Update your Samsung 980 Pro SSD firmware right now

Your computer’s storage is something you don’t often think about. It’s in there, somewhere, nebulously holding on to more bits of data than your brain could handle in a dozen lifetimes. And it’s either working or it isn’t — it’s not as if it needs constant performance tuning, like, say, GPU drivers. But the latest firmware update for the Samsung’s popular family of solid-state drives is, indeed, vital, especially if you have one particular high-end model.

According to Puget Systems, the 2TB version of the Samsung 980 Pro drive — a favorite among performance enthusiasts, and a PCWorld Editor’s Choice — is suffering from an issue that suddenly locks the drive into read-only mode. If it happens to be the only drive in your system, or the one holding your OS, your computer is (in technical terms) screwed. At that point the only fix is a complete reinstallation, at which time the underlying error still hasn’t been addressed.

Fortunately the latest firmware update for the drive fixes the issue. While other Samsung drives (even different capacities of the 980 Pro) don’t seem to be affected, it might be a good idea to update to the latest firmware anyway. Updated SSD firmware can be found in the Samsung Magician program, and quickly applied with a download and system reboot.