[SOLVED] how to correctly connect two pcie 4.0 nvme disks on X570 AORUS MASTER

[kecmen]

I found out my second SSD disk to be slow and I wonder whether it is connected to the best way possible to my motherboard. I've read the manual but honestly I don't understand the sharing of PCIe links. All components (graphic card and both SSD disks) are PCIe 4.0 but the reading speed of the second disk is about 200 - 500 MB.

The disk is 70% full.

How would you suggest to correctly connect graphic card and 2 SSD disks?

My Configuration:

Motherboard: X570 AORUS MASTER (https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X570-AORUS-MASTER-rev-10/sp#sp, manual (pdf) - https://download.gigabyte.com/FileL...1002_e.pdf?v=30c7ecc8f9bc0e464b65a4062dd58841)

Graphic card: AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger D 8G OC (https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger D 8G OC/)

First SSD (fast): Force Series Gen.4 PCIe MP600 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD (https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categ...™-Gen-4-PCIe-NVMe-M-2-SSD/p/CSSD-F1000GBMP600)

Second SSD (slow): WD BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD (https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-black-sn850-nvme-ssd#WDS100T1X0E)



Thanks for any suggestions

 

[USAFRet]

What is showing you these speeds?

 

[emitfudd]

The link to your motherboard show this which means both the M.2 ports are rated for PCIe 4.0:

• 1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 SATA and PCIe 4.0 / 3.0 x4/x2 SSD support) (M2B_SOCKET)
• 1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA and PCIe 4.0 / 3.0 x4/x2 SSD support) (M2C_SOCKET)

The manual should tell you if using some of the sata ports disables or slows the M.2 ports.

How much slower is the slow one? I get pretty significantly different results when benchmarking my M.2's with Samsung Magician.

 

[kecmen]

What is showing you these speeds?

hdparm:

hdparm -Tt /dev/nvme0n1; echo 'second'; hdparm -Tt /dev/nvme1n1

/dev/nvme0n1:
Timing cached reads: 28052 MB in 2.00 seconds = 14043.20 MB/sec
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
Timing buffered disk reads: 538 MB in 3.00 seconds = 179.10 MB/sec
second

/dev/nvme1n1:
Timing cached reads: 28176 MB in 2.00 seconds = 14104.81 MB/sec
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
Timing buffered disk reads: 6366 MB in 3.00 seconds = 2121.93 MB/sec

 

[kecmen]

The link to your motherboard show this which means both the M.2 ports are rated for PCIe 4.0:

• 1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 SATA and PCIe 4.0 / 3.0 x4/x2 SSD support) (M2B_SOCKET)
• 1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA and PCIe 4.0 / 3.0 x4/x2 SSD support) (M2C_SOCKET)

The manual should tell you if using some of the sata ports disables or slows the M.2 ports.

How much slower is the slow one? I get pretty significantly different results when benchmarking my M.2's with Samsung Magician.

one reads 2121 MB/sec and the other one just 179 MB/sec

 

[emitfudd]

From your motherboard manual:

"The availability of the SATA connectors may be affected by the type of device installed in the M.2 sockets. The
M2C_SOCKET connector shares bandwidth with the SATA3 4/5 connector. Refer to the following tables for details. "

You have 3 M.2 slots. Are you using the top 2? A and B.

 

[kecmen]

From your motherboard manual:

"The availability of the SATA connectors may be affected by the type of device installed in the M.2 sockets. The
M2C_SOCKET connector shares bandwidth with the SATA3 4/5 connector. Refer to the following tables for details. "

You have 3 M.2 slots. Are you using the top 2? A and B.

I have M2A (wester digital - the slow one) and M2C (Corsair). The SATA disk is connected to port 1, so it shoud not affect the m2 disks.

 

[emitfudd]

Maybe someone will chime in with why the buffered disk reads are affected and the cached reads aren't.

Is the firmware updated for the Western Digital?

 

[USAFRet]

BIOS up to date on the motherboard?

 

[kecmen]

Maybe someone will chime in with why the buffered disk reads are affected and the cached reads aren't.

Is the firmware updated for the Western Digital?

i guess. I mean, WD on their site only offers firmware update for win/mac os (i'm using linux)

 

[kecmen]

BIOS up to date on the motherboard?

I, I've just checked that and it should be up-to-date

 

[USAFRet]

I, I've just checked that and it should be up-to-date

'should be' or 'is'?

 

[Bob.B]

I found out my second SSD disk to be slow and I wonder whether it is connected to the best way possible to my motherboard. I've read the manual but honestly I don't understand the sharing of PCIe links. All components (graphic card and both SSD disks) are PCIe 4.0 but the reading speed of the second disk is about 200 - 500 MB.

The disk is 70% full.

How would you suggest to correctly connect graphic card and 2 SSD disks?

My Configuration:

Motherboard: X570 AORUS MASTER (https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X570-AORUS-MASTER-rev-10/sp#sp, manual (pdf) - https://download.gigabyte.com/FileL...1002_e.pdf?v=30c7ecc8f9bc0e464b65a4062dd58841)

Graphic card: AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger D 8G OC (https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger D 8G OC/)

First SSD (fast): Force Series Gen.4 PCIe MP600 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD (https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Storage/M-2-SSDs/Force-Series™-Gen-4-PCIe-NVMe-M-2-SSD/p/CSSD-F1000GBMP600)

Second SSD (slow): WD BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD (https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-black-sn850-nvme-ssd#WDS100T1X0E)



Thanks for any suggestions

Swap the 2 disk around.
Does the problem follow the disk or the slot?

 

[kecmen]

Ok, so I guess I have found the cause of the problem, so posting here in case anyone else have the same issue.
It was basically an issue on WD side:

WD is fixing a bug that makes Black SN850 SSDs run slow on X570 motherboards

Be on the lookout for a firmware upgrade by mid-July.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[emitfudd]

Ok, so I guess I have found the cause of the problem, so posting here in case anyone else have the same issue.
It was basically an issue on WD side:

WD is fixing a bug that makes Black SN850 SSDs run slow on X570 motherboards

Be on the lookout for a firmware upgrade by mid-July.

www.pcgamer.com

From the last paragraph of your link:

"you only need to fire up the Western Digital Dashboard utility and it will automatically prompt you to download and install the new firmware."

Have you tried this yet and did it work?

 

[kecmen]

'should be' or 'is'?

it is. but the problem seems to be in the WD firmware, i need to update it

 

[kecmen]

From the last paragraph of your link:

"you only need to fire up the Western Digital Dashboard utility and it will automatically prompt you to download and install the new firmware."

Have you tried this yet and did it work?

Not yet since is it a good habit of many companies to ignore linux, i need to somehow prepare bootable windows drive just to download small utility from WD to update the firmware

 

[kecmen]

From the last paragraph of your link:

"you only need to fire up the Western Digital Dashboard utility and it will automatically prompt you to download and install the new firmware."

Have you tried this yet and did it work?

So I updated the FW and the results were the same. What I needed to do after that was to reformat the drive (same filesystem and size). That fixed the issue (at least for now)