Samsung Magician with external Samsung SSDs issue

[sebalvarez]

I have a few Samsung external SSDs, a T5, a couple of T7s and a T9. These come formatted as exFAT, so as I soon as I buy them, I open Disk Utility and format as APFS. However, I plugged in my PC one of them that I have for my camera, because I thought that it was still formatted as exFAT for the camera, but Windows didn't see it and then I remembered that the camera formats them as HFS+.

However, Samsung Magician in the PC informed that that drive needed a firmware update. I thought, if the drive is formatted as HFS+, I'm not 100% sure that it wouldn't touch the contents, I'm guessing probably not, but why risk it? So I figured I would installed Samsung Magician for macOS.

Hilariously, it shows me only two drives, the Mac Studio internal drive, and an external thunderbolt OWC SSD. Meaning, with two exceptions, every drive but the Samsungs. The other two are a Crucial SSD and an external Seagate HDD.

After doing some digging, the problem is that macOS has system extensions disabled by default for security reasons. And Samsung Magician requires a system extension to be able to see the rest of the drives. I'm very weary of enabling them because I read that enabling them lowers the security level, so I'm not going to do it.

So my question is, has anyone tried to update firmware for these drives in Samsung Magician on a Windows PC, while the drive was formatted as HFS+, and if so, did it mess at all with your data?

 

[gilby101]

I have never bothered with firmware updates for my Samsungs. Samsung Magician for Mac is very hit and miss. Sometimes it runs and sometimes not.

 

[chrfr]

then I remembered that the camera formats them as HFS+.

I have never heard of a camera that uses HFS+. Are you sure you don’t mean FAT32? What camera are you using?

Firmware updates should not affect the data on the disk, but a failed firmware update can, very rarely, cause a disk to stop working altogether, so make sure you have a backup.