PSA: Samsung 840 EVO SSD Owners - Check Your Firmware

[JTO168]

If you own a Samsung 840 EVO SSD, please read this.

 

This may help you with better performance in GTAV.

 

Background:

 

In August 2014, a number of users at Overclock.net discovered their Samsung 840 EVO SSD units had low read performance. Specifically, there is a bug in the 840 EVO (with TLC NAND) that causes the read performance of old blocks of data to drop dramatically.

 

This was reported on many tech sites, such as Anandtech, and was followed in depth by Allyn Malventano at PC Perspective. He has authored each article related to this issue and thoroughly tested his sample 840 EVO drives before and after each fix.

 

This caught the attention of Samsung, who then promised a fix that would arrive in September to October of 2014.

 

The first fix arrived in October 2014, which is covered here and here. You can read about this for background, or skip this entirely if it disinterests you.

 

Note that this first fix is now obsolete, as there is a second and final fix which is covered below.

 

Final Fix - Upgrading Firmware to EXT0DB6Q

In April 2015, a second fix arrived which entails a firmware update to version EXT0DB6Q.

This is covered here and here.

 

Disclaimer: I performed this firmware update on a RAID0 array of two Samsung 840 EVO drives (256GB each). I did not experience any data loss, but I did backup all my contents as I usually do in case of any problems. It was my intention to update the firmware and then proceed with a clean/fresh OS install, but I did not have to as there was no data loss or issues after the update.

 

Caution: Prior to doing all of this, I would recommend backing or cloning an image of your drive. I am not responsible for any issues or data loss, proceed at your own risk.

 

So what you need to do is go to Samsung's download site for Storage here.

 

Download the .ISO firmware for EXT0DB6Q for 840 EVO Drives.

Make a bootable USB drive with the .ISO you downloaded OR

Make a bootale DVD / CD with the .ISO you download

Change your boot priority to boot from the media you created with the .ISO file

Follow instructions to upgrade the firmware

Optional if your SSD is in AHCI mode:

After firmware is updated, install Samsung Magician and enable Advanced Performance Optimization

 

This helped my read speeds and overall SSD performance.

Hope it helps out somebody here as well.

Edited September 18, 2015 by bigsky2

[MythAlex]

And what about those with the 850 model (EVO, 250 GB) like me? BTW: I don't run GTA 5 on the SSD. Only the OS and programs (+ Steam).

[Jax765]

And what about those with the 850 model (EVO, 250 GB) like me? BTW: I don't run GTA 5 on the SSD. Only the OS and programs (+ Steam).

Only the 840 model is affected.

 

Got one myself, updated the firmware a while back, and the game runs fine on it.

[JTO168]

Only 840 / 840 EVO (TLC NAND) drives are affected.

 

850 EVO use Vertical-NAND, so you are not affected.

Edited September 18, 2015 by bigsky2

[TheMcSame]

This is an OLD problem that's been "fixed" several times. I wouldn't hold your breath, expect the problem to crop back up sooner or later.

I'd also like to point out that you con just update the firmware through samsung magician rather than faffing around.

 

Also, topics like this are more suited to the tech section rather than the GTAV PC section.

And what about those with the 850 model (EVO, 250 GB) like me? BTW: I don't run GTA 5 on the SSD. Only the OS and programs (+ Steam).

It's just the 840s (or at least some of them)

Edited September 18, 2015 by TheMcSame

[BobDobalina]

I have a 120gb Samsung SSD 840 Series (not EVO, Series !). I did not encounter any problems yet, so I think it is just the EVO.