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???

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

mikeym · 11 Jul 2020 at 19:22

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

mikeym · 11 Jul 2020 at 22:49

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.

Was it just write performance and what did it go down to?

I've now run full virus/malware scans and nothing detected. Been looking at resource monitor and performance tab in task manager. The latter generally sits at 0-1% activity. Resource monitor is generally a lot higher than the 4000 bytes/sec mentioned above but just system and chrome related activity - nothing suspicious or that I could simply uninstall, etc.

mikeym · 12 Jul 2020 at 00:01

Edit: scratch below, did a couple more checks and restarted PC. Ran benchmark again and back to under 1000MB/s... Ran it a bit later and back up to 2143MB/s. Started to wonder if it was temperature related but temps all fairly consistent.

Decided to uninstall Avast after getting annoyed with the amount of resource it was hogging and being completely unimpressed with the premium features I decided to trial.

Then ran benchmark and write speeds doubled to around 2000MB/s. I still think other stuff may be holding it back still and therefore tempted to reinstall windows but might wait a while to do that. Will have to keep an eye on total write activity to decide if I should bit the bullet...

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 3479.265 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1920.710 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 1320.028 MB/s [ 322272.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 975.499 MB/s [ 238158.9 IOPS]
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 571.554 MB/s [ 139539.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 532.524 MB/s [ 130010.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 44.612 MB/s [ 10891.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 222.823 MB/s [ 54400.1 IOPS]

mikeym · 12 Jul 2020 at 09:15

Boot up this morning and I get almost comparable results to you @FredFlint !

mikeym · 12 Jul 2020 at 09:30

Journey said:
That's much better. Have you really written 7800GB in just a few day though? 263,188 to 270,994

Other version of DiskInfo gives me this...

mikeym · 12 Jul 2020 at 17:46

Seems performance has now stabilised and I've been doing some more cleanup of processes and services so will now stop benchmarking and just keep an eye on writes to my NVME. Hopefully it will now slow down dramatically...

I may also wipe and use as a storage drive when I get a new NVME.

mikeym · 13 Jul 2020 at 18:11

Isn't that a bit high, even for RAID?!

Spec: All-new extreme data performance controller delivers up to 3, 480MB/sec sequential read, and up to 3, 000MB/s sequential write, for blazing fast read, write and response times

mikeym · 13 Jul 2020 at 18:14

I'm now monitoring host writes and after a bit of tidying I'm down to a little over 1GB per hour instead of the lifetime average of 50GB+!

Now keeping a keen eye on prices for my next NVME purchase...

mikeym · 25 Jul 2020 at 09:52

Just a quick update - after going through and stopping all instant game/replay capturing, processes and unnecessary programs I had my host writes consistently down to a very low level.

However, in the steam sale I purchased BF4 for a bit of fun. Had a go online last night and after a quick session, just 1 round on 1 map, it had made 300GB of host writes!

I guess I will have to keep games and OS separate. Maybe get a smaller NVME for OS / Applications and run current one into the ground with all my games - not sure yet...

mikeym · 25 Jul 2020 at 13:33

just playing - had it installed a while back and did a quick offline session before yesterday's online session. Could be something to do with particular map / first time.

Will try again tonight and post an update...

mikeym · 27 Jul 2020 at 11:13

Haven't managed to get around to trying BF4 again, will post update as soon as I do.

For many years I have had OS and select games on SSD without any issues regarding high write activity. Decided to splash out on a 2TB NVME so I didn't have to pick and choose games to go on it but then had this issue. I've done a lot of tidying and write activity is now at a very good level, even with many racing simulators and regular updates / mods. Now it only seems to be BF4 that is giving OTT use but guess other games that I haven't monitored may give similar results - will just have to keep an eye on it and if there's nothing that can be done, I'll put it on an old SSD for now or future NVME depending on the severity.

mikeym · 27 Jul 2020 at 13:21

16GB ram, so should be fine?

mikeym · 27 Jul 2020 at 18:35

It is still a bit of a mystery where all the writes came from.

As a comparison, my previous 1TB SSD with around 7400 hours use has just over 7000GB host writes. In line with other people. The only difference between OS / progs / games installs is that I have a few extra games on the NVME...