Against blue screens: Important firmware updates for Western Digital SSDs
WD and Sandisk distribute new firmware versions for five SSD series. Windows 11 24H2 only runs crash-free with the updates.
(Image: Western Digital)
Five SSDs from Western Digital and its subsidiary Sandisk are in urgent need of firmware updates. The manufacturer is providing them for the WD Black SN770, WD Black SN770M, WD Blue SN580, WD Blue SN5000 and Sandisk Extreme M.2.
The new firmware versions fix a problem with the Host Memory Buffer (HMB) function. This is part of the NVMe protocol of PCI Express SSDs and allows them to access the main memory if the SSDs themselves do not have a DRAM cache. Windows 11 changes the HMB allocation with the 24H2 update, which the above-mentioned SSDs have not yet been able to cope with. This results in unpredictable crashes (bluescreens, BSODs) – WD confirms with the announcement the cause and more affected models than previously assumed.
HMB is not a cache per se because the SSDs do not store any user data in the RAM. Instead, the mapping tables from logical to physical memory addresses are located there. These tables are adjusted with each write access, which works faster in RAM than in the NAND flash chips of the SSDs.
Update only with Windows tool
Western Digital and Sandisk provide firmware updates exclusively via the Windows tool "Western Digital Dashboard". The software draws attention to available updates and takes care of the download and installation.
The company does not provide update tools for macOS and Linux – which is not too bad, at least in this case, as the new versions fix a Windows problem.
The current firmwares with the fix have the version numbers:
- WD Black SN770: 731130WD
- WD Black SN770M: 731130WD
- WD Blue SN580: 281050WD
- WD Blue SN5000: 291020WD
- Sandisk Extreme M.2: 731130WD
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Windows 11 should now only offer the 24H2 update on systems with the above-mentioned SSDs once the latest firmware has been installed.
Other manufacturers are not known to have any fundamental problems with Windows 11 24H2.
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