Samsung 960 EVO M.2 slow speeds

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I am using a Samsung 960 EVO SSD in the M.2 port of an Asus Maximus GENE motherboard.

The SSD is advertised at 3,200/1,800 MBps speeds. In my M.2 port, Samsung Magician reads only about half these speeds, topping out at about 1,800/1,500. Upon researching that the M.2 port is "slow" for such a fast drive, I ordered an Asus Hyper M.2 X4 add-on PCIe card -- and just received today.

Today, Samsung Magician read higher SSD speeds for some reason: 3,200/1,800, no other config changes. (Fluke?) I installed my SSD in the add-on PCIe card, hoping for higher speeds. Tried both PCIe x16 slots. Seems as though whether the SSD is plugged into M.2 or either PCIe (via add-on PCIe card), Samsung Magician reads my SSD at an average of 1,700/1,500MBps...way below advertised speeds.

I have the current Samsung NVMe driver. What else can I do? Other question: Wherever the SSD is plugged in, will the speed be affected by a graphics card in the PCIe slot?

Please assist. Thanks in advance! :)

EDIT, 4:34 PM

I ran the speed tests using Crystal DiskMark, hence these results:

SSD IN M.2 PORT:

  • SEQ 32T1 R: 1784, W: 1560
    4K Q32T1 R: 784, W: 598
    SEQ R: 1188, W: 1282
    4K R: 43, W: 226
SSD IN PCIE X16 via HYPER ADD-ON CARD:

  • SEQ 32T1 R: 2968, W: 1742
    4K Q32T1 R: 802, W: 583
    SEQ R: 1416, W: 1777
    4K R: 44, W: 251
Would you say these results are more accurate given the specs and my setup? Is this where I need to be, or could it be improved? Any insight would be appreciated.

 
Solution
JohnnyLucky
Airflow? - Both Samsung and Intel have stated the new M.2 3.0 x 4 ssd's are subject to thermal throttling if airflow is inadequate. The subject was also documented in several excellent technical reviews. This is especially true for M.2 ssd's installed under a graphics card which blocks airflow.

Cloning - A fresh clean install of the operating system, drivers, utilities, applications, games, etc. is the preferred installation method. Cloning works reasonably well but sometimes glitches develop. There are a higher number of problems with cloning. There are quite a few threads in the forum about problems related to cloning.

Compatibility - Quite a few motherboards require a system BIOS update for improved M.2 NVMe ssd compatibility and...
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My 960 evo was reading about 3100 when I was running windows from a different disk as well as when i had a fresh install of windows 10 on it. I am using a pci-e adapter. I then cloned my windows 10 ssd to it and now for some reason am only getting about 2200 read speed. It is very disheartening.

What GENE mb are you running? There are quite a few. Your chipset and mb could be why it is slow. PCI-E is directly interfacing with the bus.

I have no idea why mine is slow. Maybe I need to do a fresh windows install and start over?
 
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I have an Asus Maximus VIII GENE motherboard. Brand spankin' new with Windows 10. And it's a very basic setup, there's nothing excessive installed inside the tower. Just a previous-generation graphics card (LOL) in PCIe x16 and the Hyper M.2 x4 add-on card.
 
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I had a similar issue and it happened because I had ASUS' XMP overclocking profile active. Somehow it reduced my M2 slot speed.

Open Samsung Magician and check what is the PCI Express slot generation it is running. It should run under generation 3.

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Hey, I did a benchmark and my 960 evo drive was running advertised speeds and then I cloned my drive using samsung magician tool and now im having exact same reading speeds as you. very shit software dissapointing as hell.

Can you tell me how you fixed it? Did you have to reinstall windows?
 
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I quit using the Samsung bench software. Under crystal mark I am getting 3000. I am thinking it has something to do with the drive being at 70% capacity. I mean I filled it to 400 gigs with the cloning. I called Samsung and they even told me that the software doesn't use 4 lances to calculate speed. They recommended a clean win 10 install for max performance though.

Im ok with everything. windows still loads in less than 4 seconds. not too shabby.
 
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I am having the same issue. I installed the 960 Evo 500gb model into my Gigabyte Gaming 7 and got over the advertised 3200 read in both Samsung Magician and SSD Benchmark. I was stoked. Then, I installed windows onto the 960 Evo and removed my old ssd. Now I am getting a max read speed of 2000 no matter what I do. There are no other drives. There are no other devices that would take up the PCIE lanes. I am running a 6700k and it is a z170 board. Samsung magician shows that the drive is in fact connected to PCIE Gen 3 x 4 m.2 slot. The 960 speeds stay the same even if I go back to stock clocks on my cpu and ram. Can't think of anything else to try.
 
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Airflow? - Both Samsung and Intel have stated the new M.2 3.0 x 4 ssd's are subject to thermal throttling if airflow is inadequate. The subject was also documented in several excellent technical reviews. This is especially true for M.2 ssd's installed under a graphics card which blocks airflow.

Cloning - A fresh clean install of the operating system, drivers, utilities, applications, games, etc. is the preferred installation method. Cloning works reasonably well but sometimes glitches develop. There are a higher number of problems with cloning. There are quite a few threads in the forum about problems related to cloning.

Compatibility - Quite a few motherboards require a system BIOS update for improved M.2 NVMe ssd compatibility and performance.

And now for something that is strange but true - If a cpu heatsink is tightened too much so there is no wiggle room, then the motherboard may experience too much pressure which can cause problems. It can affect the memory, graphics, and ssd's. This is especially true for an M.2 ssd installed close to the cpu.
 
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Solution
Well my 960 is directly under a graphics card and is running a clone of windows. My motherboard is definitely compatible though. Thanks for the tips. I will try moving the 960 to the other slot and reinstalling windows.
 
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i am at about the same speeds (1,616 and 1,574)

Asus z87 deluxe
pcie m.2 adapter (in a PCIe Gen 2 X 4 slot)
980ti hybrid SLI
32gb of ram (not sure about my xmp settings)
Windows 10 installed on 850 pro, 350gb's of games installed on 960 evo.
samsung drivers have been installed

i think i may be maxing out my pcie lanes. my adapter may not be the best. search ebaay for "m.2 pcie adapter thermal" and i bought the one that is $10 that comes with thermal pads and a heat sink.

out of curiosity, how fast should a gen 2 x4 slot be?
 
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Just buy an asus PCIe M.2 Card. Install it on PCIe 3.0. Then you will get maximum speed.
I have Z97-Pro Gamer with PCIe M.2 card installed on PCIe 3.0 with Samsung 960 Evo M.2 250GB.
My speed is reading 3149MB/s and Write 1514MB/s which are very close to its spec.

So the only solution is buying PCIe M.2 card. The name of card is "HYPER M.2 X4 MINI CARD". Don't upgrade your motherboard it will be waste of money, the only way to reach maximum speed is installing M.2 on that card.
 
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Im having the same issue here on my computer and did exactly as you said, get a new PCIe card. Installed that but hasn't really worked for me
I get speeds of

Read : 1668 MB/s
Write : 1713 MB/s.

I would have thought that the read speed would be higher.
 
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i got my speeds up. i ended up getting a new motherboard Asus z270 Formula IX. it has 2 nvme ports, one is flush with the board (under the GPU, and motherboard armor). the other has the nvme drive stick out from the board. i decided to use the one that sticks out since i figure it will have better air flow.

i am still using the nvme drive as my game install drive, with a 850 pro as my OS drive. i am now down to 1 GPU (1080ti) from my 980ti sli setup.

after installing it. i went into the BIOS and i set the NVME drive to PCIE (instead of SATA). i also changed it from x2 to x4 (pcie lanes).

i now get 2,937 read and 1,761 write. its not perfect, but seems acceptable for me.
 
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Here is some good info I found on the web:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Overview-of-M-2-SSDs-586/

If that link stops working, here is a summary according to pugetsystems:
SATA III 6.0 Gb/s (750 MB/s) 4.8 Gb/s (600 MB/s)
PCI-E 2.0 x2 8 Gb/s (1 GB/s) 6.4 Gb/s (800 MB/s)
PCI-E 2.0 x4 16 Gb/s (2 GB/s) 12.8 Gb/s (1.6 GB/s)
PCI-E 3.0 x4 32 Gb/s (4 GB/s) 31.5 Gb/s (3.9 GB/s)

So, if you are getting about 1.6GB/s then your motherboard m.2 slot may not support the full pcie 3.0 x4 slot. It might be pcie 2.0 x4 (which is half as fast as the third gen pcie)

Check your mobo specs. I found this to be the case on my motherboard. That little m.2 slot is not the same speed on all mobos. I am only getting about 800 MB/s read and write on my samsung 960 pro nvme pcie m.2 drive because its running at pcie 2.0 x2. Kind of sucks...I need to upgrade that board
 
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I have an ASRock Gaming K1 motherboard with a Samsung EVO 960 plugged right into the board.

I am also experiencing the same issue with the drive. With a fresh install of Windows 10 everything was at 3200MB / sec read, 1770MB/ sec write.

Every time I checked back with the speeds the more I setup my new Windows install the slower the drive got. It is now at 2200/ rec read, 1600MB/ sec write.

It seems the more use the drive gets, the worse it functions. The system is an AMD Ryzen 1600 at stock clock settings and a stock clocked AMD RX 460. The system is used primarily for work, no gaming, which I need a fast drive for large image files.

Even the CrystalDiskMark is starting to show reduced speeds and the Read is now on that at 2600, write at 1600.

This is a huge disappointment and why I have stayed away from these drives for so long. Even after all these years we don't get the real on the drives and they still have bugs that are being worked out. Really disheartening to spend that money for a drive I feel will be a slug after a couple years of solid use.
 
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I'm running a 960 Evo on M.2 slot and it's gen 3 Mobo is a Hero VI with Ryzen 1800X, 32gig ddr4 running 3200 16 18 18 38, XFX 390X dual dissipation.
Samsung magician tests the nvme card at 1800 read 1600 write. My 950 Evo on Sata 6 got 533 mb/s read today. I was hoping for advertised speeds of up to 3500 as well on M.2 as the Sata 6 coming so close to max spec speeds
 
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does your bios have sats/pcie setting for the m.2 port. my z270 formula did. is this drive the OS drive or secondary? if its OS there will be some loss of speed in testing.
 
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Bios has specific settings for M.2, which I can set to "auto" or gen1, gen2 or gen3. M.2 is my Os drive so there may explains loss of speed. Did a last speed test last night and got a 2200 mb read, not bad..
 
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HELLO

I have the same problem or better saye i hade and here is my solution hope it will help u now my disk is runing 3200/1800

after 3 new installs and testing i came to conclusion that my stupid NOD32 is the cose of the slow readings everytime i deaktivate my nod32 speeds in thest are like advertised than when runing falls down to 1300/1300 :) but one is shure that the advertised speeds and this one with my internet security on there is no notisable speed in windows so i just STOPED researching and doing some usefoul stuf and not bothering with this shit.

hf and bay hope i helped here.
 
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I don't have the Samsung Evo, I have a cheaper ADATA (The XGP sx7000). But I wasn't getting my rated speed of 1800/850 either on my ASUS X99-A with a Core I7 5820K and GTX 970. It was reading at 1100 but writing at 865. The write speed was higher than rated which was good but the read was horrible. I tried everything I could think of until I can across a post on the web about someone having this issue and solving it by re tuning his overclock. It worked for him so I thought hey, why not. My cpu wasn't manually overclocked (Done through ASUS software) so I couldn't manually change the settings so what I did was set my bios back to stock with no overclock. I then ran crystal mark and sure enough, my read speed was up to 1795. There was no clear explanation for this but what I know about computers I have to assume the cpu takes bandwidth from the pci when overclocked which would slow down any pci-e hardware you have installed. My ASUS mobo also has ZERO settings for m.2 or nvme. The only mention of m.2 in my bios was the hyper kit setting. (told me to disable it for m.2 cards). So knowing this, I have to assume that ASUS gives priority to their hyper kit cards for m.2 installs on some of their lower end boards, or at the very least, my board. On a side note, I also happened to notice in my bios my pci-e slots were running in gen 2 instead of gen 3. I was running my gpu in gen 2 this whole time and didn't know it. I just naturally assumed on a modern gaming board it would automatically default to gen 3 for a pci-e 3.0 gpu card. Guess not.....lol
 
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I was having an issue with my Samsung 960 EVO running slowly and found this thread via Google. Since this thread shows high on Google search I figured I’d come back and post my fix in case it helps someone later.

I was getting about 1700 read and 1700 write prior to my fix.

To note; I have an ASUS Prime Z370-A motherboard.

To fix my SSD speeds I entered BIOS setup on boot. I did the following steps:

Went to Advanced Settings

Selected Onboard Devices Configuration

Changed M.2_1 Configuration from Auto to PCIE Mode

Changed M.2_2 PCIe Bandwidth Configuration from X2 Mode to X4 Mode

Saved and rebooted. After my changes I just got 3314 read and 1724 write testing with CrystalDiskMark
 
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