NVME SSD Pros, please help. Slow transfer speed while moving files from folder to folder on same drive/

bizzmeister

bizzmeister

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Hey guys,

I have the Silicon Power 2TB NVME drive that has the blazing fast speeds as advertised on diskmark. Here is a screen shot of my setup. But whats baffling to me is this. I was trying to move cinebench from an unzipped folder on my desktop to a new folder i created (200mb) or so file, speeds were dipping to 1mb 10mb. There is only 1 hard drive in this build and its just this 2tb drive. Nothing else.



fcN6z5j.jpg



Whats going on there? I have not done anything with this drive as far as features and turning off stuff. Literally just cloned my old 1TB intel optane ssd and booted up. It started immediately at 60ish mb/s , dropped to 1 to 10mb/s , shot up to 80ish and finished. Should i not be seeing insane speeds here with these transfers on my build?
 
It looks like you are copying a lot of tiny files, so Windows I believe is doing a checksum after each tiny file is copied.
Try TeraCopy and see how that works.
 
likeman said:
what does the disk load look like in task manager when its doing it
Click to expand...

Didnt even know to check that. What am i looking for if i attempt the same transfer?

Zepher said:
It looks like you are copying a lot of tiny files, so Windows I believe is doing a checksum after each tiny file is copied.
Try TeraCopy and see how that works.
Click to expand...


I will try Teracopy, i dont know what that is though
 
bizzmeister said:
And what speeds should I be expecting when moving files on the same drive with my setup? Small or large files I mean.
Click to expand...
Large files should probably be going at least 1.5BG/s
I don't have an NVME based system here at the moment to test with.
 
I moved Ruby (41K files at 1GB) over from one NVMe SSD to another the other day...was hitting <1 MB/s many times, just the nature of many tiny files.

Your CDM 4K low queue depth results look low, assuming you were running it by itself.
 
Zepher said:
Large files should probably be going at least 1.5BG/s
I don't have an NVME based system here at the moment to test with.
Click to expand...

Ok cool, thank you.



Maxx said:
I moved Ruby (41K files at 1GB) over from one NVMe SSD to another the other day...was hitting <1 MB/s many times, just the nature of many tiny files.

Your CDM 4K low queue depth results look low, assuming you were running it by itself.
Click to expand...

I see. Yah this was just your average diskmark run. Just hit start and let it go from start to finish, like I said, I haven’t modified anything on the drive.

CDM 4K results look low?
 
Yes, 26.87/49.27 MB/s for read/write 4K at Q1T1 are quite low for that drive. If you tested while doing the transfer it would be lower, of course. Otherwise perhaps a driver issue (the drive doesn't need a driver itself) or software interference (e.g. AV).
 
Maxx said:
Yes, 26.87/49.27 MB/s for read/write 4K at Q1T1 are quite low for that drive. If you tested while doing the transfer it would be lower, of course. Otherwise perhaps a driver issue (the drive doesn't need a driver itself) or software interference (e.g. AV).
Click to expand...

thanks for your input bud, appreciate it.

what numbers should I be expecting in that segment with this drive ?
 
man, i thought my 4k speeds were low. But yours are much lower.


I'd like to add to OP's question.... why his 4k q32t16 is so much greater than mine? 2800 vs 1800


These are my 970 evo+ nvme 1TB speeds.......


Code: 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 7.0.0 x64 (C) 2007-2019 hiyohiyo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Read]
Sequential 1MiB (Q=  8, T= 1):  3071.261 MB/s [   2929.0 IOPS] <  2729.07 us>
Sequential 1MiB (Q=  1, T= 1):  2569.837 MB/s [   2450.8 IOPS] <   407.42 us>
    Random 4KiB (Q= 32, T=16):  1843.452 MB/s [ 450061.5 IOPS] <  1108.17 us>
    Random 4KiB (Q=  1, T= 1):    49.255 MB/s [  12025.1 IOPS] <    82.80 us>

[Write]
Sequential 1MiB (Q=  8, T= 1):  2843.540 MB/s [   2711.8 IOPS] <  2943.72 us>
Sequential 1MiB (Q=  1, T= 1):  2452.912 MB/s [   2339.3 IOPS] <   426.75 us>
    Random 4KiB (Q= 32, T=16):  1794.680 MB/s [ 438154.3 IOPS] <  1131.56 us>
    Random 4KiB (Q=  1, T= 1):   168.072 MB/s [  41033.2 IOPS] <    24.08 us>
 
Those numbers are odd for sure, I think something funky happened. Generally random 4k is slower than sequential.

When you're copying a lot of small files, the controller has to work harder. When you're copying from the same disk, you're hammering the controller with a lot of very small read and write requests, hence the very low transfer rates. I would expect the copy rate of small files to be slower than the slowest random 4k benchmark reading.
 
Tsumi said:
Those numbers are odd for sure, I think something funky happened. Generally random 4k is slower than sequential.

When you're copying a lot of small files, the controller has to work harder. When you're copying from the same disk, you're hammering the controller with a lot of very small read and write requests, hence the very low transfer rates. I would expect the copy rate of small files to be slower than the slowest random 4k benchmark reading.
Click to expand...

Was not aware of this, thanks for the info! Appreciate it.

I’ll run a test again now and see if it was just a random fluke or something.
 
Something definitely off with your RND4K Q1T1. Pic attached from my sig rig on the Sabrent Rocket 2TB.

I don't really know it's happening. I don't think the sector size would make a difference, but mine is running in 512e. If you cloned from an older drive it might be in 512N or 4kN but shouldn't make a big difference. Wouldn't hurt running sfc/scannow and chkdsk/r just to make sure Windows is in good shape. Probably wouldn't hurt to update motherboard BIOS to latest if you haven't.

Or like you mentioned maybe just a fluke
🤷‍♂️
 

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Dopamin3 said:
Something definitely off with your RND4K Q1T1. Pic attached from my sig rig on the Sabrent Rocket 2TB.

I don't really know it's happening. I don't think the sector size would make a difference, but mine is running in 512e. If you cloned from an older drive it might be in 512N or 4kN but shouldn't make a big difference. Wouldn't hurt running sfc/scannow and chkdsk/r just to make sure Windows is in good shape. Probably wouldn't hurt to update motherboard BIOS to latest if you haven't.

Or like you mentioned maybe just a fluke
🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...


Just ran it again, pretty much identical numbers on that 4k segment. I really dont get it. I'll see about updating bios on my motherboard.


Is that hurting real world perfomance?
 
bizzmeister said:
Just ran it again, pretty much identical numbers on that 4k segment. I really dont get it. I'll see about updating bios on my motherboard.


Is that hurting real world perfomance?
Click to expand...

Probably not, just recommending a "hail mary" here on stuff I would do if I was in your shoes. If your BIOS changelog says anything about improving m.2 stability I would definitely do it! (lol unlikely)

Given it's a clone I would still recommend doing a chkdsk/r and sfc/scannow (can just do them from elevated command prompt). They should both run pretty quick.
 
Dopamin3 said:
Probably not, just recommending a "hail mary" here on stuff I would do if I was in your shoes. If your BIOS changelog says anything about improving m.2 stability I would definitely do it! (lol unlikely)

Given it's a clone I would still recommend doing a chkdsk/r and sfc/scannow (can just do them from elevated command prompt). They should both run pretty quick.
Click to expand...

No idea how to do that lol. Id like to though.

EDIT* just ran chdsk/r, no problems found.
 
bizzmeister said:
No idea how to do that lol. Id like to though.

EDIT* just ran chdsk/r, no problems found.
Click to expand...

To run sfc just search for cmd, right click and run as administrator. Then in the DOS looking window that pops up type "sfc/scannow" with no quotes then press enter and you usually have to agree to run it. It will show a progress percentage and at the end tell you if any issues were found.

If you're talking about the motherboard flash, what motherboard do you have?
 
Dopamin3 said:
To run sfc just search for cmd, right click and run as administrator. Then in the DOS looking window that pops up type "sfc/scannow" with no quotes then press enter and you usually have to agree to run it. It will show a progress percentage and at the end tell you if any issues were found.

If you're talking about the motherboard flash, what motherboard do you have?
Click to expand...


Thanks bud, i just youtubed it ( about the SFC ) I have the ASROCK Phantom Gaming z390 Mini ITX. I know for a fact im not on the latest bios. Maybe ill do that this weekend. I dont think im taking any performance hit at all from what i can tell during gaming or what not but its just annoying knowing that now lol.
 
Dopamin3 said:
I don't think the sector size would make a difference, but mine is running in 512e. If you cloned from an older drive it might be in 512N or 4kN but shouldn't make a big difference.
Click to expand...

More importantly he needs to be 4K-aligned if he cloned in that manner, it can definitely tank 4K performance if it's not aligned (can check status in AS SSD).
 
I really doubt BIOS flash is going to help after what Maxx said.

Maxx said:
More importantly he needs to be 4K-aligned if he cloned in that manner, it can definitely tank 4K performance if it's not aligned (can check status in AS SSD).
Click to expand...

Good advice. I'm not too well versed on that kind of stuff. Side note, all your resources you provide on SSDs is just simply incredible! I've been on that subreddit before for info, cool to see you posting here.
 
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Maxx said:
More importantly he needs to be 4K-aligned if he cloned in that manner, it can definitely tank 4K performance if it's not aligned (can check status in AS SSD).
Click to expand...

Is this 4K alignment thing just a simple app I run and it does it for me without deleting or making any changes to the drive ?


after some googling, apparently


Windows 10 SSD alignment via AOMEI Partition Assistant

is the way to go if you want to just align the 4k segment without data loss on anything
 
Last edited:
Ok, so just downloaded and purchased the licensed $43 version of AOMEI Partition Assistant since the free version doesnt allow you to align the 4096 sector of your drive.

I just did it, took about 15 minutes, no data loss at all. This is a new run, after 4k alignment. Just thought id share with the people tagging along in here wondering how it went.



WNYcaov.jpg


Fail.
 
Both your random Q1 and sequential Q1 are abnormally low. I wonder if there is a firmware update for the drive that you need to apply. Perhaps an RMA may need to be looked at as well. Sequential Q1 should be about as fast or faster than random Q32. There is something about the initial read/write that is dramatically slowing things down, like the drive is going to sleep as soon as a process is finished or something.
 
bizzmeister said:
Ok, so just downloaded and purchased the licensed $43 version of AOMEI Partition Assistant since the free version doesnt allow you to align the 4096 sector of your drive.

I just did it, took about 15 minutes, no data loss at all. This is a new run, after 4k alignment. Just thought id share with the people tagging along in here wondering how it went.



View attachment 240987


Fail.
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Well, as I said above, you can use the benchmark program AS SSD to see if it's 4K-aligned. It might have already been aligned! Also, there are free ways to do 4K alignment I believe, sorry I didn't see your posts until now.

Test CDM in safe mode if possible to rule out software interference.
 
i feel your pain. Your hardware shouldn't be a bottleneck,
but you suffer the same problem I do with shittier 4k random speeds.

I only get 1/3 the 4k speeds that reviewers get, when using the same version of CDM.

I'm getting another laptop to test my ssd's in.

Maybe you have another pc you can stick the nvme into to see if you get the same slow 4k speed?

If you still have your optane drive, maybe you can wipe this 2tb ssd completely, just to do speed tests as a slave drive.


Untitled.png
 
Kdawg said:
i feel your pain. Your hardware shouldn't be a bottleneck,
but you suffer the same problem I do with shittier 4k random speeds.

I only get 1/3 the 4k speeds that reviewers get, when using the same version of CDM.

I'm getting another laptop to test my ssd's in.

Maybe you have another pc you can stick the nvme into to see if you get the same slow 4k speed?

If you still have your optane drive, maybe you can wipe this 2tb ssd completely, just to do speed tests as a slave drive.


View attachment 241019
Click to expand...

It’s really frustrating it’s doing this. Even though I don’t feel any impact gaming or anything.

I think this may have happened because of the cloning.

I just don’t want to start over again by formatting and wiping the SSD.

I just may though. If that didn’t fix it, then I’d snap lol.
 
For anyone who cares, compleltely wiping the drive in a couple hours through diskpart and doing a fresh win 10 install. I will post updated numbers once again tonight around 9:30pm PST
 
I know that pain of starting from scratch, but sometimes you just have to do it. I've found that starting from scratch, I end up getting rid of a lot of software I no longer use.
 
Tsumi said:
I know that pain of starting from scratch, but sometimes you just have to do it. I've found that starting from scratch, I end up getting rid of a lot of software I no longer use.
Click to expand...

Yah, this should solve all my issues I hope.

I started the “disk part” process through cmdprompt to securely fully erase the entire disk.

Wasn’t aware it takes this long. Almost an hour in, still not done.
 
Shikami said:
On the software's website, it does detail that running with admin rights and non admin can change the results a bit for the RND4K Q1T1. Scroll to the bottom: https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/

Write cache policy for both options in the Device Manager are toggled (enabled)?

Beyond these, dunno
Click to expand...

Damn I had no idea running as admin or not made a difference. Well, it’s in the process of being wiped clean right now for a fresh install of win 10 instead of the clone it was before.

I don’t recall if both those options were toggled or not, I never touched anything like that myself.
 
SO..... I give up. So stupid.


Did a proper CLEAN ALL wipe of the SSD. Brand new key for win 10 pro, installed everything back as it was 1 by 1. And still



rDQgxZY.jpg


Just gonna roll with it, everything still works perfectly fine but i guess we'll never know.
 
This isn't right. Are you still getting transfer speed drops on a file copy to sub-10MB/s? You might simply have faulty hardware.

Almost all TLC-based SSDs have a relatively small SLC cache. This allows them to absorb writes at super fast speeds to the SLC and then spool them out at the slower sustained write speed of their TLC flash as a background process. My *guess* based on the behavior seen here is that the drive controller might be experiencing intermittent errors when writing out to TLC, which exhausts some kind of retry buffer within the drive controller. At that point, the controller would get backed up (causing your super slow copy operation you saw).

The baseline speed of your SSD, assuming it's not completely full and you have already exhausted the SLC cache, should be in the realm of 1 GB/s for a sequential write. You should copy one big file, rather than a bunch of little files, and observe the speed behavior. If during the copy of a single large file (50gb+) you get speed dips below 10 MB/s, then something is seriously wrong.

Additionally, you might make sure the drive isn't just in need of a TRIM. Open up Defrag and hit Optimize on the drive.
 
sinisterDei said:
This isn't right. Are you still getting transfer speed drops on a file copy to sub-10MB/s? You might simply have faulty hardware.

Almost all TLC-based SSDs have a relatively small SLC cache. This allows them to absorb writes at super fast speeds to the SLC and then spool them out at the slower sustained write speed of their TLC flash as a background process. My *guess* based on the behavior seen here is that the drive controller might be experiencing intermittent errors when writing out to TLC, which exhausts some kind of retry buffer within the drive controller. At that point, the controller would get backed up (causing your super slow copy operation you saw).

The baseline speed of your SSD, assuming it's not completely full and you have already exhausted the SLC cache, should be in the realm of 1 GB/s for a sequential write. You should copy one big file, rather than a bunch of little files, and observe the speed behavior. If during the copy of a single large file (50gb+) you get speed dips below 10 MB/s, then something is seriously wrong.

Additionally, you might make sure the drive isn't just in need of a TRIM. Open up Defrag and hit Optimize on the drive.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your input bro, I will try a large transfer and see what happens shortly. Thing is, I have no solid file that big i can move on this drive. It’s only games. I have 1.48TB left of 1.9Tb

would a brand new untouched drive like this need a TRIM? What would be the easiest way to go about optimizing this ?
 
run a defrag it sends a Trim command to all free space (it typically runs once a week or whenever maintenance task is ran)

on a new drive all space be zeroed any way

for testing a large file, download h2testw and it will make a bunch of 1GB files, run as admin if it fails to make the test files (you can use it to test the drive as well as zip the h2w files all up into one large file)
 
likeman said:
run a defrag it sends a Trim command to all free space (it typically runs once a week or whenever maintenance task is ran)

on a new drive all space be zeroed any way

for testing a large file, download h2testw and it will make a bunch of 1GB files, run as admin if it fails to make the test files (you can use it to test the drive as well as zip the h2w files all up into one large file)
Click to expand...

I've always been under the impression you SHOULDN'T defrag an SSD because it's not necessary and can actually shorten the life some.

I really don't know what the issue is here. Maybe open a ticket with Silicon Power and see if they have any advice or will open an RMA case for you. I know I couldn't live with big dips like that when I was unzipping a folder or whatever.
 
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