Samsung has released a firmware update for its 990 Pro SSDs. This should stop the accelerated decline of the life percentage. Users reported earlier this year that the SMART values of their 990 Pro SSDs degraded rapidly.
Samsung has investigated user reports and determined that the issues with SSD wear and tear were caused by issues in the firmware. The company has released an update for the 990 Pro SSDs this week, writes moderator DavidB on the German Samsung forum. Samsung does not provide specific release notes for the firmware update. The update, which will be available as version 1B2QJXD7, is available through Samsung’s Magician software.
Problems with the 990 Pro came to light in January after several users reported that the SMART values of their 990 Pro SSDs degraded rapidly. Such SMART values are used to estimate the ‘health’ of an SSD or HDD. The health of a 990 Pro drive dropped by five percent in a few days in some cases. Samsung acknowledged the problems at the beginning of this month and said it was already working on a solution.
The SMART values of the SSDs are not reset to factory defaults after the firmware update, Samsung reports. It is not known whether the drives have actually worn out at an accelerated rate or whether the reduced percentage is erroneous, but simply cannot be reversed. “Actual SMART values of each SSD will vary depending on user environment and operating conditions,” Samsung writes.
