Firmware update for the Samsung 840 EVO drives out tomorrow

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Hereford
Did mine, took around 55 mins on a 256gb 2/3 full.

Hadn't noticed any issues before and it's always seemed quick :p

I also picked up an annoying piece of malware searching for 'CrystalDiskMark' and installing their latest version - homepage/search and browser hijack. Think it was version 6 something, removed it using malwarebytes and 'Adware Removal Tool' from techsupportall.com so be warned guys!

Before:
SSDbefore.jpg


After:
SSDafter.jpg
 
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Associate
Joined
2 Nov 2009
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Brum
Amazed there are not multiple posts of members' SDDs losing data after the firmware update, although I'm sure that is no comfort for those that suffer issues.

I've never updated the firmware of a HDD/SDD, but the prospect of doing an update on a drive containing live data sounds risky business!

In my experience, updating the firmware on an SSD (I`ve done a fair few Crucial and Samsung updates) is trouble free. Unless you have a power failure during the actual update (which only takes seconds), there's not a lot that can go wrong.
 
Soldato
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a dark place
why cant i do secure erase through magican any more? on all 4 drives it gets to 20% and tells me the drives are in frozen state, keep pc on but remove the power connector to the drive then re-attach. bit hard for me to try as the drives are in my laptop and sata and power connectors are on the same cable
 
Associate
Joined
2 Nov 2009
Posts
2,436
Location
Brum
why cant i do secure erase through magican any more? on all 4 drives it gets to 20% and tells me the drives are in frozen state, keep pc on but remove the power connector to the drive then re-attach. bit hard for me to try as the drives are in my laptop and sata and power connectors are on the same cable

Have you tried creating a boot disk / flash drive ?
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2003
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3,974
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UK
why cant i do secure erase through magican any more? on all 4 drives it gets to 20% and tells me the drives are in frozen state, keep pc on but remove the power connector to the drive then re-attach. bit hard for me to try as the drives are in my laptop and sata and power connectors are on the same cable

Be careful with that. I kept getting that, eventually removed the power connector as instructed and still it hung on 20% overnight. I had to reset PC and drive was dead from then on. Had to RMA.
 
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Associate
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26 Jul 2012
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1,216
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England
why cant i do secure erase through magican any more? on all 4 drives it gets to 20% and tells me the drives are in frozen state, keep pc on but remove the power connector to the drive then re-attach. bit hard for me to try as the drives are in my laptop and sata and power connectors are on the same cable

Be careful with that. I kept getting that, eventually removed the power connector as instructed and still it hung on 20% overnight. I had to reset PC and drive was dead from then on. Had to RMA.

When erasing SSDs at my previous job I would boot the PC, disconnect the SSD, re-connect the SSD, then perform the secure erase.

Never had any problems with that but I also never tried disconnecting/re-connecting with it already at 20%.

Note that mine was done through Parted Magic, not using Samsung Magician.
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Nov 2006
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2,752
Location
Yorkshire
why cant i do secure erase through magican any more? on all 4 drives it gets to 20% and tells me the drives are in frozen state, keep pc on but remove the power connector to the drive then re-attach. bit hard for me to try as the drives are in my laptop and sata and power connectors are on the same cable

Cant you just attach the SSD to a PC for the sake of 30 seconds then pop it back in the laptop?

It's not like you need to secure erase often.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
91,969
Yeah all Evo 840s.

From what I can make out Samsung seems to be saying there is a problem with the way data is written to a cell for the first time which means that over time there is a widening variance between the "calibration" used by the drive software to read the data and the "calibration" actually needed to read it correctly - which eventually leads to increasing levels of ecc being used to retrieve data = performance drop.
 
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Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
91,969
Run HD Tune 5.50 and if your getting huge drops in performance your probably affected - if its mostly a straight line around about the same speed then your probably not.
 
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