[ps]

I had run into the same problem with Kingston - no firmware on the web, update tool only for Windows. Had to ask local distributor to contact Kingston and ask for firmware. I was lucky to get it, but never bought another Kingston drive.

I don't understand how datacenter SSD manufacturer can so blatantly ignore Linux.

[5e92cb50239222b]

> I don't understand how datacenter SSD manufacturer can so blatantly ignore Linux.

If you mean Sammy, they do provide support for datacenter SSDs:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/samsung-ssd-dc-toolkit

I don't think Kingston offers anything in that niche. I know very little about that, though.

[Talinx]

I got a (consumer) SSD from SanDisk that says on the package "Compatible with Windows and Linux systems that take M.2 2280 PCIe 3 x 4 NVMe SSD's" yet I can't update the firmware from Linux. I would have to download the SanDisk SSD Dashboard which is only available for Windows.

I don't want to buy SanDisk SSDs anymore because of this, but I guess every SSD manufacturer is the same when it comes to firmware updates.

[hef19898]

Would it work to update the firmware under Windows and then switch back to Linux?

[snvzz]

Likely. It would be very inconvenient, but I could pull it off on my home's desktop computer.

Now consider doing this at scale, in a datacenter, or just some office that has a lot of these drives. Ouch.

[fsflover]

It also raises concerns about trust. What if I don't trust proprietary Windows and don't want to run it? It can potentially compromise my SSD during the update.

[mavhc]

Bad news, the ssd firmware is also proprietary

[fsflover]

At least it doesn't contain adware (yet?). I can choose to trust Samsung (I already did when I bought their SSD) and not trust Microsoft.

[hef19898]

SSD firmware adding ads to the files you save would be peak ad industry.

[hef19898]

That's true. A good example of the difference between "scale" and consumer solutions. I can switch to Windows for that stuff and back to Linux afterwards. Doing so for a fleet of office machines is already out of the question.

Now I really have to check if I get firmware updates from Lenovo for all the hardware in my Thinkpad... I always assumed I do!

[Brian_K_White]

Yes but a thumb drive win10 is a pia to make and then an extra pia to try to boot on any machine other than the one it was created on.

[trelane]

Or, you could buy from hardware vendors that do the reasonable thing.

Those who know of such HDD/SSD vendors (esp. those supporting lvfs) please chime in.

[scns]

Crucial offers bootable ISOs to upgrade. My goto SSD brand for years now. Usually second to Samsung in performance but cheaper.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Of course.

[bluedino]

Half the time you can't take the machine down to run those updates on the disks, anyway.

One day a long time ago Dell actually sent us the cheapest server they made, R200 or R300 to flash disks in because we had so many to do.