MP510 2TB NVME - slow write speeds?

mikeym · 8 Jul 2020 at 14:40

I've run out of ideas as to why write speeds are below spec (Up to 2,700MB/s) - latest bios, drivers, firmware, definitely optimised, reduced from 75% full to around 50% full (does it need to go further?!).

Is there something i have missed..?

I've only had it a few months and health is down to 90%. I have other SSD drives that I have had for years and they are still above 95%. Is reduction to 90% common for NVME???

hominid · 8 Jul 2020 at 21:47

It depends on how much, and for what, you use it for. If you use it for a scratch/temp drive for image/video manipulation then it'll get worn quick, but if it's just a OS/game drive then I would be slightly concerned.

I've just ran Crystaldiskmark and for my 960-pro NVME drive with 9715hours on it is still @ 100% good fyi!

You don't need to down to 50% occupancy, I would say on a 2TB drive you can use 80-90% of it and it should be fine. The only thing I would worry about, that could be hampering you and you can't tell what it is, is if the drive is moving files/data around, which it can/has to do for wear leveling on the flash cells, behind your back! It's not a good thing to constantly benchmark these drives as it damages them, basically anything that you do with them wears them a little, but if you constantly benchmark it looking for an issue it'll be a good way to cause a few % damage to it.

BongoHunter · 8 Jul 2020 at 21:53

Write speed will only hit advertised spec in perfect workloads - and write speed will always be reduced once you've filled the drives cache.

I was looking at loads of different 2TB NVME recently in a thread a few down from this one - you really have to pay a premium for sustained write performance it appears

mikeym · 8 Jul 2020 at 22:22

Thanks for the replies. Not too concerned about the 90% thing. If I use CrystalDiskInfo 8.2 it reads 100% health, 90% in 8.6.2. All other drives show same health in each version.

As you say Bongo, seems fairly standard that write speeds decrease like this.

It is only an OS/Games drive so not too fussed about write speed and will be getting another 1-2TB NVME at some point so may switch that to OS/Games depending on what I get...

father-ted · 10 Jul 2020 at 08:38

I am guessing you have set it to the correct 'gen' in BIOS?
I was seeing a significantly slower speed until I realised mine was set to gen4 when it is a gen3 device
Chnaged the setting and I got more speed (but still slightly below the advertised speeds)

mikeym · 10 Jul 2020 at 10:19

father-ted said:
I am guessing you have set it to the correct 'gen' in BIOS?
I was seeing a significantly slower speed until I realised mine was set to gen4 when it is a gen3 device
Chnaged the setting and I got more speed (but still slightly below the advertised speeds)

Yep - no difference

FredFlint · 11 Jul 2020 at 15:29

Here is mine for reference:

Your writes look high, might be because its the boot drive but still high?

mikeym · 11 Jul 2020 at 18:12

FredFlint said:
Your writes look high, might be because its the boot drive but still high?

I noticed that. I have my os and progs/games (steam library) on it and apart from running benchmark a few times, nothing abnormal...

FredFlint · 11 Jul 2020 at 18:22

mikeym said:
I noticed that. I have my os and progs/games (steam library) on it and apart from running benchmark a few times, nothing abnormal...

I would look for some malware, something is hammering the drive with writes, we have almost the same drive runtime and capacity used but your writes are over 200 times higher?

mikeym · 11 Jul 2020 at 18:23

I'll maybe dig further. I do a lot of sim racing, so could be something to do with writing replays. Don't think I have anything like nvidia shadowplay running...

Minstadave · 11 Jul 2020 at 18:36

MP510 has quite a few reports about slow right speeds over time.

https://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=194014

https://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=191013

mikeym · 11 Jul 2020 at 18:39

FredFlint said:
I would look for some malware, something is hammering the drive with writes, we have almost the same drive runtime and capacity used but your writes are over 200 times higher?

I use MalwareBytes and run that relatively often. I just checked and found Nvidia did have ingame overlay active with 5GB limit set for capturing 'highlights' with temp files written to the NVME. Have now turned that off... Not sure that would be the culprit for the high writes?

mikeym · 11 Jul 2020 at 18:41

Minstadave said:
MP510 has quite a few reports about slow right speeds over time.

https://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=194014

https://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=191013

Yep, I found those posts which made me think it's just something to put up with. Will be trying a different manufacturer next... Either ADATA or Sabrent by the looks of it...

FredFlint · 11 Jul 2020 at 18:54

mikeym said:
Yep, I found those posts which made me think it's just something to put up with. Will be trying a different manufacturer next... Either ADATA or Sabrent by the looks of it...

I don't think its the drive, to me it looks like its software hammering the drive which is slowing it down. Use recurse monitor to find out what doing it and fast as it is heavily reducing the drives lifespan. Scan for malware/viruses/miners.

mikeym · 11 Jul 2020 at 19:22

What are recommended programmes currently? - been using Malwarebytes free and Avast free for quite a while now...

FredFlint · 11 Jul 2020 at 20:28

mikeym said:
What are recommended programmes currently? - been using Malwarebytes free and Avast free for quite a while now...

I use Malwarebytes free. Press windows start button and type recurse monitor, then sort by writes in the disk section, you should be able to find out what is doing all the damage. I would remove it.
Note: its in bytes/second and windows will normally do 4000+ writes per second.

BongoHunter · 11 Jul 2020 at 22:07

mikeym said:
I use MalwareBytes and run that relatively often. I just checked and found Nvidia did have ingame overlay active with 5GB limit set for capturing 'highlights' with temp files written to the NVME. Have now turned that off... Not sure that would be the culprit for the high writes?

I would think the Nvidia capure would be the source of all your writes - it buffers a small amount of stuff in memory but has to write and remove loads of stuff from disk for every chunk of gameplay it captures (those files are not small by any stretch)

Journey · 11 Jul 2020 at 22:18

I had this issue with two 1TB models, I wiped them after I couldn't fix the issue, which worked, and then it started doing it again. Eventually RMA'd then and got replacements as the drives were worthless to the end user with such low write performance. Still monitoring the current ones but they seem much better.

BongoHunter · 11 Jul 2020 at 22:22

Journey said:
I had this issue with two 1TB models, I wiped them after I couldn't fix the issue, which worked, and then it started doing it again. Eventually RMA'd then and got replacements as the drives were worthless to the end user with such low write performance. Still monitoring the current ones but they seem much better.

Were these MP510's as well? I'm still considering getting a 2TB version for a secondary system - ruled out getting one for my primary box now as have managed to get something much faster - but the price definitely appeals for the capacity you get (and reviews are still good generally)

Journey · 11 Jul 2020 at 22:27

BongoHunter said:
Were these MP510's as well? I'm still considering getting a 2TB version for a secondary system - ruled out getting one for my primary box now as have managed to get something much faster - but the price definitely appeals for the capacity you get (and reviews are still good generally)

Yes MP510's