Samsung 990 Pro Firmware Update Addresses Failing SSD Health
The SSD nightmare with Samsung’s 980 Pro and 990 Pro SSDs seems to be coming to an end, at least in part. Both his SSD families have endured reports of rapidly deteriorating health, but the 980 Pro’s issues have been resolved with his 5B2QGXA7 firmware. Earlier this month, Samsung Moderator David B said engineers are investigating “unusual queries related to SMART Percentage Used (in Samsung Magician) and/or Health Status (in Crystal Disk Info) of Samsung SSD 990 Pro.” I acknowledged that
DavidB added that a new 990 Pro firmware update will arrive later this month to address the deteriorating SSD health. Unfortunately, this new update (1B2QJXD7) has good news and bad news. This was pushed to 990 Pro owners via the Samsung Magician utility over the weekend. (opens in new tab).
Samsung doesn’t provide official documentation on firmware updates, but DavidB explains. (opens in new tab)“These anomalies were found to be caused by a firmware issue in the 990 Pro SSD. Therefore, a firmware update was released today, February 13, 2023 to address these anomalies. rice field.”
So the good news is that the firmware update will stop the 990 Pro’s accelerated decline in health. But the bad news is that it doesn’t fix damage that has already reached 990 Pro. “SMART values are not reset to factory defaults after a firmware update,” he added DavidB. “The actual SMART value of him for each SSD depends on the user’s environment and usage.”
Users who have applied the 1B2QJXD7 firmware seem to confirm these comments. Redditor caixote writes“Degradation is still the same for me (78%), so I think this update is a band-aid to make it less degraded than usual.” Angry_old_dude hypothesized: . [Assuming] No firmware update can fix it. All you can do is fix the underlying problem. This also means that anyone with a more worn drive due to a problem should RMA the drive. “
If Angry_old_dude is correct, it looks like if you’re a 990 Pro owner and you’re already experiencing a significant drop in health, you’ll need an RMA to replace your SSD. Customers should have better luck now that Samsung has officially acknowledged the issue. Robby Kahn, editor of Neowin It was included in the RMA process. Khan said in January he did his RMA of the 990 Pro and it was sent back because “no defects were found.”
At the moment, the 1B2QJXD7 firmware appears to be a band-aid, but 990 Pro owners wishing to apply the update will need to do so using the Samsung Magician utility. (opens in new tab)However, while Samsung makes the update process easier for users, be aware that there is a small chance that it will fail and render your SSD inoperable.