I was recently hit with a fatal firmware bug that affected dozens of Crucial SSDs deployed in my datacenter. Many of the affected machines use LSI or other proprietary SAS controllers, which Crucial's bootable ISO does not recognize. None of the affected machines has a Windows license. The story is roughly similar for other SSD mfrs, including Samsung and Intel.

To resolve this issue, I was forced to stop each machine, remove the affected SSD, remove the SSD from its hotswap caddy, install it temporarily into my ThinkPad, flash the firmware, reverse, rinse, repeat. It took the better part of a day to get through all the affected devices.

I am looking for hardware, software, and/or purchasing strategies to ease this pain, as SSD firmware bugs seem inevitable, and our SSD footprint is growing.

My first thought is to get a laptop with eSATA and one of these cables (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812311004). That should at least make it so I don't have to remove the drives from their caddies.

Surely others have run into this. Any novel solutions?