Upgrade your firmware or suffer
The pricy 2 TB version of the Samsung 980 Pro SSD launched last year needs a firmware update before it fails.
Computer builder Puget Systems noted that some customers are contacting it complaining about failing Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSDs which is due to a glitch in the drive’s firmware. The bug causes the SSDs with the original firmware to switch to read-only mode making it useless for storage, but it could also limiting its use as a boot drive.
Samsung has not said anything about the drive other than suggesting customers upgrade to the newest firmware as soon as possible. That version would be 5B2QGXA7.
The affected firmware is version 3B2QGXA7. Some newer drives came installed with version 4B2QGXA7, which Puget says should be fine.
Puget notes that the Samsung SSDs have been some of its “most reliable parts.” However, a handful of 990 Pro users reported rapidly declining disk health. In one instance, an owner noticed the drive losing about one percent of its life rating per week. Another said he lost 64 percent after only 2TB of writes. That’s not a good sign for a drive rated at 1,200TBW.
