Is it essential to upgrade SSD's Firmware?

It depends, but generally you should. I had a Crucial SSD that required the firmware to be updated in order for it to function properly. New firmware is created for a good reason by the manufacturer and should not be dismissed. Contact Samsung technical support for a definitive answer.

Ciao.

Technology is always on the move and the perfect code has never been written. So manufacturers at least strive to improve upon their products and/or correct security and performance issues that slipped unseen in older code. SSDs are still a maturing technology so I would expect much improvement can be attained there.

That being said, I would offer:

• Go thru the changelog of the new firmware with a fine tooth comb: what does it fix? What does it offer in new features? Are there any caveats, restrictions, things to beware?
• Can you flash the firmware on the drive given your current setup? Most installers I've seen run only in Windows, requiring taking the drive out, exposing it to Windows systems that might alter/corrupt the contents, etc.

My Crucial SSD was updated on my MBP using an OSX-oriented patch. And " if it is not broken, do not fix it" goes only so far ... patches exist for a reason, usually because of things that others reported broken.

Just make a good backup before patching. But then you always make a good backup regularly, before updates from Apple, before system upgrades, etc. It is usually hard to "brick" an SSD -- re-applying a firmware will get it back. Bricking an SSD usually requires do a 3x-overwrite on the drive, which chokes the write/delete queue.

I would say firmware upgrade on SSD's is essential for reliability and performance.

I have boot camp install on my Macbook Pro mid-2012 13-inch non-retina.

I have a Sumsung Evo 850 SSD with 500gb. ( 2 partitions of 250gb each ). One for OS-X and one for MS-Windows-10

I boot into MS-Windows and downloaded and installed the latest "Samsung Magician" software.

Did the firmware upgrade via Samsung Magician app.

It did not effect my OS-X installation at all.

Set my performance setting to optimal for SSD and setup provisioning too.

My Macbook performs very well now. Benchmarks are about 540mb/s read and 525mb/s write speeds.

You definitely will notice the performance difference when SSD is setup correctly.

You also want to enable trim support for your SSD

in terminal app ( sudo trimforce enable ).

uzapucax wrote:

Thanks for the good info guys 🙂

Interesting indeed. I have read in some forums regarding the same subject If it ain't broke don't fix it too. So i was wondering how essential the upgrade is considering there are many dangers in the way...

Check out this discussion of Samsung's firmware updates. Given the age of your SSD it would appear that it is broke. And it's taken Samsung a couple of tries to fix it. Fortunately, you've waited long enough that you'll get a fix that works.

Samsung has a set of instructions here as well as the firmware for a Mac.

This is in the Mac instructions:

from the page FatMac>MacPro provided a link above:

http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools.html:

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If you go to the Samsung Firmware website and open the section devoted to Macs, the last entry is a PDF installation guide you can download. It gives step by step instructions on how to run the installer that you can also download from the Mac section.

It is more difficult to use the Samsung USB boot drive method.

The Easy way is just to install MS-Windows first on your SSD and install the Samsung Magician software to do the firmware upgrade. Then you can remove MS-Windows and install OS-X on your SSD. At least your firmware will be up to date.

Don't forget to enable trim support for your SSD.

Open terminal app and enter "sudo trimforce enable". then reboot your computer

uzapucax wrote:

...my optical drive is not working very good recently...

Your Mac is old enough that the Optical Drive may just need some cleaning. I ran into that myself and this did the trick.