Why nobody talks about how much SSD firmware updates matter

I work at a repair shop in Phoenix and last month we had 3 customers come in with the same Samsung 870 Evo drives that were suddenly running slow as hell. Checked the drives and saw they hadn't been updated since 2021. Ran the firmware update tool and all 3 went back to normal speeds within 10 minutes. Anyone else noticing drives getting bogged down after a year or two because people never check for firmware updates?

2 comments

2 Comments

thomas_price2d ago

Hang on, I gotta push back on this a little. Sure, updates matter for some drives, but I've seen plenty of folks chase firmware updates for no reason when their real problem is the drive is just full or dying. Most people aren't running Samsung 870s in a repair shop, they're using whatever budget drive came in their laptop. I've got a pile of old SSDs at home that never got a single firmware update and they're still running fine years later. Feels like this is more of a Samsung issue than a general rule for everyone.

gavin_kim2d ago

Wait, is everyone just ignoring how all this firmware talk sounds exactly like that thing that happened with my buddy's car last month? He kept chasing down software updates for his entertainment system thinking it'd fix his car's weird shuddering, and it turned out the whole issue was just a loose belt in the engine. That's the thing with tech these days, everyone's so obsessed with keeping stuff "up to date" that they forget sometimes the hardware just needs a good clean or a simple replacement. I still remember my old laptop that blue screened every time I updated the SSD firmware, so I just stopped doing it and it worked fine for another two years before the whole thing fried anyway. Makes me wonder if half these firmware fixes are even tested properly before they get pushed out, or if companies just release them to look busy.