Seagate 530 article

content/blog/seagate-530-ssd-read-performance.md

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+---
+title: "Seagate FireCuda 530 SSD Read Performance Woes"
+date: 2024-03-02T15:57:48.0710989+08:00
+draft: false
+---
+
+I have a Seagate FireCuda 530 2 TB NVMe SSD (ZP2000GM30023) and experienced a
+strange issue with read performance. Files which had not been accessed recently
+were very slow to access. Even sequential reads were glacially slow, akin to a
+USB flash drive with access times spiking like crazy.
+
+This appears to be a firmware bug with the Segate devices, but Seagate does a
+poor job of advertising where to get firmware. If you're affected, update to
+firwmare version SU6SM005 by doing the following:
+
+1. Download SeaTools from [here](https://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/)
+2. Click on the "Advanced" tab once launched, it'll give you the serial number
+3. Return to the SeaTools download page, there's a Firmware Downloads widget on
+the side. Insert your serial number into that
+4. Download the firmware update ZIP and extract it
+5. Select the affected drive in SeaTools and then click "Firmware Update"
+6. Browse to the new .bin file and hit Ok
+7. The firmware update should complete within a few seconds
+
+Subsequent to this I formatted the drive and reinstalled Windows onto another
+drive since I wasn't sure whether this would fix the issue. After formatting, I
+80% filled the drive with large files and left them there for months.
+
+After letting them age on the drive, I copied them to another SSD and the read
+performance was extremely fast. Therefore it seems the firmware update has
+resolved the issue and I would suggest this to anyone having issues.