PM863 FW File
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Oh no, this sounds like a problem again, I though for genuine Samsung it was in the firmware updater (magician) ?
I have only a HPE branded pm863a 3.84tb so I assume now use. Never updated my 960gb & 1.92tb pm863a’s so if you get a source maybe I will ask if I can get and update those as a once and final update.
I have only a HPE branded pm863a 3.84tb so I assume now use. Never updated my 960gb & 1.92tb pm863a’s so if you get a source maybe I will ask if I can get and update those as a once and final update.
Same issue (as far as finding a FW file goes), different drive.. Although the PM863 is a far more common SATA rather than NVMe drive.
As far as I can tell, for non-consumer drives Magician only has the ability to load and activate FW... The command still requires that a path to the FW file is specified.
Really, the FW may not even be necessary here. I've recently purchased a drive which is functional and reports the correct firmware to be installed, but lists a smart error under "SSD Mode Status":
As far as the PM963 issue you referenced, I'm unfortunately still waiting on the FW. After jumping through several hoops with both SM and Samsung, I'm supposedly now "eligible" to receive a copy, but they've yet to actually produce anything
For the time being, I'm stuck with 13x conveniently sized paperweights.
Gents, everyone is always hoping for firmware updates on pretty much all Samsung enterprise drives, the fact of the matter is, only OEMs tend to release updates for their own branded versions of the drives and even in those cases very specific to their own boxes. As far as I understand it, Samsung will NEVER provide enterprise drive firmwares to the public outside of contracts with enterprise - be that OEM such as HP or even some big numbers company who desires the drives for their datacentre etc.
The only ones who have a great track record in supporting their OWN enterprise grade drives (meaning not rebranded!) openly with regular folk are Intel and Micron.
Sometimes Samsung firmwares get leaked, but even in those cases one must be careful because we don't really know who that firmware was designed for and why (ie maybe a gigantic cloud services company who wants to slow drives down a bit or something to consume less energy, heaven knows, but you get the idea)....
Bottom line...
...as soon as you think you got a lemon, return it, if it's too late to return it, then get someone to film you smash it with a sledgehammer and throw it up on YouTube with a title such as "Unreliable Enterprise Samsung SSD xyz" and spread it like wildfire... who knows... maybe one day those stuck up managers may decide to copy a page out of Intel's book.
Anyhow... nighty night.
The only ones who have a great track record in supporting their OWN enterprise grade drives (meaning not rebranded!) openly with regular folk are Intel and Micron.
Sometimes Samsung firmwares get leaked, but even in those cases one must be careful because we don't really know who that firmware was designed for and why (ie maybe a gigantic cloud services company who wants to slow drives down a bit or something to consume less energy, heaven knows, but you get the idea)....
Bottom line...
...as soon as you think you got a lemon, return it, if it's too late to return it, then get someone to film you smash it with a sledgehammer and throw it up on YouTube with a title such as "Unreliable Enterprise Samsung SSD xyz" and spread it like wildfire... who knows... maybe one day those stuck up managers may decide to copy a page out of Intel's book.
Anyhow... nighty night.
To be fair, I suppose the big difference here is that Samsung doesn't (AFAIK anyway) sell their "enterprise" drives to customers directly(well officially anyway, OEM's may sell them anyway).
Also to add to your bottom line (which I suppose is probably common knowledge) ALWAYS test your hardware immediately when buying from eBay, you never know if you've gotten a lemon.
The question if someone has come across the firmware files is still valid, and worth asking.
While a lot of us are hobbyists, a lot of us also work for vendors, suppliers, and distirbutors as our day jobs, and have access to things like these elusive firmware files that are not distributed directly to the public, but are available to OEMs/integrators etc.
Some of us are nice enough to help out if we can/where we can, whether it be checking official compatibility of part numbers, these firmware files, or even licences for discontinued products - The best example is the Brocade ICX thread.
While the OP has an issue, someone else might not and simply want to be on the latest version of FW (like me). Lets not negatively shoot down threads asking these sort of questions... Who knows, some kind person may be able to help you with something you have an issue with in future.
While a lot of us are hobbyists, a lot of us also work for vendors, suppliers, and distirbutors as our day jobs, and have access to things like these elusive firmware files that are not distributed directly to the public, but are available to OEMs/integrators etc.
Some of us are nice enough to help out if we can/where we can, whether it be checking official compatibility of part numbers, these firmware files, or even licences for discontinued products - The best example is the Brocade ICX thread.
While the OP has an issue, someone else might not and simply want to be on the latest version of FW (like me). Lets not negatively shoot down threads asking these sort of questions... Who knows, some kind person may be able to help you with something you have an issue with in future.
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I found the firmware files for the PM863 in another post
The Samsung DC Magician utility (specifically, the utility for the DC drives) doesn't detect my drive on a Dell Optiplex running Ubuntu 20.04. I can see the drive in Linux fine.
Does anyone have any ideas before I blow Linux away and install Windows?
The Samsung DC Magician utility (specifically, the utility for the DC drives) doesn't detect my drive on a Dell Optiplex running Ubuntu 20.04. I can see the drive in Linux fine.
Does anyone have any ideas before I blow Linux away and install Windows?
I've got a corrupt firmware on my 960GB PM863a, wondering if anyone has the firmware file for that drive. Also wondering if its possible to dump the firmware from a good drive as I do have a good PM863a but I dont see any options in the samsung DC toolkit to save firmware.
Also Ive gone though that large 300MB firmware pack in the other posting and all I can find is a 1kb file for this drive that clearly isnt good.
Also Ive gone though that large 300MB firmware pack in the other posting and all I can find is a 1kb file for this drive that clearly isnt good.
you should look what is inside this text file, it will point you to the right firmware file name for your drive
thanks. I probabbly should have thought about that but didnt think past the file extenstion. When trying to flash the file though i'm now getting an error that says "firmware update failed due to a failure in device interaction". I've tried checking the exact syntax for the flash commands but not sure. Also tried flashing the drive connected to an IDE port instead of AHCI
Figured it out, need to grab the firmware for the dell branded version of the drive, trim out the right amount of header crap, then flash it raw using hdparm. After a successful flash, it will still report the same " GXT" version string as before, but you'll know it worked as some SMART values will be reset to zero, and if the drive was previously stuck with the ERRMOD / enumeration as a 1gb drive crap, it will be cleared and fixed
For PM863a (any size):
NOTE: If your drive has a manuf date on the label of 2019 or newer, or firmware GXT5404Q or newer, this isn't necessary, your drive has the latest fw already
File Format: Update Package for MS Windows 32-Bit
File Name: Serial-ATA_Firmware_P2YRJ_WN32_GC5B_A00_01.EXE
##when running the exe, choose extract, not install. in the extract folder, there will be a payload folder with the GC5B_NF.fwh firmware inside it
#trim dell headers etc from said file:
dd if=GC5B_NF.fwh of=PM863a-trimmed.fwh ibs=816 skip=1
#flash the trimmed file (CHECK THE DRIVE DEV ADDRESS IS RIGHT 4 U):
hdparm --fwdownload PM863a-trimmed.fwh --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing --please-destroy-my-drive /dev/sda
##unplug drive (remove power, not just sata), replug/repower back in
##need to secure erase it for update to fully finish/clear ERRMOD
##set temp password to be able to secure erase
##the secure erase step later will remove the password/security
##again, check the drive address is correct so you don't wipe your OS drive instead
hdparm --user-master u --security-set-pass 1 /dev/sda
##secure erase the drive
##again, check the drive address is correct so you don't wipe your OS drive instead
hdparm --user-master u --security-erase 1 /dev/sda
##unplug/unpower drive, repower, you now have a clean fully working bug free/updated PM863a
I've attached a zipped up version of the already properly trimmed firmware file so you can flash it directly with hdparm as instructed above without needing to manually download or trim anything from dell
For PM863a (any size):
NOTE: If your drive has a manuf date on the label of 2019 or newer, or firmware GXT5404Q or newer, this isn't necessary, your drive has the latest fw already
File Format: Update Package for MS Windows 32-Bit
File Name: Serial-ATA_Firmware_P2YRJ_WN32_GC5B_A00_01.EXE
##when running the exe, choose extract, not install. in the extract folder, there will be a payload folder with the GC5B_NF.fwh firmware inside it
#trim dell headers etc from said file:
dd if=GC5B_NF.fwh of=PM863a-trimmed.fwh ibs=816 skip=1
#flash the trimmed file (CHECK THE DRIVE DEV ADDRESS IS RIGHT 4 U):
hdparm --fwdownload PM863a-trimmed.fwh --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing --please-destroy-my-drive /dev/sda
##unplug drive (remove power, not just sata), replug/repower back in
##need to secure erase it for update to fully finish/clear ERRMOD
##set temp password to be able to secure erase
##the secure erase step later will remove the password/security
##again, check the drive address is correct so you don't wipe your OS drive instead
hdparm --user-master u --security-set-pass 1 /dev/sda
##secure erase the drive
##again, check the drive address is correct so you don't wipe your OS drive instead
hdparm --user-master u --security-erase 1 /dev/sda
##unplug/unpower drive, repower, you now have a clean fully working bug free/updated PM863a
I've attached a zipped up version of the already properly trimmed firmware file so you can flash it directly with hdparm as instructed above without needing to manually download or trim anything from dell
Tried with a working PM863 (non A) Model MZ7LM3T8HCJM-0E003. Test drive stamped 2016/02 with Firmware Version: GXT3003Q.
Used Dell GA3A firmware from: Samsung GA3A for model number(s) MZ7LM120HCFD00D3, MZ7LM480HCHP00D3, MZ7LM960HCHP00D3, MZ7LM1T9HCJM00D3, MZ7LM3T8HCJM00D3, MZ8LM120HCFD00D3, MZ8LM480HCHP00D3 and MZ8LM960HCJH00D3. | Ohjaimen tiedot | Dell Suomi
Trimmed 448 bytes -> --fwdowload works with all the dots, but in the end IO error or something.
Trimmed 512 bytes more (same amount extra as GC5B^) -> --fwdowload completes succesfully.
Power off -> remove drive -> security-erase -> power off -> remove drive = Firmware version is still GXT3003Q, no SMART attributes got reset. Have no idea if the fwdownload actually worked. Got to resilver a lot tho.
Used Dell GA3A firmware from: Samsung GA3A for model number(s) MZ7LM120HCFD00D3, MZ7LM480HCHP00D3, MZ7LM960HCHP00D3, MZ7LM1T9HCJM00D3, MZ7LM3T8HCJM00D3, MZ8LM120HCFD00D3, MZ8LM480HCHP00D3 and MZ8LM960HCJH00D3. | Ohjaimen tiedot | Dell Suomi
Trimmed 448 bytes -> --fwdowload works with all the dots, but in the end IO error or something.
Trimmed 512 bytes more (same amount extra as GC5B^) -> --fwdowload completes succesfully.
Power off -> remove drive -> security-erase -> power off -> remove drive = Firmware version is still GXT3003Q, no SMART attributes got reset. Have no idea if the fwdownload actually worked. Got to resilver a lot tho.
Attachments
1048576 bytes doesn't work on the SM863, it popped an I/O error. I had to trim another 512 bytes (resulting in 1048064 bytes) for the fw flash to be successful.
The stated firmware version in smartctl still didn't update though, so I'm not sure if the fw flash is even successful.
Ah, there is the Link, where the info comes from: Samsung SSD resurrection – [mjuː]wave
It looks like something important starts even if you trim away more (1044480 Bytes)?
It looks like something important starts even if you trim away more (1044480 Bytes)?
Looking at the GB57 firmware file in hex editor, there seem to be just empty padding even if the header is trimmed to 1044480 bytes. There's still a remaining 80 bytes of empty padding before the actual meat begins.