In the past, several SSD manufacturers had bugs in their firmwares. So to be sure that I can fix such issues with a newly bought SSD, I need some secure (and somewhat easy) way of updating the firmware.
I don’t need to do the update on my own Linux installation. A bootable ISO would be fine, too.
Which manufacturer has some well supported way of updating SSD firmware, even if I don’t have any Windows installations left?
Solidigm P44 Pro is a good choice. This model is based on the Hynix Platinum P41, which is well regarded. They provide a bootable linux ISO image for updating firmware, so you can boot that directly, or potentially extract the files and run the updater on your distro of choice. (It’s probably best not to do it on an installation running from the SSD, of course.)
I don’t see any firmware bug workarounds for these models in the linux kernel sources, which is a good sign.
Solidigm is the company resulting from SK Hynix recently buying Intel’s NAND business. They apparently contribute to LVFS, which is another good sign, even if the current model’s firmware isn’t on there yet.