#123

Post by fomine3 »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #66
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…

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.

It's fair if the game is only for Windows

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#124

Post by alar44 »

splix wrote: post #99
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 had same problem with failed Seagate HDD. They were asking me to use their Windows-only app to diagnose the problem. I tried to explain that I use it with a NAS and I cannot install Windows on it just to do such diagnostics test. No luck to convince the support and I had to hack some pieces of old hardware together just to run that tool. Funny enough the tool was able to tell only something like "the drive is broke…

I can't blame them. I'd imagine tons of people try to replace perfectly fine drives - "I can't find my spreadsheet so drive is bad" "Windows updates were slow so drive is bad" "I bricked my drive trying to install Linux on a NAS" etc etc.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#125

Post by splix »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #107
splix wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had same problem with failed Seagate HDD. They were asking me to use their Windows-only app to diagnose the problem. I tried to explain that I use it with a NAS and I cannot install Windows on it just to do such diagnostics test. No luck to convince the support and I had to hack some pieces of old hardware together just to run that tool. Funny enough the tool was able to tell only something like "the drive is broke…

I recently RMAd a Seagate Exos (their series designed for enterprise / data centers) recently and didn't have to run any tool or provide any details. I was using this one for my home NAS. There may be a difference here between the consumer drives and the enterprise drives, or maybe they changed the system to not require it in any case now.

It was IronWolf Pro. I guess it's a business drive, but not an enterprise drive.

I was not an enterprise or even a business customer anyway, so they had that procedure. The process may change since that moment, I just checked it was in 2019. Maybe I should give them another try

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#126

Post by alias_neo »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #105
alias_neo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's unfortunate. Does your company buy a lot of these? Perhaps they can get in touch with your supplier to pass a complaint about the poor update so they might be able to pass it on to their devs and hopefully fix the issue?

We only buy HP PCs, but we don't have a relationship with them (we go through a middleman). And also, this particular model is not common for us, I chose it for the Zen 3 CPU and upgradability. The usual PCs are the basic Intel i5 du jour, so I can't compare notes with other people. I'm also pretty much the only one doing firmware upgrades with any regularity.

The middleman would be your supplier in this case. It's possible they have enough of a relationship with HP to escalate the issue with them.

I would try have your org reach out to the middleman and see what they can do, suppliers, resellers and partners etc can be quite helpful in encouraging manufacturers to pay attention.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#127

Post by namibj »

qwertox wrote: post #84
wyldfire wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ofl…

They need concurrency at the flash level. Disabling write cache prevents it from clawing the concurrency out of single-threaded requests.

If flush works properly, a volatile write cache in the SSD is good for you.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#128

Post by SixDouble5321 »

ysleepy wrote: post #88

Probably Linux is 1% of install base and 95% of support tickets. (Yes it's hyperbole) I get why samsung doesn't want to get sucked into this. It does suck though, at least the ISO should work.

95% of comments like these are from Windows users. Linux users generally know how to troubleshoot, fill out bug reports, come up with solutions(article is case in point), etc.

The much more likely reason is there is a Windows user in charge of the team. Someone who doesn't know what they don't know.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#129

Post by crtasm »

alar44 wrote: post #124
splix wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had same problem with failed Seagate HDD. They were asking me to use their Windows-only app to diagnose the problem. I tried to explain that I use it with a NAS and I cannot install Windows on it just to do such diagnostics test. No luck to convince the support and I had to hack some pieces of old hardware together just to run that tool. Funny enough the tool was able to tell only something like "the drive is broke…

I can't blame them. I'd imagine tons of people try to replace perfectly fine drives - "I can't find my spreadsheet so drive is bad" "Windows updates were slow so drive is bad" "I bricked my drive trying to install Linux on a NAS" etc etc.

At least those first two scenarios don't sound like people who'd think to provide SMART test data.

Windows shouldn't be a requirement for getting a faulty product replaced.

Re: Update Firmware of Samsung SSDs in Linux

#130

Post by CoolGuySteve »

fomine3 wrote: post #123
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's fair if the game is only for Windows

Not really, I beat it using Lutris on Linux.
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