There are a lot of things to update on a PC. You need the newest graphics drivers, a recent BIOS upgrade, and Windows Update to catch everything else, and that's just for routine PC maintenance. So, it's not exactly surprising that the firmware for your SSD falls by the wayside.

You don't need to update your SSD's firmware constantly. There aren't a ton of updates in the first place, and even if there were, it shouldn't be part of your routine maintenance. I'd wager that most people have never updated their SSD firmware, though, if they even knew it existed in the first place, and that should be one of the first steps you take when installing a new drive.

Software built for your hardware

It's what makes your SSD work

Firmware for your hard drive isn't anything new, but it's something you really didn't need to worry about in the past. With HDDs, they got factory-issued firmware, and that was it. You'd sometimes see firmware updates for HDDs, but almost never for consumer drives. SSDs also ship with factory firmware, but we've seen an increase in firmware updates aimed at end users. Although there's no concrete reason why we're seeing more firmware updates now, I suspect it has a lot to do with how SSDs work compared to HDDs.

Both HDDs and SSDs are governed by a controller that tells the drive where to write data, but that controller is a lot more important on an SSD. Flash memory will eventually degrade given enough writes, and the controller needs to not only write the data correctly, but also manage the wear. A new controller with rock-solid firmware might give you even wear leveling and ensure you're getting the most life out of your SSD. A bugged firmware might instruct the controller to write over the same block over and over, vastly speeding up how quickly your drive dies.

That's not to mention the other functions an SSD's controller needs to handle compared to an HDD. Tasks like garbage collection aren't relevant on an HDD, but that's yet another task an SSD controller needs to carry out. With more complex tasks, and more tasks overall, the controller in your SSD plays a much more prominent role in data integrity and performance than the controller on an HDD. And the controller is driven by the firmware you have flashed onto your drive.

You don't need an update until you do

SSD problems don't always show up right away

The traditional wisdom regarding difficult updates is, if everything is working how it should, you don't need an update. There's some truth to that, but the wisdom is nuanced, particularly when it comes to SSDs. That's because SSDs can have dormant issues that only pop up after an extended period of time, or only show issues once it's too late to fix the problem. Some issues only come up under certain conditions, while others can result from hardware changes around your SSD, even if your SSD itself is unchanged.

The best time to update your SSD's firmware involves a bit of common sense, but I recommend you check for a firmware update when you install an SSD. It doesn't matter if it's a new SSD, a preowned one, or one repurposed from another system. If you're installing a fresh drive in your PC, you should check for a firmware update. That way, you're starting your hardware's journey in your new PC on the right foot, if nothing else. It's also easy to remember, given how infrequent firmware updates for SSDs are.

It's also a good time to update to prevent any potential data loss. There are modern tools available that make SSD firmware updates fairly straightforward, and they're handled in such a way that you can update your firmware without losing any data. But, there's always a risk. Your hair dryer and bath tub are never supposed to interact with each other, but there are safety measures in place in the event they do. Similarly, updating your SSD's firmware shouldn't erase your data, but you should have a backup in place in the event it does.

If you update when you install a new SSD, there's a good chance you've already formatted the drive, so it's the perfect time to check for a firmware update where there's no risk of data loss. Again, there are tools available that allow you to update your SSD's firmware without formatting the drive, but you should have a backup in place if you plan to perform an update.

Don't lose sleep over an update

You don't need to constantly update

At risk of sounding like your SSD firmware is the most important thing in your PC, I want to backpedal a bit. You should update your SSD's firmware, but it's not something you need to do frequently. You might only need to do it once or twice over the entire time your own a drive. And, the older your SSD is, the less likely you are to need a firmware update. In the early days of consumer SSDs for desktops, brands still mainly shipped a factory firmware and didn't offer updates directly to consumers after the fact.

Here's some practical advice to follow. The newer your SSD is, the more often you should check for updates. I mean "new" as in the drive was recently released, not that you recently bought it. Especially more recently, with expanded featuresets in SSDs and software management layers, the biggest bugs have been squashed in the months following an SSD's release. If you have an SSD that's a few years old, and you've already updated the firmware on it at least once, you probably don't need an update. It doesn't hurt to check, but developers usually aren't fixing major firmware issues years after a product has been released.

There's a very simple way to know when firmware updates are available and if you need to install them, though. Just download whatever utility is available for your SSD. Samsung has Samsung Magician, WD and Sandisk have the Sandisk Toolbox, Corsair has the Corsair SSD Toolbox, and Crucial has Storage Executive. Most major brands have at least a basic SSD utility that can serve you firmware updates and install them when they're available. Some, such as Samsung Magician, even allow you to see the firmware version so you know if you need to update or not.

Some SSDs don't have utilities available — Micro Center's Inland SSDs, for example, don't have a utility — but firmware updates are usually even rarer for these drives, if they exist at all. These inexpensive SSDs usually leverage some third-party firmware that's in use on other SSDs anyway, but that's a conversation for a different day.

A little firmware goes a long way

If you want to get the best performance and longevity out of your SSD, you should update the firmware. You don't need to flash every firmware release, and after a few years, you never need to touch it again. But given how increasingly complex SSDs are, it's a good idea to stay up to date with the latest firmware for at least a few months after launch.