Samsung Magician v4.9.5 Introduction and Installation Guide

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Samsung Magician v4.9.5

Introduction and Installation Guide

2016.1 (Rev 1.95)

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Introduction

The Samsung Magician software is designed to help users easily manage the health and performance of their Samsung SSD. In addition to providing vital SSD health status information, Magician will assist users in updating firmware, measuring performance, and optimizing the configuration of a Windows operating system installation.

Samsung Magician software is developed and distributed exclusively for owners of Samsung Solid Sate Drives (SSDs).

New in Version 4.9.5

Magician version 4.9.5 features a number of improvements over version 4.9:

- Security enhancement

2016.1 (Rev 1.95)

Component

Requirement

Operating System

Windows XP SP2 (32bit)

Windows Vista (32/64bit)

Windows 7 (32/64bit)

Windows 8 & 8.1 (32/64bit)

Windows 10 (32/64bit)

Disk Capacity

minimum 95MB available for installation

Supported Partition Types

MBR, GPT

Supported Languages English, Korean, Spanish, Deutsch, Japanese,

Chinese(Simplified), French, Italian, Portuguese,

Russian

SSD

The following Samsung SSDs are supported*.

Samsung SSD 750 EVO Samsung SSD 950 PRO (M.2) Samsung SSD 850 EVO (2.5”, mSATA, M.2) Samsung SSD 850 PRO Samsung SSD 840 EVO (2.5”, mSATA) Samsung SSD 840 PRO Samsung SSD 840 Series Samsung SSD 830 Series Samsung SSD 470 Series

System Requirements

*Some features may not be supported for all models.

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RAPIDmode Requirements

Component

Requirement

Operating System Windows 7 (32/64bit)

Windows 8 & 8.1 (32/64bit)

Windows 10 (32/64bit)

SSD

Samsung SSD 750 EVO Samsung SSD 850 EVO (2.5”, mSATA, M.2) Samsung SSD 850 PRO Samsung SSD 840 EVO (2.5”, mSATA) Samsung SSD 840 PRO

Processor

1GHz or faster

System memory(DRAM)

2GB RAM or more

Free Disk Space

minimum 50MB

File System

NTFS

Chipset

Driver

Supported

Intel

Microsoft

Yes

Intel

Yes

AMD

Microsoft

Yes

AMD

Yes(With Latest Driver)

NVIDIA

Yes

*This is the minimum system requirements of RAPIDmode. For desirable performance, 4GB

or higher system memory is recommended.

Driver Support

Precautions

1) The SSD should not be removed or disconnected while SSD Optimization or Benchmarking are in progress. Doing so could result in data corruption.

2) All parallel operations should be terminated before executing the SSD Optimization or Benchmarking features.

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3) Data corruption may result if the user terminates Magician application abnormally while SSD Optimization, Benchmarking, FW Update, or Secure Erase features are in progress.

4) Using the Performance Optimization feature in Magician does not guarantee performance improvement. Performance Optimization can only improve performance issues related to capacity usage and fragmentation.

5) There is always the risk of data loss when updating SSD firmware. It is imperative that the user backs up any important data before performing a firmware update either via Magician or via Magician DOS Utility.

6) The SSD may be permanently damaged if it is unplugged while the firmware update process is in progress via the DOS Utility.

General Limitations

1) Magician is designed specifically for Samsung-branded SSDs. SSD-

specific features like Firmware Update, Disk Health Status, Secure Erase, and Total Bytes Written are not supported for non-Samsung SSDs.

2) Magician does not work with SSDs connected via the SCSI controller

interface.

3) Only MBR and GPT partition types are supported. Magician may not work

with other partition types.

4) Magician will not work on SSDs that are locked with a user password.

5) The user may need to manually refresh the disk list in System Information for

Magician to accurately reflect all connected/removed disks.

6) Benchmarking results are for a Queue Depth of 32.

7) It may be necessary to manually refresh the disk list in System Information

before performing benchmarking or performance optimization on a newly attached disk.

8) Some features of Magician rely on the ATA PASS THROUGH feature to

pass the TRIM command to the SSD. This feature may be disabled by Windows XP/2003 if your SSD’s capacity is less than 137GB in size. Microsoft provides a hot fix for this issue at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934205.

9) In the case of SATA devices, Secure Erase is not supported for Windows 8

and above systems.

10) Performance Optimization supports only the NTFS file system.

11) Over Provisioning may fail, even though enough free space is available, if

your system suffers from cluster misalignment.

12) Benchmarking may not work with some removable storage devices.

13) If User cannot span or shrink volume size through disk management of

OS administration tool, it is possible not to work dynamic over-provisioning properly.

14) When the IRST driver is enabled / Installed in system. Then enabling of

Write cache buffer/flushing in SSD may fail (OS Optimization).

* Also, when a specific or latest IRST driver (IRST 12.6.0.1033,

12.8.10.1005) is installed, the authentication function may not work correctly. In this case, rollback to the older version.

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15) RAID on mode in SATA configuration is not supported by Samsung magician

and DOS application.

16) PC will be shut down automatically after firmware update (Magician counts

down 20 seconds before shutdown)

17) Security mode (Class 0, TCG/Opal or Encrypted Drive) must be disabled

(unlocked) before removing and installing onto another PC.

18) Firmware Update may fail on Samsung brand SSDs connected to AMD

Controller or IRST v10.0.0.1046. Please retry using default sata ahci controller(Microsoft drivers)

19) Performance Benchmark may get timed-out on Asmedia controllers if the

driver does not handle multi thread operations (IOs)”

20) Magician will only retain the power option that was tuned before installing

Magician. If user changes the power option after installation, Magician cannot retain that.

21) If you are using any custom storage driver, then Magician may not work

properly. Please always use the latest storage driver or Microsoft driver.

22) While making a DOS bootable solution for Secure Erase or Firmware

Update, please make sure the Device Manager window is closed.

23) As Windows® 8.1 and above do not support the ‘Windows Backup’

service and automatic backups, the System Restore Service in OS Optimization don’t have any effect on Windows® 8.1 and above.

24) If you delete some files on RAPID folder, RAPID may not be uninstalled

properly.

25) Magician has to be refreshed to detect a SSD, if the device is connected

after launching the application.

26) Advanced Performance Optimization will take more time to complete

Performance improvement may depend on the user system environment, thus this process is recommended for the user who essentially needs performance optimization.

27) TRIM operation for Performance Optimization (Standard/Advanced) is not

supported on Windows 8 and above, as they support Native TRIM.

28) Windows may experience slow response while Advanced Performance

Optimization is in progress, on ASUS Sabertooth 990FX system with AMD

1.2.1.269 driver.

29) In Windows 7, you must install the Samsung NVMe Driver to use the

functions of Samsung’s NVMe devices properly.

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DOS Utility Limitations

1) The DOS Utility is not compatible with pure SCSI or SATA NVIDIA/LSI/AMD chipset drivers.

2) AHCI or ATA mode must be enabled in the BIOS during PC boot up.

3) The DOS utility may not work consistently on PCs with chipsets other than the ones listed above.

4) The DOS Utility may hang if the SSD is removed on PCs that do not support the hot plug feature (e.g. ICH5/6 chipsets).

5) The DOS Utility will not work with devices attached via SATA 6Gbps (SATA III) operating in IDE mode.

6) If SSD name is too long, then Model name and serial no. overlaps in

DOS Bootable Solution. Please use the Command line option “/C” to

run in CLI mode.

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RAPIDmode Limitations

1) RAPIDmode accelerates only one SSD even though user has several Samsung SSDs(850 EVO, 850 PRO, 840 EVO, 840 PRO, and 840 EVO mSATA).

2) If there are two identical SSDs connected, RAPIDmode may accelerate the incorrect SSD.

3) RAID Mode sets is not supported as an accelerated drive.

4) After uninstalling RAPIDmode, if the system is restored to a prior state in which RAPIDmode was installed, RAPIDmode will be started in a disabled state.

5) NVIDIA Storage controller is not supported.

6) During RAPIDmdoe Enable/Disable operation: Do not disconnect the target SSD, Do not kill the application.

7) F/W download and Secure Erase is not allowed in case of RAPIDmode enabled SSD.

8) If fast startup is enabled on windows 8 and 8.1 machines, RAPIDmode enable/disable requires system restart. Shutdown followed by turning-on the power will not activate RAPIDmode enable/disable. By default fast startup is enabled

9) Flush command of operating system and/or application may cause variation in performance when RAPIDmode is enabled (especially when Write-Cache Buffer Flushing is on).

10) Sometimes on AMD PC with AMD and ASMedia storage controllers it was found that the IOs takes a longer time to complete. In such cases if Rapid was enabled, it may get automatically disabled due to such IO errors. It may display "Rapid is in inactive state". User has to reboot the PC to enable the Rapid back.

11) If multiple iterations of Read and Write are performed, RAPIDmode may become inactive due to system internal errors on some of the AMD / AsMedia Controller or Driver.

12) RAPIDmode can't be guaranteed on the target SSD with non-NTFS file system.

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Operational Check of RAPIDmode

RAPIDmode starts its operation 45 seconds after OS booting. Please make sure the increased size of non-paged pool using “task manager → performance → memory tab” to ensure it is fully operational.

* Before RAPIDmode enabling

* After RAPIDmode enabling

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All brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Designed

contents of this manual are subject to change without notice.

2016.1 (Rev 1.95)

Samsung Magician v4.9.5 Introduction and Installation Guide

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual