[SOLVED] UserBenchmark is dissing my two Evo 970 NVMe ssds

gn842a

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I'm getting some nice things about my new build from UserBenchmark except the SSD NVMe installed on the mobo (two of them). Here is what UserBenchmark says:

Samsung 970 Evo NVMe PCIe M.2 500GB-$90
91,673 User benchmarks, average bench 267%
466GB free
Firmware: 2B2QEXE7 Max speed: PCIe 5,000 MB/s
SusWrite @10s intervals: 1150 1185 621 625 624 623 MB/s
Performing way below expectations (7th percentile)

My other 970 Evo is scoring at 22%. I've done this twice.

Now, my situation is, that I am very grateful just to have stuff boot up when installed. I've had my share of agonizing over failed units. But as I write I am using an OS which is installed on the M.2 NVMe on the mobo (ASUS Prime X470 with Ryzen 5 2600X).
So in my world, I count that as a win. It's working.

On the other hand I have read that one can boot up with an M.2 NVMe OS in as little as 5 seconds. It takes me about 20 seconds.

I'm wondering how much to worry about this and how seriously to take UserBenchmark. (They are consistent if nothing else)

I will tell you a story about eletronics. Thirty years ago my brother had a headlight go out, when he was at the autoparts store he picked up two figuring the other one would go soon. He threw the second one in the closet. Five years later he sold the car and still had a headlight in his closet.

So....am I to conclude these two M.2 units need to be replaced? Is the UserBenchmark a sign from the gods that these two units are destined to fail in the near term? Or is it a case of use it and enjoy, the two "bad" units might just as easily be working 5 years hence?

I bought one of the M.2 970 Evos from Newegg and the other from Best Buy. So it is unlikely these are two units from a "bad batch" unless it was a very big bad batch that hit all vendors.

Thanks,
Greg N
 
Solution
The C drive is exactly correct
The D drive is exactly correct
The F drive is exactly correct if that 970 EVO is in a PCIe x2 port.

Which is exactly what the second M.2 port is
"1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M Key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 2 mode)*3 "

That second 970 EVO will never run at its full speed on that motherboard.

gn842a

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After scrounging around on the net for info I installed Samsung Magician and installed the latest drivers. The Magician seems happy that they are properly installed. But the UserBenchmark scores barely budged.

Samsung 970 Evo NVMe PCIe M.2 500GB-$90
91,673 User benchmarks, average bench 267%
466GB free
Firmware: 2B2QEXE7 Max speed: PCIe 5,000 MB/s
SusWrite @10s intervals: 780 1023 855 617 618 617 MB/s
Performing way below expectations (13th percentile)

The other one went up to 23rd percentile. I think these just might be normal variations in benchmark tests.

I don't know if other factors such as the CPU or mobo could affect how UserBenchmark assesses the performance. --Greg N
 

gn842a

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Well OK I read an article on how to read the output of CrystalDiskInfo which I actually installed last night but didn't undertand.

The health of all three drives is "Good 100%."

According to the article I read I was supposed to go to FUNCTION>Advanced Feature>Raw Values> [10}DEC

For the 860 EVO it showed a bunch of stuff in columns as the artricle indicated. For the two M.2s it only showed the raw data with no extra columns. And that's about it. Nothing was highlighted or indicating troubles. In addition I went back to ASUS to check out the driver situation and it said I had downloaded July 1st which is true I've been busy with this stuff so I think the drivers are up to date.

It's good to hear that 5 sec boot is a fantasy. I look forward to reading the link and thank you. Greg N
 
My half-full 960 EVO shows ~3200 MB/sec reads /1500 MB/sec writes on CrystalDiskMark, so, it will certainly show if the 970 EVO has any real read/write issues...

(Samsung's built in benchmark showed 3400 MB/sec reads when my drive was new 2 years ago. but, currently only shows ~2000 MB/sec sequential reads, so not sure if the assorted OS/security-related patches might be taking a byte out of NVME's flashy numbers on Intel rigs

As for 'boot-times' disparities-----one would need to rule out the time the mainboard sits in the BIOS , awaiting user intervention, etc.,(I have mine set for 3 second delay to give me plenty of time to intervene, if/when I wish to tinker in menus), doing RAM tests, etc., and only include/measure the time the mainboard actually begins accessing the drive (as often indicated by the classic 'spinning wheel'...only then might it be in the 5 second range, typically. Naturally, times would be influenced also on true cold boot, vs. many folks perhaps unknowingly coming out of suspend mode/(aka, 'fast boot' in Windows settings) ...
 

gn842a

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My posts were vaporized last night apparently the system was shut down. So to answer the question about my build, it's two EVO 970 NVMe installed on an Asus Prime x470 with a Ryzen 5 2600X as CPU. Somewhere it says the PCIe 3 x 4 is working, I think in the UEFI.

I have some pictures from crystaldiskmark I must say I'm only marginally understanding what they're about, except that the numbers go down as the inputs get longer. I'm not having a lot of success in getting them to show in these fora. Here are the links

C drive (Evo 970 M.2 NVMe 500 gigs, installed on mobo)
View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/72970220@N04/48237701287/in/dateposted-public/


D drive (Evo 860 SSD 500 gigs installed in a bay via SATA connectors):
View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/72970220@N04/48237615286/in/dateposted-public/


F drive: (Evo 970 M.2 NVMe 500 gigs, installed on mobo)

View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/72970220@N04/48237701277/in/dateposted-public/
 

USAFRet

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The C drive is exactly correct
The D drive is exactly correct
The F drive is exactly correct if that 970 EVO is in a PCIe x2 port.

Which is exactly what the second M.2 port is
"1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M Key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 2 mode)*3 "

That second 970 EVO will never run at its full speed on that motherboard.
 
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Solution

gn842a

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Oct 10, 2016
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The C drive is exactly correct
The D drive is exactly correct
The F drive is exactly correct if that 970 EVO is in a PCIe x2 port.

Which is exactly what the second M.2 port is
"1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M Key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 2 mode)*3 "

That second 970 EVO will never run at its full speed on that motherboard.


Ah well my guess is that UserBenchmark is penalizing me for having a slot that doesn't let the 970 perform to its maximum. Maybe it's interpreting the drive as slow. I'll bet I would score better if I took the second 970 out!

Well it's disappointing to lose bragging rights, but if it all works I'm good with it. Not a high end machine but still the best PC I've ever owned.

Thank you for walking me through all that. Meantime my data backup arrived from Carbonite and that's all installed so life is returning to normal. Thanks for the help,

Greg N