Updating Dell DC S3610 SSD Firmware

So you’ve ordered some of those fancy (and affordable) Intel DC S3610 SSDs from Amazon and your vSAN cluster is humming along… but what about the firmware?

Here are some simple steps to update Intel DC S3610 SSDs without rebooting your ESXi host!

First, you’ll want to grab the latest firmware from Dell Support:

Once you’ve downloaded, you’ll end up with the following file:

Enable SSH on your ESXi host(s), and use your choice of utility to upload this file to a shared location (like an ISO datastore). In my case, I used my ISO datastore:

The firmware file is present, but not executable

After the file is uploaded, you’ll need to change the permissions on it to allow execution with the following command:

# chmod +x Serial-ATA_Firmware_RXYF1_LN_DL2D_A00.BIN

The firmware file is now executable

Now it’s time to put the host in maintenance!

Once your host is in maintenance mode, you can begin the firmware update process by using the command:

# sh Serial-ATA_Firmware_RXYF1_LN_DL2D_A00.BIN

Note: You need to be in the directory with the firmware file, otherwise, specify the full path such as: “/vmfs/volumes/iso/Serial-ATA_Firmware_RXYF1_LN_DL2D_A00.BIN”

A dialog will appear with information, and at this point, you can type “q” to continue:

If the package and installed versions are identical, there’s no reason to update!

After typing “Y” and pressing enter, the firmware package will be applied:

Congrats! Your SSD is now running the latest firmware!

Once the firmware update is done, you can leave maintenance mode on the host and continue with the next.