Samsung Confirms 990 Pro SSD Firmware Fix Coming Soon
The ongoing drama regarding Samsung SSDs may soon come to a positive resolution, according to recent comments from Samsung. “Samsung stands behind the quality of its SSDs, including the new NVMe M.2 SSD 990 PRO,” wrote Samsung in a statement (translated) to Computer Base. “We are aware of the reports on this issue and are currently investigating the matter as user configurations vary.”
However, a moderator for the official Samsung Community discussion board (opens in new tab) offered additional insight on the matter. DavidB stated that he talked with the company’s SSD technicians and that “Samsung is currently reviewing customer anomaly inquiries related to the SMART Percentage Used (on Samsung Magician) and/or Health Status (on Crystal Disk Info) of the Samsung SSD 990 PRO.” Critically, DavidB acknowledged that the technicians were able to replicate the diminished SSD health claims from customers “under certain terms of use.”
The good news is that a fix is on the way, with the moderator indicating that Samsung will likely release a firmware update later this month.
Customers have complained about severe SSD health declines on the 990 Pro SSDs shortly after placing them into service. For example, Neil Schofield reported that his 990 Pro was down to 64 percent health after just 2 TB of data was written. Another user claimed they lost 12 percent of their 980 Pro’s health in one month.
Neowin editor Robbie Khan witnessed his personal 2TB 980 Pro fall to 94 percent health within a few days of installation. Khan filed an RMA with Samsung to have the 990 Pro repaired/replaced under warranty but received a curious response once the company received the SSD. He was told that there was “no defect found” with the 990 Pro and that it was being returned to him (after a fresh format and restoration to factory settings). Samsung made no mention of the SSD’s stated health.
The problems surrounding Samsung’s 980 Pro and 990 Pro SSDs have drawn much attention recently. As a result, Puget Systems and Samsung’s worked to identify rapid health declines in 980 Pro SSDs that would eventually lead to the drive failing (set to read-only mode). The solution for 980 Pro SSDs that have not yet failed is to upgrade from the 3B2QGXA7 firmware to the newer 5B2QGXA7 build.
Last week Puget said it would no longer use 990 Pro or 980 Pro SSDs (except for the 500GB 980 Pro) “while this situation unfolds and we learn more.” The system builder added, “we don’t often announce changes to our product line like this, as brands and models shift all the time, but because we have been so outspoken about Samsung SSD reliability in the past, we felt that it was important to speak up in this particular situation.”
While Samsung works out its ongoing issues with the 980 Pro and 990 Pro, Puget will instead use Sabrent SSDs ranging in capacity from 1 TB to 4TB.
