[SOLVED] Random writes on 980 Pro (PCIe 3.0 x4)

[efstom1]

Hi everyone,

I recently picked up a pretty cheap brand new 980 Pro (1TB). My setup is: Rog Maximus X Hero with 32GB of RAM and a i7-8700K processor. I wanted to pick up a 970 Pro but the big price difference couldn't justify the higher endurance in my use case.

I am fully aware that my motherboard doesn't support PCIe 4.0 and that the speeds can never exceed 3500 MB/s but I have a question regarding the random 4k writes.

As you can see from the screenshot below, I'm experiencing pretty slow 4k random writes on this SSD. At the beginning it was even slower (500MB/s) but after a firmware update it got better but still way slower than my old 512GB 960 Pro which still rocks at 1220MB/s 4k and also slower than my Sabrent Rocket PCIe 3.0 2TB (930MB/s 4k).

Anyone that has an idea on what could cause this?

Thank you!
Efs.

Samsung 980 Pro 1TB (PCIe 3.0 x4)

Samsung 960 Pro 512GB (PCIe 3.0 x4)

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

Seems like it’s performing perfectly well. Not sure what the issue is?

 

[efstom1]

Seems like it’s performing perfectly well. Not sure what the issue is?

The "issue" would be in the random 4K writes. The value seems pretty unstable (it was 500MB/s before) and always way lower than the 960 Pro.

 

[SkyNetRising]

The "issue" would be in the random 4K writes. The value seems pretty unstable (it was 500MB/s before) and always way lower than the 960 Pro.

And how does that impact performance of your pc?
Close to zero impact. Just a number in benchmark. Right?

 

[Maxxify]

If you mean 4K Q1T1 writes, then yeah, that's low. Likely not an issue with the drive but with something else limiting your writes, AV or backup software or something else like compression. If you're talking Q32T16, then you're being ridiculous as the vast majority of consumer workloads are QD4 or less.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

If you mean 4K Q1T1 writes, then yeah, that's low.

I would not call 95MB/s on that benchmark in any way slow personally. It’s certainly down on the performance rating for that drive when it was brand new, but perhaps it is not in quite as good condition as the 960.

 

[Maxxify]

No, it's low. The 980 PRO should be faster there anyway - it has SLC caching while the 960 PRO does not. My ancient (>3 years) EX920 used as an OS drive still gets >170 MB/s. The fact his 4K Q1T1 writes are roughly comparable on these drives indicates a system bottleneck of some sort.

That being said, as SkyNetRising said above it may not be relevant, and in particular the OP was talking about massive Q/T which has no bearing on reality.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

The fact his 4K Q1T1 writes are roughly comparable on these drives indicates a system bottleneck of some sort.

Maybe. In any case worrying about synthetic benchmarks designed to simulate intense server workloads is silly.

 

[Maxxify]

Nah, it's plenty fast to be virtually unnoticeable in general use, but I do think it's likely he has some overhead there - as I suggested, either AV, backup software, compression, encryption, or something else. That could impact the user experience to some degree, but in any case it's not from the drive.

 

[efstom1]

Thank you everyone for the answers.
I'd like to point out that this is just out of curiosity: I'm not noticing any slowdown whatsoever, I am just curious on why a newer drive performs slower (in benchamarks, only 4k) than a pretty old, smaller 960 Pro.