Drive or mobo issues

[ansin]

I bought a new PC and noticed some issues sometimes with my Seagate 1TB HDD, like slow transfer speeds. I also had a 750 Evo SSD for my OS. I thought the EVO was reporting ok speeds so I just thought I had a bad HDD, which I sent into warranty. They have reported that after testing it seems ok. In the meantime I also bought a new SSD (black friday sale), a Samsung 850 EVO. Right now, I only have my two SSD's, the HDD is still in warranty.

I thought since the 850 EVO is a bit faster I would clone my 750 EVO to the 850 EVO (both 250GB), and did it without errors using Macrium. Now I began testing both SSD's by connecting them one at a time to the PC in the OS Drive (SATA 3) on my motherboard (Asus Z170-A). I ran tests using HDTune Pro and CrystalDisk Mark. However, while running the File Benchmark test on the 850 EVO I sometimes (pretty often) get an I/O Error and the test aborts. I noticed that it usually occurs at the 4k Random Single Write test.

Here are my results for the 750EVO (only File Benchmark ran) : http://imgur.com/a/Wu3PV
And here are my results for the 850 EVO (more tests here): http://imgur.com/a/Q7qKV

Having said all this, what do you guys think the issue is ? Is any of my drive faulty ? Why are there I/O Errors with the 850 EVO (because of cloning?) ? Is my motherboard at fault ? I don't know where to go from here. Can someone please offer some insight ? Thank you

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, @ansin!

I'd advise you check the health tab in the benchmark tool and see if there's anything wrong with the SMART attributes of the SSDs. However, I suspect that the I/O issue could be caused by a faulty connection to one of the drives. I'd advise you to swap the SATA cables connecting the SSDs and see if the error will still occur. You mentioned that you used to have the 1 TB HDD connected, is the second SSD connected to the same port as the 1 TB? If it is please make sure you swap the SATA port as well.

Make sure you backup all your important data somewhere off-site before you proceed with the troubleshooting!
Keep me posted & good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[ansin]

Hello, thanks for the reply. I did check SMART attributes and all seemed ok, I also did a quick error check from HDTune and a windows check disk, and all was ok. The second SSD isn't connected in the same port as the 1TB, that's where my first SSD is now. Since the SATA3 is recommended as the OS Drive, I put my second SSD in that port after cloning my OS on it. I however didn't try swapping cables around, I will try it tonight and see if anything else changes. I will probably also try different ports and see if the I/O Error still occurs. Will update with results.

LE: However, I don't think it's a problem with the port since I tested with each SSD connected independently, and my first SSD did not have any IO Errors, and it was connected to the same SATA3 port. My only chance is to find out the cable isn't good, or some connection issue, although they seem firmly in place (kinda easy since you feel and hear them click into place).

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Well, in this case I do hope the issue is coming from the SATA Cables then, @ansin! If you do have access to another computer, you should also try plugging the SSDs there and see if the I/O while benchmarking will still occur. This is another way to determine what could be source of the problem.
Don't forget to backup any important data before you proceed with the troubleshooting, though.

If the problem still persists with the SSD, check its warranty and contact the manufacturer's or the reseller's customer support for assistance with the RMA & replacement procedure.

Let me know how it goes.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[ansin]

I was considering plugging in the SSD in my other PC or laptop, but was wondering if there would be any issue with my Win10 license since the SSD has my OS on it.

LE: Since my laptop can only have one SSD, and it is already taken by the OS, I can try in my other PC(hopefully it still works) and set the boot option to take my current HDD from it, then all should be fine I think.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Indeed, @ansin!

You shouldn't face any issues with plugging the SSD in your laptop EXTERNALLY using a SATA-to-USB cable to see if it will get recognized as a device in Device Manager and in Disk Management as a storage drive. This shouldn't affect the booting order in your laptop. It still knows that it has to boot from the primary SSD drive inside.

If you have another PC, you can simply plug the SSD in the secondary available SATA ports. Again, it shouldn't interfere with the boot up process, if the boot priority is set to the primary drive. However, the SSD should pop up as a secondary drive and it should be be accessible in Disk Management, so you definitely need to give it a try, since you have that option!

Once it gets recognized properly, run the benchmark utility again and see if any I/O errors will occur.

SuperSoph_WD

 

[ansin]

@SuperSoph_WD Small update, I tried swapping both the SATA and the PSU cable and still got the IO Error. I thought I'd try again with the 750 EVO and surprise, got the IO Error here as well. Then I thought, let's try and exclude the blame for HDTune, so I opened up my laptop which has a SSD for the OS(ADATA something) and did the test two times and voila, I/O Error. So I am pretty confident it's because of HDTune ? Maybe not the perfect tool for testing SSD's ? OR maybe it's a problem with the version itself (5.6). I'd appreciate it if you could replicate the issue on your end, just for some sake of mind.

I also picked up my HDD from warranty and plugged it in, running some tests as I am writing this post. Probably the only real concern I have is sometimes lower transfer speeds ? Like does it seem normal that sometimes HDTune reports speeds of ~400MB read and sometimes 500 ? Another concern is the UserBenchmark database which reports that my SSD's aren't running at optimal speed (compared to other users) although they are on the green scale with a score of Great/Excelent. Should I further investigate the speed issue ? I'll probably try plugging them into my other PC in the weekend, I think it's gonna take some time which I don't have after work.

LE: CrystalDisk seems to be reporting constant speed of 550 on Seq read test. Maybe the difference in results reported by HDTune are because of uncompressable data ?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hello again, @ansin!

If the I/O error appears only in this benchmark utility, then you should definitely try using a different one. Moreover, here are some SSD-specific diagnostic tools you can use as well. It's highly recommended to use the drive manufacturer's brand-specific tools when it comes to testing their models and simply use third-party alternatives to benchmark the results, if you want to. However, those third-party utilities sometimes might not give accurate information about the health state of a drive. A lot of other things can influence a drive's performance - like software, the OS itself, virus/malware, improper mounting inside the PC or a failed cable/port.

Are you sure that you got speeds 400/500 MB/s on your mechanical hard drive that you just go replaced? It's odd because an HDD is unable to break the SATA II bandwidth and their speeds are usually around 150/200 MB/s depending on the model and capabilities.

Posting some more screenshots would be really helpful. I'd definitely advise you to check their performance in your other PC over the weekend.

Let me know how it goes afterwards.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[ansin]

Regarding the speeds I mentioned, they were reported for the SSD, I know the mechanical drive can't reach such speeds, sorry for not being very clear. I will post more screenshots, and test the drives on another PC. However on the HDD I did get varying results after restarting my PC. First time max speeds of ~160MB/s min of ~95MB/s, and second time after rebooting, something like 90MB/s max speed, which was the reason I sent the HDD in warranty in the first place. If I do get the same behavior connecting it to my other PC, then I'll just assume they tested the drive a single time, which showed normal operating speeds. If not, then I'm worried is something more complicated and try to pin point the cause.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Sorry, @ansin! I should have assumed you were talking about the SSD. You are indeed pretty educated and tech savvy! *kudos*
As for the transfer speed, ~ 160 MB/s is definitely a normal max rate for a mechanical hard drive. If you do experience any drops, you should check the processes that could be influencing the transfer speed and also check if swapping the SATA cable or the SATA port would help you get things back to normal.

Hope it helps!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[ansin]

No harm done, I am actually a CS engineer, but my field of work is in software engineering not hardware . I did change the port for the HDD since the old one I was using is now taken by one of my SSD's, but haven't tried swapping the cables as well.

 

[ansin]

Well, I tried testing my HDD into my other computer and the PSU just died while I was trying to power it up so that's that. However, I did try swapping cables between SSD and HDD, and the problem with the HDD still persists. Sometimes on startup the speeds are good, sometimes not so much. SSD's speeds are constant, even when the HDD gets a "bad boot" SSD reports same speeds I posted earlier, so I'm thinking that if there was a problem with the mobo, SSD would be affected by it too. I'm pretty confident the HDD is at fault, and they just didn't test it enough in warranty to notice it. I think I'm going to send it back and insist on testing it on multiple OS boots.

Here are the bad speeds recorded from my HDD: http://imgur.com/a/MmVYK

@SuperSoph_WD I also added a few pictures with info/health tab for each drive. Anything out of the ordinary ? http://imgur.com/a/KjAWX

LE: Probably last update and I'll call it a night. I figured I should try updating the firmware to version CC4H from the seagate website (http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/223651en). My Serial Part is different and couldn't find anything using their firmware finder, but I figure this one should be compatible(other users from the retailer said they successfully upgraded firmware), however I tried using the exe updater and it prompts me with a "General Disk Error. Use iso to install bla bla". Haven't tried with the iso, and not sure if I should go forward with it.

Error: http://imgur.com/a/atLo8

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

I'd say that the SSDs look fine, but the HDD speeds definitely don't look satisfying, @ansin! Maybe you should try swapping the SATA cables and check how the system will perform then. If you do have access to another PC, try plugging the hard drive there and benchmark its transfer rate again, make sure you run the HDD's brand-specific diagnostic tool as well (run both the Short & the Long tests). It's weird because the SMART stats indicate that it had been used for quite some time but it was just replaced, right?

Since you have tried updating the hard drive's firmware as well, make sure you follow the instructions precisely as they are listed in the tutorial documentation. Doing it via a bootable media is definitely a better way to go about updating your hardware's firmware without any interference from Windows OS.

SuperSoph_WD

 

[ansin]

I'm assuming you are referring to the HDD when saying it's been used for a while. In that case, no, the HDD was not replaced since their tests reveal nothing wrong with it and I just got it back. They ran Seatool diagnostics and HDTune transfer benchmark, which were both ok. I also ran the Seatool DST test and it passed successfully, did not try any other test from the suite yet. That's why I was saying I should insist on more testing of the HDD from them if I end up sending it into warranty again..

I will try to update firmware through a bootable usb with the iso image, read somewhere else the utility isn't very fail proof due to windows mbr partition in order to run the firmware upgrade through a restart, maybe that's why I'm getting the error.