Question 90% disk usage when downloading game

Alectrona

Great
Jan 15, 2024
116
3
85
So I just got a new laptop Lenovo Loq 15.6
Specs:
7435hs
4060
16gb ddr5 4800mhz
Micron MTFDKCD512QFM

Whenever I am downloading games the ssd reaches 90% usage is this normal or should I return?


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Misgar

Respectable
Mar 2, 2023
1,938
522
2,590
Whenever I am downloading games the ssd reaches 90% usage
How much free space do you have on the SSD? If less than 30% is free (which might not be the case on a brand new laptop) the disk controller might spend more time looking for free blocks.

To check the SSD, download a trial copy of Hard Disk Sentinel and run a Surface Read-only (non destructive) scan, which might take several hours.

A more thorough (non-destructive) test would be a Write/Read Surface scan. This moves small blocks of data to one side, writes to each block, checks integrity and restores data to the block just tested. This test takes twice as long.

https://www.hdsentinel.com/help/en/61_surfacetest.html
 
Micron MTFDKCD512QFM
This looks to be a 512GB Micron 2400. How fast are you downloading? This drive uses QLC and at this capacity (which is low) the cache is pretty small and QLC performance will be pretty terrible. To ballpark it, this flash is rated for up to 27 MB/s per die and you have four dies here so a max of 108 MB/s. Most likely Micron went with a full-drive SLC cache here, so it'll be folding once you exceed that cache at <54 MB/s. I'd estimate it could be even in the 20-40 MB/s range, depending on other factors, which I guess you can check in Task Manager. It's possible your Internet connection is faster than the drive in this state, basically. I haven't seen this drive tested for sustained writes so am not sure how bad it would be, but that's my guess.