M.2 SSD 50% slower than SATA SSD???!!!

[biocentrism]

I have found that an M.2 SSD is 50% slower than a SATA SSD when writing to a database.
I have also found that an M.2 SSD is about 4% slower than a SATA SSD when reading from a database.

Here is Setup#1:
SSD: SAMSUNG XP941 Series MZHPU512HCGL-00000 M.2 512GB PCIe Gen2
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Motherboard: Asus X-99 Deluxe
Application: Microsoft Excel 2013 64-bit
Database: Microsoft Access 2013 64-bit

Here is Setup#2:
SSD: CRUCIAL M550 SSD - 1TB SATA
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Motherboard: Asus X-99 Deluxe
Application: Microsoft Excel 2013 64-bit
Database: Microsoft Access 2013 64-bit

So everything is identical except the location of the database.

When the database is located on the M.2 SSD, the writing application takes 120 seconds to complete.
When the database is located on the SATA SSD, the writing application takes 80 seconds to complete.

When running on the M.2 SSD, the reading application takes 257 seconds to complete.
When running on the SATA SSD, the reading application take 247 seconds to complete.

Can anyone explain why the M.2 is so much slower when I expected it to be appreciably faster? Is there a problem and how do I go about figuring out if there is a problem or if everything is working as it should?

Thank you.

 

[babernet_1]

How many video cards?

 

[biocentrism]

Just 1 GPU.

 

[Onus]

Any other cards installed? These questions may seem strange, but they are to determine if one or more PCIe lanes may have been disabled.

 

[biocentrism]

No other cards installed.

Here is the component list:
1 M.2 SSD
1 SATA SSD 512GB
1 SATA SSD 1TB
1 GPU Nvidia GTX 980
1 CD/DVD
4x4GB RAM

The operating system and applications are all installed on the M.2.

 

[biocentrism]

FWIW I ran AS SSD Benchmark on the drives and the M.2 SSD is as fast if not faster than the SATA SSD so it does not seem there is anything wrong with the drive itself.

I am really at a loss as to why the data writing is so much slower with the M.2.

 

[Onus]

Pore over your mobo's manual and BIOS settings to make sure the M.2 slot is properly active; I do not know what the defaults are, or how good your mobo is at autodetecting what is installed.

 

[biocentrism]

Pore over your mobo's manual and BIOS settings to make sure the M.2 slot is properly active; I do not know what the defaults are, or how good your mobo is at autodetecting what is installed.

I will definitely try that although I am not very tech saavy so not sure how far I will get.

Given that the AS SSD Benchmarking worked and showed the M.2 equal to or faster than the SATA, is it still possible that the issue is with a problem with the way the M.2 was installed or a slot issue? I would have thought that the benchmark results would have ruled out an installation or slot issue? More to the point, if there was an installation/slot issue, then wouldn't that have shown up in the benchmarking results? Given that the benchmark results showed the M.2 to be the same or faster as SATA, does that not rule out an installation/slot issue?

Is it possible that M.2 is just not as good as SATA at writing small packets of data to a database? Or maybe MS Access is not great on M.2? That the benchmark testing does not accurately translate to real world applications?

I am just struggling with trying to understand the cause.

 

[Onus]

Those are all very good questions.
Iirc, MS Access also creates a .LDB file for database locks while it is working. Where is that file being placed? Check your TEMP (and related) environment variables. Make sure they are consistently pointed to the same absolute location, not somewhere different.

 

[biocentrism]

The Access lock file (if I am thinking of the same thing) is found in the same folder as the Access Database. It has the same icon but with a lock on it. The size is 1KB and the type is MS Access Record-Locking Information.

So if the Excel program is writing to the database on the M.2 the lock file is on the M.2 in the same folder. If the program is writing to the database on the SATA the lock file is on the SATA in the same folder.

 

[biocentrism]

so it looks like the reason why the M.2 drive is so much slower than the SATA is because the process I am running involves writing very small (<4K) packets of data. the M.2 actually performs this task much slower than SATA. for larger size writes (>32K) the M.2 is nearly 2x faster than SATA. so for those of you looking at the M.2, I would not recommend it for database work. however, as a boot drive it is super fast!