Question NVMe M.2 slow - would change to i7 help?

[glnz]

I have a Dell Optiplex 7010 Mini-Tower with Win 10 Pro 64-bit, an i3 CPU, 16GB RAM and a Q77 chipset. I followed the instructions in the following excellent article to change my hard drive to a Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 and to boot from that M.2, which a 7010 normally cannot do:

https://www.tachytelic.net/2021/12/dell-optiplex-7010-pcie-nvme/

It is working, I am booting from the Samsung NVMe M.2, but I am getting only 1,750 MBps ± in CrystalDiskMark , NOT the 3,500 MBps that is shown in that article for a 7010.

Yes, the PCIe adapter card with Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 is already plugged into the PCI-E x16 slot (blue color), but I am still getting only 1,750 MBps ±. (If I plug it into the x4 slot, I get about 1,500 MBps.)

Question: if I replace my i3 CPU with an i5 or an i7 that is OK for my motherboard, do you think I will then get the 3,500 MBps throughput that the author of the article gets? Maybe because an i5 or an i7 will provide some PCI-E Gen 3 and not limit my machine to PCI-E Gen 2 only?

FYI - There is a different thread here on Tom's that has interesting technical info from others in a similar situation, at < THIS LINK >, but please come back here with any thoughts.

Thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

And I just bought a used i7-3770 on eBay, which I hope to install next weekend. Stay tuned. (On the other hand, if you see smoke rising over NYC, you will know it didn't work out so well.

Assuming this new CPU gets you full benchmark performance on the NVMe drive, please let us know how the actual user facing difference is.

 

[glnz]

USAFRet - I probably won't see a noticeable difference because I have barely done anything with the test 7010 that I modded per the article.
I'm learning how to do the article's steps correctly because I might then mod other PCs that my wife is using in her mini-office and that I am using.
Have a great three-day weekend.

 

[USAFRet]

USAFRet - I probably won't see a noticeable difference because I have barely done anything with the test 7010 that I modded per the article.
I'm learning how to do the article's steps correctly because I might then mod other PCs that my wife is using in her mini-office and that I am using.
Have a great three-day weekend.

I'm just saying...having had multiple solid state drives at various levels..the actual user facing difference is not nearly as much as the sequential benchmark numbers would suggest.

A Samsung 980 Pro, PCIe 4.0...a lot of people and use cases can't see an actual difference vs a SATA III SSD.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Might explain why I'm getting 1,700 MBps ± now (still with the i3) with my M.2 in the x16 slot but only 1,500 MBps ± when the M.2 is in the x4 slot.
I suppose your info is the same whether my new used CPU is i7 or i5?

Chipset connected PCIE lanes are slightly slower than cpu connected. But not by much.
With i3-3220 installed, they all operate in PCIE 2.0 mode.

Upgrade to cpu supporting PCIE 3.0 mode and you'll get full bandwidth for NVME drive installed in cpu connected PCIE slot.

 

[Karadjgne]

Karadigne - thanks. Would be very interested for you to read the article whose link I posted above - is the author using those raid drivers? Over at Dell support forums, that maniac (but knowledgeable) Speedstep was ranting that the Raid0 drivers are somehow dangerous or unstable (but then look who's talking). See his post at < THIS LINK > (And I have only one M.2, not dual.)

Ah, confusion. Windows7+ has native support for NVMe, which uses the raid drivers. 3rd gen Intel was built before NVMe was a thing, so your choice for storage was either Raid or AHCI in bios. To use a Raid setup, requires a minimum of 2 drives, kinda like SLI. So if you only have 1 drive, or multiple different drives, Raid isn't an option, only AHCI.

Loading AHCI you get the AHCI drivers, the Raid drivers don't load. You don't get Raid support until Windows loads, so you could use NVMe as storage, same as regular Sata, but unlike Sata, no boot.

The work around for that is modifying the bios so that it loads the Raid drivers regardless of choice, which enables the NVMe to be recognised as a boot device before loading Windows. This only applies to that old stuff, modern bios already have NVMe support at boot since they have on-board M.2 ports.

And yes, Raid 0, using just 2 drives is somewhat chancy. It seperates the data across both drives. If you saved ABCXYZ, what you'd get on drive:1 would be ACY, drive:2 would get BDZ. If one drive gets buggy, corrupted, dies, you loose all the data on both, because you've intrinsically lost half, making the remaining half useless.

But that's very different from using an NVMe as boot drive in AHCI, that uses the identifiers inherent in raid drivers to recognise the drive in bios as a boot drive.

 

[glnz]

Karadigne - You are very knowledgeable, but now I'm not clear as to what the article I've followed does.
Did its BIOS mod inflict RAID on my single NVMe, with possible risks, or am I still in AHCI and using only some identifiers from Raid but still safe?
Thanks,

 

[Karadjgne]

You are getting raid mixed up with raid drivers. They aren't the same thing. A raid array is how the drives are setup. Raid drivers contain info that the bios uses not only to activate the raid array, but recognise it in the first place.

Bios is Not Inflicting Raid on your NVMe, it cannot because the NVMe is AHCI, single drive, not an array.

You have a driver's license. On the top it says State of whatever. Has your picture, name, address. You use it as ID when you buy alcohol. It does not mean you work for the State of Whatever, the State of Whatever doesn't own you etc. There's a difference.

Raid drivers contain inf files that recognise an NVMe drive ID. They allow it to be set as a boot drive. Without them, the NVMe doesn't get seen by bios, it only gets seen by Windows. The bios when set to AHCI doesn't see NVMe drives as a boot drive. The bios mod adds a link that loads raid drivers at boot, the drivers see the NVMe and give the thumbs up to bios 'yes it can boot'.

You bios is so old, it has no NVMe support or compatability. It has no idea what NVMe is. It knows Sata and IDE, Serial and Parallel and that's it. The mod just adds an amendment to load raid drivers because those do support and recognise NVMe, Ramdisk, Scuzzy and a whole bunch of other types of drives. Doesn't mean the drivers are actually used or enforced for anything else.

Windows also contains all those drivers, as well as drivers for things like sound cards, floppy disks and a bunch of other stuff. That doesn't mean that Windows turns your gpu into a sound card just because they use the same x16 slot, or your Sata SSD is now a floppy drive.

 

[glnz]

Karadigne - thanks for info and for your explanation of the magic in the Tachytelic article I've followed.

1. So -- bottom line -- I'm OK and Speedstep's ranting about risks of Raid0 don't apply to my single NVMe -- correct?
2. Just out of curiosity, what would happen if I got a second NVMe and plugged it in to another PCI-E slot? Would the PC's default reaction be Raid0 across both of them with the risks Speedstep describes?
3. What time zone is tom'sHardware in? I'm in NYC - where are you?

Cheers!

 

[USAFRet]

Karadigne - thanks for info and for your explanation of the magic in the Tachytelic article I've followed.

1. So -- bottom line -- I'm OK and Speedstep's ranting about risks of Raid0 don't apply to my single NVMe -- correct?
2. Just out of curiosity, what would happen if I got a second NVMe and plugged it in to another PCI-E slot? Would the PC's default reaction be Raid0 across both of them with the risks Speedstep describes?
3. What time zone is tom'sHardware in? I'm in NYC - where are you?

Cheers!

It would NOT be RAID 0, unless you did that on purpose.
And don't do that.

Time zone displayed to you is whatever is in your account preferences.
For NYC, that would be UTC - 05:00

 

[4745454b]

I don't think there is an official Toms time zone either. On the forums we are all individual people who get online when we want. I used to work the over night shift and was a great mod at catching spam that came from a certain part of the world because I was awake and online while the other mods were sleeping. But now i work the early shift and I'm at work before most of them even wake up. I'm -8 GMT, I'm not sure about Karadigne. But I do know we are a very diverse group and there is traffic here at all hours.