Samsung Promises Firmware Fix for 990 PRO PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs (ETA: February)

[Tsing]

Many Samsung 990 PRO users have been complaining about their PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs since their release late last year, alleging that the premium drives are affected by a problem that leads to rapid health degradation. It doesn't appear that anyone was overreacting, as a Samsung moderator has now revealed that the company is prepping a firmware fix for its SSDs, confirming the issue to be a genuine one. Pre-orders for the 1 TB ($169.99), 2 TB ($289.99), Heatsink 1 TB ($189.99), and Heatsink 2 TB ($309.99) models began on November 1, 2022, a time during which Samsung described the storage as being "well-suited for heavy gaming and productivity tasks."

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[Grimlakin]

The question is... will the firmware update re teach the controller and impact performance? Or will it simply change the algorithm by which lifespan is determined? Or maybe both in lesser degrees.

Because if they can fix it I'd really want to know what was broken about the initial revision.

 

[Brian_B]

My question would be: is it just a reporting problem with lifespan and the drive is otherwise fine, or is there something actually chewing away at the lifespan and the drive has been permanently degraded?

Samsung's statement is pretty vague:

Samsung is currently reviewing customer inquiries about anomalies related to the SMART Percentage Used (on Samsung Magician) and/or Health Status (on Crystal Disk Info) of the Samsung SSD 990 PRO.