Samsung 470 Series SSD Firmware Update

Samsung has a new firmware update for the 470 Series SSD and a New Magician Utility to update firmware.
Firmware:AXM08B1Q
Magician Utility 1.1 RC (not Beta)

I updated my firmware and reinstalled Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit ver. thru windows 7 Repair Disk, in a few minutes.

Cheers

3Fees

Links to software/firmware update released 2/7/2011

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/downloads/MZ-5PA064/US

I have not heard of any changes, however I did get email from Samsung Support and he said that they are going to include a Secure wipe in Magician Utility in the future,,Clone utility has not been included, however using Windows 7 backup and restore program to restore does the job quite well and is very fast, I use a USB external disk drive to keep backups , programs, ect on.

Magician utility uses dos to boot the computer and then updates firmware from the dos enviornment,, my update took less than 1 minute,,,you use a flash drive and make it dos bootable,,Magician utility also installs your firmware update you downloaded on to this dos bootable flash drive,( adjust your bios to boot from usb flash drive and then to DVD/CD drive to use Windows 7 repair disk to reimage your drive) I have updated firmware twice and no problems what so ever,,
Note: 470 Series means 250 +220=470 250 read/ 220 write,,,64gb 250 and 170+ ,128gb and 256gb 250 + 220.
Note: use windows 7 repair disk to quick format and align the drive when reimaging your Samsung SSD drive from your backups.
Note: To make your flash drive dos bootable heres the links:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5972564_boot-dos-flash-drive.html

http://thelostbrain.com/post/2008/0...S-with-access-to-full-flash-drive-space).aspx


1st Firmware update:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 249.899 MB/s
Sequential Write : 176.706 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 193.793 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 166.029 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 14.823 MB/s [ 3618.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 40.571 MB/s [ 9905.1 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 127.353 MB/s [ 31092.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 40.845 MB/s [ 9972.0 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 40.2% (24.0/59.6 GB)] (x3)
Date : 2011/01/03 18:13:05
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

latest Firmware update:

CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 248.066 MB/s
Sequential Write : 177.169 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 191.568 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 167.354 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 15.555 MB/s [ 3797.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 41.908 MB/s [ 10231.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 126.352 MB/s [ 30847.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 41.280 MB/s [ 10078.0 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 35.5% (21.1/59.6 GB)] (x3)
Date : 2011/02/14 8:14:50
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

from my experience these latest figures will go up a small margin and hold it consistently,,

Korean: 아저씨(one's neighbor as uncle) said : oshee (aw-she)
Cheers

3Fees

After latest firmware update and using magician utility 1.1 ssd optimitzation utility:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 248.448 MB/s
Sequential Write : 174.385 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 190.934 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 174.269 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 15.271 MB/s [ 3728.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 41.403 MB/s [ 10108.1 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 126.645 MB/s [ 30919.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 40.929 MB/s [ 9992.3 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 35.5% (21.1/59.6 GB)] (x3)
Date : 2011/02/14 9:02:26
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

Here is a very fast laptop disk drive to compare this samsung 470 SSD with a 7200 RPM drive,16mb cache,320GB size SATA 300.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 86.932 MB/s
Sequential Write : 81.373 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 38.749 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 44.937 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.549 MB/s [ 134.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.819 MB/s [ 199.9 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.979 MB/s [ 239.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.824 MB/s [ 201.2 IOPS]

Test : 100 MB [C: 10.1% (30.0/298.1 GB)] (x3)
Date : 2010/12/09 9:00:05
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

Samsung 470 SSD is much faster across the Board

Cheers

3Fees

heres a link to the Emperor Penguins you see in the avatar:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Penguin

 

What changes, benefits or fixes does this bring?

Links?


Edit:

Link:
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/downloads/MZ-5PA256/US

Changes are minor bug fixed (what???) and more for compatability.

Be prepared to re-install your O/S & apps though (with a data backup being mandatory also...).

 

The flash utility actually works? That's what has prevented me from ordering this drive. I've read nothing but horror stories of trying to get the firmware updated.

 

Could you please run HDTune Pro to check if there is any speed improvement?

I'd like to know if the random I/O has been improved

 

i recently bought and installed the 64gb samsung 470 on my netbook with windows 7.
i was apprehensive about buying this ssd because of the stories of difficulty of updating the firmware.
my experience was some what difficult but not too bad.
first of all check to see if you see if it is already up to date.
if you need to update it, you will need to make your usb flash drive
msdos or freedos bootable.
i found the easiest way is to use this free program called bootflashdos GoCoding.Com - BootFlashDOS
next you will need to download the latest firmware from samsung website.
then you will need to run ssd magician to transfer the firmware onto your flash drive.
now you will boot up your computer with the flash drive inserted into the computer.
there will be a series of confirmations to go through before it is updated.
i ignored the instruction about unhooking the ssd drive from the computer and rehooking it up, but it still updated.
anyways, this ssd has awesome performance.
also i would trust a samsung ssd over most of the other brands because they design and make every part of the drive themselves and thus have incredible control over everything.

 

Is there any way to check the firmware without installing Windows? I have a new a 64gb 470 I haven't installed yet.

Also, what exactly does the f/w update change? Will there be any change in power consumption?

Thanks.

 

+reps, hope the BootFlashDOS utility works

 

Well, actually my question is simply - How do you check the firmware on a Samsung Series 470 256GB SSD ???

Off to see my friend Google now

 

CrystalDiskInfo utility displays the firmware.

I recently installed my Samsung 470 on a 4 year old Dell XPS 720H2C desktop. The install went fine, and I was able to restore my Windows 7 x64 image, it recognized the Samsung drive and installed the driver.

However, I am unable to run the Magician software or upgrade the firmware.

The Magician software fails to detect the Samsung drive installed. I had to manually create a bootable USB key and Magician copied the firmware onto it.

I successfully booted off that USB key. However, when the firmware upgrade program runs, it automatically pops up a message that says something along the lines of "drivers are incompatible" and will not let me proceed any further.

Any ideas what could be causing this? And what are my options to update my firmware if my machine is too old to recognize the firmware update?

Thanks!

 

OK< thanks for that, what can we learn from this? Where to find any updates? It is running fine, don't think I will fool with it

 

Unless one knows the firmware fix specific problems on a said installation, I see no point of doing any of these updates. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. This is especially true for a device like SSD/HDD.

 

Chimp, I agree with your statement for the most part. However, each F/W update that Sammy has given us has seen advancement for the better. For example, the latest update provides us with better start up times, more stable nan, and it is non-destructive. They did not put it out to "fix" any major problems as you sort of point at. In my opinion if I had this drive with the 08 F/W I would update it. I think we both agree that there are alot of SSD mfgs out there that "have" to update there F/W because it is problematic. Take my other SSD besides my 470 which is an Intel 2nd Gen; there is an update to it but it works perfectly so I am not going to touch it. It is supposed to correct a problem with a different model which just so happens to use the same F/W as mine. In this situation I firmly agree with you

 

--edit: Took out ssd from laptop and looked at the model number on the back of the unit.

tried the firmware update and it was stuck on Drive scan in progress... for an hour so I manual shut down and rebooted into win 8. No data was lost thankfully

 

You can view the model numbers in any adverts for Samsung 470 (Amazon) or in Samsung sites.

 

no one able to flash the dell oem version of pm810 to retail???

 

+ 1 - mine is playing up with Intel RST