Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD On Linux

[stormcrow]

Firmware updates, ugh. It used to be so easy. On my 486 I pulled the EPROM, put it into an EPROM eraser (UV black light) for 10 minutes, then burn the new firmware onto it using an EPROM burner. Don't forget to cover the little glass window with a sticker afterwards. Pop the IC back into the socket and power on the PC, easy.

Then in the mid 1990's when Flash memory became a thing, you'd boot a DOS floppy and flash whatever firmware you want using the MS-DOS flashing tool. Same same into the 2000's, but with a FreeDOS bootable CD instead of a floppy. Mobos, SCSI/SAS cards, LAN cards, everything worked this way.

Now it's a tangled web of proprietary flashing tools that only work on Windows OS. Unless you go with enterprise grade gear, then they often have a Linux tool. But sometimes the Linux tool was built using a very old toolchain and won't work on newer Linux distros, then you have to boot a CentOS 5 DVD and try again. Pretty soon you've spent your entire day trying to figure out how to flash a device. Ugh.

My neighbor recently bought a $2000 mirrorless camera. Takes nice photos, sure, but the UI is buggy and slow, and there's a constant stream of firmware updates. Seems like every time he's out with it, he has to spend 20 minutes updating the firmware before he can start taking pics.

Is it just me, or are consumers all beta testers now, and you have to pony up big $$$ for enterprise gear, to get the privilege of stable reliable equipment?

1) That is NOT easy. You had to own or have access to the correct EPROM writer. You had to know how to use the damned thing, which usually also had a proprietary control software for DOS. You had to have access to the firmware updates. You also needed to know you needed a firmware update. All before the Internet was a thing yet. College students in the Engineering or technical sciences maybe. Board repair people, probably. Average Joe and everyone else? Forget it.

2) Complexity begets mistakes. This includes enterprise level gear. Read the errata on Intel Xeon CPUs or Cisco routers sometime. Your "enterprise stable" thing is a myth. More stable, perhaps, till you dig past the surface, but they aren't the towering bastion a lot of people want to make 'enterprise' out to be. Convenience features that cause problems are just as much a problem in the enterprise as it is in the consumer market.

[pipe13]

Just a note: As an owner of Samsung 980 500GB (not 980 Pro), I unfortunately have to note here that I don't support buying this DRAM-less drive because with heavier workloads it has very large latencies and it is overheating (which leads to thermal throttling). It is OK as a cost-effective entry-level SSD for light workloads only.

Okay, but which Samsung 980 here did Michael test, the 980 or the 980 PRO? I recently purchased a 2TB Samsung 980 PRO for a new build, thinking it was one of the faster, more reliable SSD's available. I haven't unboxed it yet, so could return/exchange if I so desired. Should I so desire? Thanks.

[torsionbar28]

Just a note: As an owner of Samsung 980 500GB (not 980 Pro), I unfortunately have to note here that I don't support buying this DRAM-less drive because with heavier workloads it has very large latencies and it is overheating (which leads to thermal throttling). It is OK as a cost-effective entry-level SSD for light workloads only.

Sounds like they've gone to the Intel school of thermal management. Like my wife's Comet Lake i7 laptop, it will run up to 90 C and throttle whenever you move the mouse it seems.

[torsionbar28]

1) That is NOT easy. You had to own or have access to the correct EPROM writer. You had to know how to use the damned thing, which usually also had a proprietary control software for DOS. You had to have access to the firmware updates. You also needed to know you needed a firmware update. All before the Internet was a thing yet. College students in the Engineering or technical sciences maybe. Board repair people, probably. Average Joe and everyone else? Forget it.

Figured this being Phoronix and all, that I'd be speaking to a technical audience. Not a dig, just saying that the types of folks who would burn a new EPROM for their mobo in the late 80's, are probably the exact same types of folks who in 2021 are researching, buying, installing, and updating the FW on their SSD. Neither activity is designed for Grandma. If you didn't have a burner yourself back then, you could mail order a pre-burned PROM chip from the vendor. Pop the old one out, pop the new one in, done. Not a big deal.

Believe it or not, there was a vibrant online community long before the internet was a thing in people's homes. I bought and sold plenty of goods, played hours of multi-player online games, and engaged in forum banter for probably a full decade, from '85 to '95, before I had internet at my home. Dial-up BBS's were huge back in the day, to where the majority of software and hardware companies ran their own. If you wanted a new FW image for your 486 mobo back in 1989, you'd dial into the manufacturer's BBS, read the latest announcements, and download the file. Really no different from the www pages of today. If you ran into trouble or had questions, you exchanged messages with their tech support in the BBS discussion forums. You could even exchange messages with people on other BBS systems and across the country. Google: Fidonet. Towards the end of the BBS era, many of them even had GUI vector graphics. Google: RIPscrip. You make it sound like home computer users were carving on stone tablets or banging on typewriters before the Internet was a thing, lol.

[pipe13]

^^^ Admittedly torsionbar28, you certainly make is sound that way.

[r1348]

I don't have personal experience with Samsung 980 Pro. According to Windows reviews, 980 Pro is one of the fastest drives available (except for the 250GB model).

I have 2x Samsung 980 Pro 512GB in my system and I can confirm it has very good performance in sequential read/write. Random I/O is a bit more of a mixed bag.

[onlyLinuxLuvUBack]

I don't have personal experience with Samsung 980 Pro. According to Windows reviews, 980 Pro is one of the fastest drives available (except for the 250GB model).

bull-sheet, I buy optane or micron max or ash-guard ssds just because of the TBW rating of "long" , or samdung new class of "never ever forever never fail" but "never write well". the 980 pro aint even getting in the club.

[intelfx]

Okay, but which Samsung 980 here did Michael test, the 980 or the 980 PRO? I recently purchased a 2TB Samsung 980 PRO for a new build, thinking it was one of the faster, more reliable SSD's available. I haven't unboxed it yet, so could return/exchange if I so desired. Should I so desire? Thanks.

This review features the 980 Pro. It is okay — but definitely not the flagship SSD Samsungs were in the past. Plus, it apparently has issues specific to Linux.

Phoronix did specifically review the 980 Pro in the past, find it.

[intelfx]

What is the evidence in favor of the review using 980 Pro and not using 980? Not counting the single word "PRO" in the article, which is just part of a note about Michael's past experiences with 980 Pro. (Firefox can be used to search for 980 in the SVGs in the article, while Chrome is displaying raster images).

Huh, wait, you're right. I had a particularly egregious case of a brain fart.

Still, the 980 Pro isn't a flagship top-of-the-line model that you'd expect of Samsung anyway.

[Jedibeeftrix]

I've had a 2TB Rocket 4.0 Plus since the 1st of March, and the Sabrent Rocket Control Panel has consistently told me the firmware is "EIFM21.0" and there are no updates available.

What is this v1.2 firmware of which you speak?